I know, everything after my last game ANSI post is anticlimax, but every time I think I can close the book on this particular niche, I find one or two extra items and open another draft blog post to share a few more with you. All of my likely search terms in sixteencolors.net are starting to come up dry, however, so while there is assuredly more video game ANSI art out there... I have picked all of the low-hanging fruit.
This one inspired me to re-open my file, another piece released in my own computer artgroup -- as menu artwork for a programmed e-mag (electronic magazine), hence requiring being run and screen-captured in DOSBox in order to get a good look at it. Well, I went to the trouble, so I may as well let you enjoy it. Mage, not challenging my impression that he liked to work in green palettes, from an issue of the Kithe e-mag:
This is a very small fragment of an enormous piece I had the fortune to be a part of, a massive collection of odds and ends by local artist Spirit of Illusion that I spotted in the "ARTSCENE" episode of Jason Scott's BBS documentary series! ... as this is the only part of the work that pertains to games (game-to-toy mascot Earthworm Jim), I've left out 95% of it, including my regrettable rhyming poem for the BBS advertised, "The Twisted Tower".
This one was recently profiled in a Facebook ANSI artists group as a picture of the day from the back archives: the artist is Big Yellow Man, and the scene depicted is of Space Invaders being blasted out of the sky by a naval battleship.
A revisitation to a popular subject, Sonic the Hedgehog returns, in his "Sonic 2" incarnation, in this early work:
Here are a couple of related works by different authors, celebrating the less-common (peculiarly, given the PC warez context of ANSI art production) subject of computer games. To wit -- Doom 1's space marine (here, have an extra shotgun), plus a logo for Doom 2. If memory serves correct -- probably worth investigating, and possibly providing grist for a final instalment of this interminable series -- some Apogee-ish shareware titles would terminate with ANSI screens promoting their games.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, an artist who adopted the word "arcade" as their nickname might be expected to produce artworks on video game themes. Well, Arcade of Acme doesn't disappoint, with three items here from the Super Mario corner: Starting with a smallscale piece depicting a Mushroom Kingdom hill and mushroom, they get more elaborate.
Next he cooked up Mario in a Frog Suit from Super Mario Bros. 3, swimming around underwater:
... and a final piece by him, here is Super Mario. I can practically hear him saying "It's-a me, Mario! Watch-a the next-a episode of-a my Super Mario Super Show!"
This might be enough for a reasonable blog post, but I am not a reasonable blog writer. I have more pieces and I just want to expedite clearing them out of there so I can return to other subjects. We open our closing act with two Street Fighter pieces, one of Cammy...
... or her blow-up doll equivalent. Teenaged boys: when their best reference for female anatomy is the works of Rob Liefeld, these regrettable results are perhaps inevitable. This one is a step up, Chun-Li and a Street Fighter-style font to boot!:
Now the flip side to Street Fighter is, naturally, Mortal Kombat, and here we have some of its fearsome opponents rendered in a similarly wide array of skill levels. Round 1: Scorpion! Get over here!
This Goro is more impressive, though of course it's easier to draw four arms when all of them are out-of-frame:
Now for purposes of comparing and contrasting, two versions of Kano. A nasty one...
And an awesome one:
Finally, one more version of the MK logo to bring us home:
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