A Productive Month
A month has flown by and the sun has finally started to appear in Vienna. What better time to sit inside and place beads on pegboards for hours?
Looking back on the month, I find I’ve made more art in 4 weeks than I realised. Here we go…
First up, more Gameboy Reimagined palette pieces, in all different sizes. I’ve been a huge TMNT fan since, oh, about 1987, so there will always be new Turtles content from me. This one is a great little scene from their second Gameboy outing: Back From The Sewers. I replayed the game to get reference screenshots and let me tell you, it does not hold up in 2024! It’s a very basic platformer that definitely belongs in its own time. However, I think the art looks great in a 40x50cm frame, with the speech bubble overlapping the mount.
I also made a little Kirby pic for the square collection, this is available in my shop now. For the record, Kirby’s Dream Land is still a great game, I had a blast playing it again. Bubble Bobble is also a work in progress for this collection… I had a bit of a mishap and had to repair it, but that’s a tale for another post!
The jewel in the crown of this collection however, is easily the Godzilla picture I made. Those of you familiar with the game may remember it being one of those classic rip off licensed games, where the cover promises you the world, but the actual game delivers very little.
However, if you dig a little deeper, you’ll find some incredible pixel art on the title screen. I wasn’t sure if this would translate well to my reimagined palette, but I’m glad I went for it, because the end result is a thing of beauty! This thing turned out pretty huge, who would have imagined a Gameboy screen could produce such huge art?
A visit to the Roy Liechtenstein exhibition in Vienna got me in a pop art mood, and I decided to play with combining colour and black and white in the same picture. Andy Warhol’s Marilyn Monroe prints seemed perfect to show this contrast in styles, so I went ahead and got creative. I think the end result is pretty striking. The 2D, brightly coloured strip grabs attention, but is it really more appealing than the black and white portrait, with all its depth and detail?
The other piece I finished is a continuation of my NBA Jam series. This one is Shawn Kemp and Gary Payton (The Reignman and The Glove!) from the Seattle Supersonics. The most exciting duo of the 90s. These were also from the Gameboy game, and the portraits didn’t need tweaking, although I’m not sure the scale of them is accurate (is Payton’s head really that big?). I’ve chosen my 4 favourite teams from the 90s to make in the NBA Jam style, and I’ve needed to create a portrait for 3 of them myself, due to their absence from the game, or being unrecognisable in the game itself. Next up, Orlando and Charlotte!
![NBA Jam Player Portraits (3).png](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/65ad6f6a68b82037d0bc7c63/1712525634002-788VZFH4MTRM2R4M0JTY/NBA+Jam+Player+Portraits+%283%29.png)
![IMG_20240327_201814_787.jpg](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/65ad6f6a68b82037d0bc7c63/1712525675083-3X128VPIRWSFW7N7Z3WJ/IMG_20240327_201814_787.jpg)
Like an idiot I decided to start a large-ish project before realising I didn’t have enough beads of a certain colour! So this Pamela Anderson piece has been sat unfinished for a week while I wait for my Artkal bead delivery. It’s based on my sticker design, and I think it looks awesome already.
And that brings us up to date! All I have is one more piece of news, and it’s pretty awesome. Mrs Guinevere and I have been accepted to have a stall at the next WAMP (Where Art Meets People) art market in Vienna! We will have our art on display for all who come to the market on 25 May! My next project is to create a freestanding display stand so we can have our art hanging behind the stall. Updates to follow. Check out the WAMP market here, and if you happen to be in Vienna, please stop by!