Hello all. It recently dawned on me that even though I've had this little project of mine going for a little over a year now, I've never officially announced it here on Deviantart (where the main uploads and audience for it are ), or even really explaining what it's all about. Opting to, rather carelessly, drop scraps of info here and there in my various submissions and replys. If nothing else, that's just plain untidy. So let me try to rectify that with this journal entry. It recently dawned on me that even though I've had this little project of mine going for a little over a year now, I've never officially announced it here on Deviantart, or even really explaining what it's all about. Opting to, rather carelessly, drop scraps of info here and there in my various submissions and replys. If nothing else, that's just plain untidy. So let me try to rectify that with this journal entry.

Some Backstory:

always

The Plan:

Who's Done So Far:

Maverick Artwork:

16 Bit Super Nintendo styled Sprites:

Okay, this here is one of my oldest personal possessions, a sketchbook that was given to me when I was in about 4th grade. Somehow I've managed to hold on to this damn thing for over 20 yearsAnyways, held within this ratty looking, dingy, taped up, old book -with a shoebox for a front cover- classy ; are the drawings of a nine year old's obsession with Mega Man. Seriously, for about two years; and that's a very, very long time when you're a kid, whenever I drew something, which was fairly often, it was in this book and it wasMega Man related. Hmm, I sure hope that was healthy behavior. I started out by drawing some doodles of existing Robot Masters and characters from Mega Man 6, since I was playing that at the time. But I quickly moved on to the Characters, Weapon, Armors, Vehicles and Mavericks of the X series, which I had always preferred. But before I knew it, I had already finished X and X2, X3 wasn't even out yet. I had so much fun drawing all that stuff I didn't want to stop, so I made up my own. From X3 all the way up to X9, I had made up dozens of vehicles and armor upgrades, numerous forms for the undying Sigma, countless weapons and over a hundred characters.back in 2013, after having finally finished probably one of my most agonizingly drawn out and underwhelming pictures to date. :bademoticon: I decided the next year I wanted to do something less stressful. A project that wouldn't make me it's complete bitch and question why I put myself through this time, after time. Something fun, something I could really get into. An then it hit me. Maybe it would be cool to go through my old Mega Man sketch book and pick out the eight "best" Maverick designs and update them. Try to make them look somewhat cool, or at the very least like they belong in a Mega Man X game.Not exactly an easy task considering there are some real clunkers in there, likeand. Mmm-boy, that's the work of a master wordsmith right there . And they are all crudely, crudely drawn just begging for an update. Now I do like to challenge myself somewhat though. So I figured why not make 16 Bit Super Nintendo sprites to match? Why not animate them? I've never really done pixel art or animations before. It'd be a good learning experience, right?Now for the uninitiated,are basically anthropomorphized, robotic animals paired with a property; typically an element like "Flame" or "Storm", but it can also be something abstract like "Overdrive" or "Wheel". And that's what makes designing these guys so interesting. You have to keep within the relatively simple stylized constraints of the Mega Man X series while trying to preserve the defining characteristics of the animal you've chosen, convey their property...properly so it's immediately identifiable, all while trying to given them a distinctive personality. You can sometimes really surprise yourself with what you come up with to make all these elements line up.When you click he thumbnails below, these guys' bios may come off as bit dorky to the unaccustomed. But I'm trying to stay as true to the source material as possible, especially the Super Nintendo era, and that includes the original, charming -albeit somewhat goofy, literature.As a point of Reference, this is Morph Moth from the Super Nintendo game Mega Man X2 and a sheet of his in game sprites.A little dated perhaps, but I would like to think there's a certain timeless charm. Basically this is what I'm trying to emulate, both the artwork and the spriting style.So now that all of that's out of the way, here we go.A quick word to those of you who have given me so many kind words, and have been so very patient as my submissions have been sparse and inconsistent at best. I would like to extend my most sincere thanks to everyone. I enjoy doing this so much, and the feedback makes it all worthwhile. Though life is really good at throwing me curve balls, just as I think I've gotten things back on track, I'm so determined to get this project done and move on to the next one.Cheers.