Vandrell's fabulous Alex Kidd, Burning Force, Golden Axe and Valis fan art

As much as I love many of Nintendo's games and systems, I'm no "Nintendo fanboy." After all, I also love many of Sony's games and systems--and in the past I loved many of NEC's (maker of the awesome PC Engine) and Sega's games and systems, too.

Why do I bring that up? Because I want you to understand at least a bit of why I'm so drawn to Barcelona-based and Sega-obsessed (or so it seems) artist Vandrell's digital illustrations--beyond the fact that they're drop-dead gorgeous, I mean.

Here (and here), for instance, is a piece he created to honor Sega's earliest "Mario killer," Alex Kidd:



And here is a piece that pays respect to Namco's 16-bit shoot 'em up, Burning Force:



The classic brawler Golden Axe gets the "Vandrell treatment" in the following concoction:



While Telenet Japan's Valis series gets a well-deserved nod in this one:



If you're looking for something even better and more fabulous, by the way, be sure to check out Vandrell's blog, which features, among other things, a number of mock-ups that turn the illustrations above into full-fledged Sega Mega Drive (aka Genesis) box arts.

Super Marilyn Clouds

You know what I'd do this weekend if I lived in Atlanta? I'd drag the hubs to the Emily Amy Gallery on Saturday evening so I could take in Ashley Anderson's "Shinobi Marilyn" exhibition, that's what.

Why did Anderson call his first solo show, "Shinobi Marilyn," you ask? According to the Emily Amy Gallery's website, he chose the strange moniker because he was "inspired by an online discovery of imagery embedded in a classic Sega video game from 1987 (Shinobi). Convinced the appearance of Marilyn Monroe in the game was a posthumous tribute to Andy Warhol created by the game designer in 1980s Japan, Anderson sought to explore the subject further."

(For more on what prompted Anderson to focus on this head-scratcher of a subject, read Henry Detweiler's informative interview with him over at burnaway.org.)

A series of 10 digital collages will be featured as part of the "Shinobi Marilyn" exhibit, including the following trio:

According to Anderson, the second of the three pieces above was inspired by fellow artist Cory Arcangel, whose most famous creation also incorporated cloud sprites pulled from the first Super Mario Bros. (On a related note, I'm pretty sure the third piece is made up of coin sprites taken from the same game.)

Want to know more about this Atlanta-based artist? Check out his blog, his Facebook page and his Flickr photostream.

It's like the sexy, wacky Out Run spin-off I've always wanted but never got to play

What do you think of when you look at the digital collage below?

When I first saw it, I thought of an only-in-my-dreams Out Run spin-off that features a wacky splash of Parodius. I'm not sure how such an idea would work as an actual game, mind you, but I'm sure it would be amazing if handed to the right developers.

Anyway, enough about me and my odd ideas. Instead, let's delve deeper into the aforementioned collage, which was produced by Atlanta-based artist Ashley Anderson.

It's one of three pieces that were commissioned by the owner of a local pizza joint, by the way. Although the commission fell through, Anderson completed the series anyway.



The one above is the series' first and is titled, "Memory Beach, Part 1." According to Anderson, it's about "an octopus who drives to the beach to forget about his ex-girlfriend, who has cheated on and/or left him."

Anderson doesn't say on his blog where he found each of the sprites that appear in this piece, but he does say that the "Japanese pornographic mahjongg video game industry" is responsible for the girl and the lipstick. (He also says he learned to operate a Famicom emulator while working on the "Memory Beach" series, so I'm guessing a number of the sprites were pulled from Famicom titles.)

For more behind-the-scenes info on how Anderson produced "Memory Beach, Part 1," check out this blog post. To order 7-3/4-inch-by-7-3/4-inch prints of it, check out Anderson's etsy shop.

See also: Other posts about Ashley Anderson and his art