The following picture may look like something made by hand, but really it was made by computer. The pure Photoshoppery of it may not be evident, and through the use of some stock imagery it is uncommonly realistic. Stare with care.
It started out as an idea for a very nostalgic, simple video game. I was very inspired by the original Space Invaders [arcade video game designed by Tomohiro Nishikado in 1978 for Taito's coin-eating machine]. Although some packaging in America displayed a hairy monster, the enemy force in the game included crabs, jellyfish, and bats. The idea of jellyfish as space villians intrigued me, so I wanted to make a game similar to Galaga, or Galaxians in gamplay. I wanted to have the graphics and score authentic as well.
Soon I had a plot and many of the characters made for the game. The final boss was going to be a super evil space jellyfish who spits smaller enemies from his mouth. I decided that would make a great dock icon [the target platform was Apple's Macintosh], and started work on it. Eventually I decided I could add a background, and a frame, for something like a magazine ad. It wouldn't be a pay game, but I figured I should have a magazine ad since most games did back in the day. (And still do, but they now tend to use screenshots. Back then they wanted to excite kids with cool illustrations.)
I was visiting my grandparents at the time I did all this. At the end of the summer, I had to go home, it ended up that I never finished the graphics, and all I really had left on my computer was this picture. I still have the sketches in my Amazing Sketchbook Archive Crate. Perhaps one day I'll digitalize them and put them up.
Copyright Brian Zick © 2003–2008