Keep Britannia Clean – Send the Gargoyles Back!

Inspiration:

Original Keep Britannia Clean Scroll - Ultima 7

Original Keep Britannia Clean Scroll – Ultima 7

This is from scrolls found in Ultima VII: The Black Gate. I’ve wanted to make this poster for pretty much a decade now. The idea first occurred to my in printmaking when I was at Ball State. I wanted to hang these all over campus but I never got around to it before transferring. Nearly a decade later, I finally made it!

The subtext here is Richard Garriott addressing racism in the world that he created, Britannia. I always thought the race issue in Ultima VII was very powerful as it was one of the many threads of life and realism he was able to weave into his simulations.

Original gargoyle artwork by Denis Loubet from the Ultima IX instruction manual. I modified it a bit to make them look more evil. The font is Free Press from DaFont. The parchment is is from DeviantArt’s Empty-Dreams and can be found here.

(If you’re curious, I have a DeviantArt entry for this poster here.)

Super Aprimo Hires!


References: Pixel graphics from Super Mario Bros., Super Mario Bros. 3, and Super Mario World

I get to write the new hires on the board at work. I’ve been having more and more fun each time it happens. Today’s artwork took long enough that I can’t justify an independent lunch sketch, so here you go. 🙂

p.s. We’re hiring! Check out our jobs page if you want to see your name spotlighted on our new hire board. If any of the open positions strike your fancy, leave a comment on this post and I’ll get back to you. 🙂 (Your email address will only be visible to me, so don’t worry)

Homestuck: John’s Dad -or- Ren & Stimpy: Mr. Pipe?


Please tell me that I’m not the only one who got the weird feeling that John’s dad in Homestuck and Mr. Pipe from Ren & Stimpy could be the same person. Either way, here they are. References are from screen caps from the rubber nipple salesmen episode of Ren & Stimpy and from various pages of Homestuck.

Also, this was another one I actually started with pencil.

Two Lives Intertwined -or- OMG Color?!

This is an emotionally spurred sketch, just like Grr Arg was. When two people’s lives grow together, gracefully untying those connections is tedious, tiring, and difficult. Some people choose just to hack the hole mess off, but that leaves a large wound that needs to heal. Either path probably takes the same amount of time.

I ended up using the very last drop of ink from my favorite writing pens in making this today. I just didn’t feel like using the Zigs for some reason. I used some color! Ideally, I would have made the left blue and right green, but I didn’t have the tools available while at work.

Mr. Thorse

References: Mr. Horse (of course), Thor’s Helmet, Mjölnir 1, Mjölnir 2

Yesterday during lunch, I was conversing with some of the new hires about the drawings and calligraphy I do around the office. I asked a particular person what she wanted to have drawn on her white board and she said,

“A tiger! Or a horse!”

I struggled to come up with a silly portmanteau for tiger and horse, but it wasn’t happening. Then the other person we were sitting with blurted out,

“THORSE!”

This, of course, cracked my shit up and filled me with ridiculous mental images. Turns out, there already is a somewhat popular Thorse image out there, but I like mine better.

If I could do it again, I would changed the text to “I didn’t smite it” instead of “I won’t smite it.” *shrug* For those of you that don’t get the reference, first of all, shame on you. Second of all, here, watch this.