Super Princess Peach: Mario Kart

People who say that they don't love Nintendo made games fall into 3 categories: 1.) People who never played video games and have no interest to 2.) People who are clearly lying to themselves 3.) People who just want to watch the world burn.  Those are the facts.  You can't say that you don't love Super Mario, or Legend of Zelda...and especially Mario Kart.  The concept of Mario Kart sounds like all sorts of fail, but in practice, it really is a great experience.  I loved Mario Kart the first time I played it on Super Nintendo and have been in love with the franchise ever since.

So when I thought about doing some fanart for Mario Kart, sure, Mario, Luigi, and Bowser came to mind....but I thought that Princess Peach doesn't get enough shine, so I drew her instead (and Princess Daisy gets even LESS shine...so, you know what that means..).  

Anyways, above is the initial sketch after cleaning it up some.  I wanted to draw her with like a Toadstool pit crew, but it wasn't coming together how I had pictured it in my head, so I simplified the idea, which makes it much less busy.

And as always, clicking on the images will allow you to see them in much higher resolution.

If you would like to purchase this illustration as a 17" x 11" print, you can do so either on here on my blog, or on my print purchase page!

Without Wax,

-Charles

Samus Aran, The Bounty Hunter

Finally!!  I put this one off far too long.  I actually wanted to do much more with the background and experiment with it a little bit, but my laptop was having no parts of that.  I can't get more ram soon enough, sheesh.

Also, if you aren't following me yet on Tumblr, I'm currently doing a giveaway to two lucky winners: the grand prize winner will get 10 FREE prints from me of the best illustrations I've done all year, while second place will win 5.  Not too shabby.  You can enter by either reblogging my contest post, or liking my Illumistrations page on Facebook.  I mean, seriously though, this is stuff you should've done already, now there's just an incentive to do so.  Ha!

On to the next one...

Without Wax,

-Charles

Samus Aran, The Bounty Hunter (work in progress)

I sketched and inked this drawing a while ago, and amidst coloring it, I stopped working on it.  I think it was because I knew that it would involve a lot as far as time and computer resources (as in RAM) and it turns out, I was 100% correct.  I desperately need a ram upgrade in my computer, like seriously.  Not today, but as in yesterday.  Anyways, here's the work in progress of my favorite Nintendo bounty hunter, Samus Aran of Metroid.  I sometimes like to work without color for a bit to make sure that the shadows and values are right before going on.  Sometimes the actual colors trick my eyes and by the time I see it, its too late.  I'll make sure to document this when I make an actual coloring tutorial that apparently is grossly overdue.

Without Wax,

-Charles

African American Samus of Metroid sketch

Yeah, I know...I just drew a picture of Samus from Metroid...but I decided to draw another anyways.  I'm not really a fan of her Zero Suit because it doesn't make much logistical sense to have a suit like that without any contacts to her outer power suit.  And plus, I just wanted to do something with a lot of detail in it.  I got like 80% done with this sketch like a day ago, and photoshop crashed and gave me a black image with red noise all over it.  I wanted to just trash it, but I started over, and it didn't take nearly as long this time.  But anyways, moral of the story...save often, and backup often to avoid such headaches.

This one may take a little longer to ink and color...but I guess that's half the fun.

Without Wax
-Charles

African American Samus Sketch

A preliminary sketch of my favorite intergalactic bounty hunter, Samus Aran...an African American rendition of her obviously.  Updated progress to follow...

Samus landing on Zebes