I’ve been following PaletteMeli on Instagram for a while now, and I always love her adorable pastel designs! Which is why when I heard that she had opened preorders for a new Pokétreat pin series and extended the deadline when the preorder goal hadn’t been met, I knew I had to share it to help spread the word!
The holiday shopping madness is now in full swing! Luckily, it’s easy to get in on some great deals without having to manage high-tension shopping crowds, or, if you’re like me, live in a country that doesn’t really do the whole Black Friday/Cyber Monday thing. With so many good deals flying around, I’ve decided to round up my favorites to share! From cute, nerdy apparel and accessories to discount games and figures, there’s more than enough here to get your holiday shopping out of the way or treat yourself for being awesome!
Welcome my newest monthly feature, Chic Pixel Favorites! I’ve seen a lot of bloggers and video creators do monthly roundup posts/videos of their favorite things, and it’s always really appealed to me as a great way to concisely share what’s tickling your fancy at any given time. But I’ve never actually gotten around to trying it myself… Until now!
Since I’m entering the absolute worst crunch time for my thesis (review in October! Ack!), there have been a lot of things lately that I’m enjoying that I just don’t have time to devote full posts to that I still would like to share. I like you enjoy it – since this is the start of a brand new series, your feedback would be greatly appreciated! Well, without further ado, here goes my very first Chic Pixel Favorites!
I just realized there has been a definite lack of awesome pixel art in my Sunday Spotlight, and that totally has to change! That’s why this week I’m highlighting Davitsu, a very talented pixel artist who has even worked on a couple of games you can download and play for free right now!
Be sure check out Davitsu’s Octoling pixel art, as well as this rad Undertale GameBoy Advance mockup. And give Scarlett Witch (pictured above) and this Amstrad CPC game demo Tip Top a go while you’re at it!
You can follow Davitsu on Twitter and Instagram, or find even more games at the Rantan Games website. I’m dying to whip out my GameBoy micro thanks to all of this awesome pixel art!
I’m quickly realizing that it’s going to take a lot of willpower not to just feature amazing artists in my spotlights every week! There are simply too many awesome people out there making art, whether it be fan art or otherwise Makku of Abstract Cactus is an artist I’ve been following for over a year now, and she stands out in particular for a really eye-catching, signature style.
Like Romy, who I featured the other week, Makku is a big fan of otome games. Head over to her Tumblr and you’ll quickly realize that Hakuoki is her otome game of choice, but she also has many illustrations of other popular nerdy characters. Some of my personal favorites include Lina and Naga from Slayers sharing a parfait and a slightly unsettling Hatoful Boyfriend birthday image. I also can’t neglect to mention the gorgeous Masato Hijirikawa (from Uta no Prince-sama) fan art she drew for my birthday last year!
Okay, so if it wasn’t obvious already, I’m totally partial to Makku’s work. Be sure to give her a follow on Tumblr and Twitter if you are, too! She’s also currently open for commissions right now and in need of money to pay some medical bills, so if you like her work, do consider hiring her to draw your favorite character!
Happy Sunday, and welcome to the first of what I imagine will be many Sunday Spotlights featuring awesome artists! There are a ton of artists drawing amazing video game fan art, to be sure, but how many of them are drawing iconic otome game characters using selfie sticks?
I’m pretty sure the only person who can claim that brilliant title is Romy of Strawberry Core. What I love about Romy’s art blog is that it features all kinds of fun otome game fan art, including art of characters from mobile games such as NTT Solmare’s Shall We Date? series. I also spy some Yowamushi Pedal and 999: Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors, which tells me we pretty much have exactly the same tastes in nerdy Japanese media. If you’re in the same boat, definitely give Romy’s blog a follow, or check them out on Twitter!
I’m pretty sure the Pixiv artist who goes by the name patty and I are sisters separated at birth, because her work just about covers all of my favorite things (for the purposes of this post I’m going to assume she’s female). Retro-inspired color palettes? Check? Pokémon gijinka? Check. Girls with glasses, big hats, and frilly clothes? Check. Viera-esque bunny people? Check. She’s even done Princess Tutu, Odin Sphere, and Freya (of Final Fantasy IX fame) fanart! My heart be still!
Since I’ve been burying my nose in Pokémon Black Version 2 since I got it on Friday, I’ll just dedicate this post to showing off some of patty’s gorgeous illustrations. I absolutely adore her fairytale-like style! In honor of the new Pokémon games, I’ll start off with some of my favorite of her Pokémon gijinka (humans characters designed to look like certain Pokémon) works:
What an adorable Ho-oh! I love how she’s taken its feathers and used their design in her hair as well as her sleeves. And none of that “pretty girl sitting around doing nothing” business – this Ho-oh gijinka’s a fencer!
Let it be known that I am actually quite partial to Shinx and its evolutions, so that may be part of the reason why I love this Luxray design. Some may think it looks nothing like the Pokémon it’s meant to be designed after, but I love the small details like the star on her parasol and her spiky blue hair. Regardless of whether she looks like Luxray or not, her costume is adorable, and the color palette used in the image is amazing, in my opinion!
Now Arceus is a Pokémon that I’ve never liked, but patty has managed to make it look so appealing! Again, the gijinka doesn’t look all that like the Pokémon aside from the color scheme and the gold spikes near her tail, but the Greek inspiration makes it a really interesting image.
Last but not least, we have a Leavanny gijinka. Leavanny just so happens to be the evolution of one of my favorite ‘mon, Sewaddle, and I’m thrilled with how patty has interpreted its design in this image. That’s actually an outfit I’d love to wear! And see how she represented its feelers with the feathers on her hat? I’m melting from sheer bliss!
She has plenty more gijinka illustrations and other Pokémon-related art that are just as amazing over at her Pixiv page, which I highly recommend checking out! Before I go, I’ll just share a couple more pieces that caught my eye:
I absolutely adore these rabbit-people that appear frequently in patty’s portfolio. Apparently they’re from something called Toto no Mura (Toto’s Village) which, as far as I can tell, is a series or world of characters created specifically for a Pixiv event called Pixiv Fantasia, where artists registered on the site are encouraged to submit pieces that fit the theme. The Toto no Mura theme seems to be from the fifth Pixiv Fantasia, as you can find many other pieces featuring the same characters under the Toto no Mura tag. I wish I knew exactly what Toto no Mura is, so if you know more, please do let me know in the comments!
And finally, I couldn’t help but include her rendition of the Mad Hatter… I blame my Alice in Wonderland obsession!