The Shizen Design Sketchbook and "Nintendo Power" Studies

 I can't leave good old Artist and Craftsman Supplies without buying a Sketchbook.  You know how it is.  And my hankering for a nice, thick Watercolor paper sent me home with a very unusual one. 

 

This is the Shizen Design Rough Surface Watercolor Sketchbook and it is a beauty.  The covers are gorgeous and sturdy, I love the ribbon closure, and it's nicely crammed with thick, handmade paper.

Emphasis on the THICK.  This is thick, rough-surface watercolor paper.  I like some heft in my drawing paper and I like a little tooth but this was almost like drawing on a pile of paper towels.  

I have to say, I was struggling a bit - until I chanced upon something I wouldn't have expected to help.

Nintendo Power magazine on the Internet Archive. I found this in Autumn and read up until about the early 2000's. It was more fun than I ever would've expected and even prompted my very first Bluesky thread (and my goodness, I hope this embed works and is also in order, ha ha.  If not, have a link).  

So I’ve been reading this almost-complete archive of #Nintendo Power magazine and finding some pretty cool art and stuff. (Might fool around and start my first Bluesky exclusive thread…) archive.org/details/Nint...

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— Trish (@babbletrish.bsky.social) December 1, 2023 at 5:09 PM

As you see, I fell in love with the art.  Up until a certain point, I guess, Nintendo did not have their own in-house illustrators, and the "default" look for their many characters hadn't been nailed down yet.  They hired illustrators from around Kyoto and so we get delightful results like Shotaro Ishinomori's "Link to the Past" comic and whatever this incredibly Kid's Magazine From the Late 80's art style is.

And at some point, I decided, "I love this so much, I should draw these in my Sketchbook.  It's not great for doodling, but it's perfect for long... I'm going to call these Master Studies."  And so:

These was so much fun!  I ended up using the softest pencil I have and a double-ended permanent marker for the lines and my trustiest set of watercolor paints.  you can see how soft and toothy the paper is in these scans.

I couldn't not draw Megaman as he appears in "Captain N: the Game Master".  Look at him!  I really do think "Draw Your OC/Favorite Character/etc. In the Specifically Wrong Way DiC Would've in the 80's-90's" would make for a great drawing challenge.

Next week: A Sketchbook for a Good Cause.

Weird Super Mario Brothers Things Part Two!

Sorry for the technical difficulties getting this post to publish at the right time. I was in Florida visiting my auntie for a few days. I haven't missed anything have I? (Looks in email inbox and cries quietly.)

I will not have much commentary on the top three Weird Mario Brothers Things because they basically speak for themselves.

3) The 1988 Ice Capades! A little introduction is in order here. The Ice Capades, in their last few years, usually had a segment with costumed characters to appeal to the kids whose parents had dragged them to a charmingly outdated ice show. I seem to remember commercials for the Smurf show for years and years, but later on they added new characters. These included the Simpsons and, err, the California Raisins (hark, a prompt for a future post!) They were all brought to life with horrifying, cheap, off-model costumes. If this Super Mario Brothers segment is any indication, then the skits were also written by a person who had been given a small post-it note explaining who the characters were.



2) "Club Mario!"

The Super Mario Brothers cartoon was more correctly known as "The Super Mario Brothers Super Show". The cartoons were introduced by live-action segments starring Captain Lou Albano playing Mario. After a few seasons, these segments were deemed unworthy and replaced with something much, much more "hip" that would better "connect with the young parsons".

The following video contains all of the early '90s. ALL of it. Be warned.



And the number-one weirdest thing ever involving the Super Mario Brothers is, naturally,

1) That one time Mario, Luigi, and the gang met Milli Vanilli. (AKA "Kootie Pie Rocks", an episode of the second cartoon series.)

I have no words for this. Here it is, in two parts. It might be one of the greatest things you will ever see:





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Sketch of the Day!

Old but still cute:

Weird Super Mario Brothers Things Part One!

Being the stars of a long-running multimedia cash cow franchise, it isn't surprising that Mario and Luigi have found themselves in some pretty odd things. So, as my much-belated tribute, her is a semi-random list of Weird Mario Brothers things. (These are not in any particular order, but I will save the top three for their own post.)

The Nintendo Cereal System



Now, granted, EVERYTHING around this time could get it's own cereal. EVERY THING. Most of these terrible tie-in cereals were made by Ralston/Purena, and they all tasted almost exactly the same: like mushy Trix. The Nintendo Cereal at least had a gimmick or two to differentiate from those other cereals: you got two cereals in one box. It also, as you can see, has one hella-trippy commercial. Because the early 90's, that's why.

"Mama Luigi"



The most infamous episode of the "Super Mario World" cartoon. Probably because it's really freakin' weird, even for a show that was already pretty weird. Things get insane by the 5:20 mark. I hope I'm not the only one who thought of this.

"Super Mario Brothers: The Movie"

Once upon a time, me and my fellow little innocuous 80's children caught wind that Disney was making a movie based off "Super Mario Brothers". We reacted just like Bart and Milhouse when they learned there was an upcoming Radioactive Man movie. A Disney animated film about an unlikely hero out to save a princess; seemed absolutely perfect.

So that's why, when you watch this trailer, you can still almost hear a million little kid voices crying out, "What the f*** is this?!"



I am hoping the top three do not disappoint. See you Thursday.

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Sketch of the Day! Oh, Yoshi, you irresponsible frog-lizard-horse-dragon-generic cute thing!

Holiday Hangover - Happy 2011!

Happy New Year! And I hope everyone had a lovely holiday season as well! Now it's time for Seasonal Affective Depression until mid-April, yaaaay!!!
 
I'm proud to say that I've kept last year's New Years Resolution to share the smudgy, unpretty, brain-farty part of the creative process by sharing full scans of Sketchbook pages. I'm going to keep this up, which means I get to start up a Sketch of the Day 2011 Flickr set. I am way too excited about this.

You may have noticed an influx of "Super Mario Bros." related doodles in the last few entries in the "Sketch of the Day 2010" set. This is because my family is g-r-a-d-u-a-l-l-y working our way through "New Super Mario Bros. Wii" in an attempt to stave off cabin fever. This is a bad, bad idea; if you are playing this game with people who are familiar with the Mario series and who are totally into it, then the game is so much fun it shouldn't be legal. But, if not, then you want to try and complete this game during a time of year with nicer weather, so you can go outside and be not in the same room with the other players for a while. I don't want to ruin what makes this game different from other Mario games in case you don't know, but the "Simpsons" quote (there is one for every occasion) that has been haunting me since we've begun is, "Ooh, a Rubik's Cube! Let's all try and solve it together!"

Wishing everyone a safe, happy, healthy New Year! Regular posting schedule will resume... next week sometime. Until then, here's DJ Earworm's semi-annual mashup of the past year's most popular songs. "Hey Soul Sister" is actually not annoying now:



(And it must be pointed out that I started last year with Don Bluth and ended with him. Totally unintentional, but awesome.)

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Feederwatch Wednesday!

This is the data from the week of the big storm. Snow brings the biodiversity:

Mourning Dove 1
Downy Woodpecker 1
Black-capped Chickadee 4
White-breasted Nuthatch 1
European Starling 1
Song Sparrow 1
Dark-eyed Junco 1
Northern Cardinal 4
American Goldfinch 7
House Sparrow 35

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First Sketch of the Day of the Year!