video games – Robotic Pastries

Illustration Process- Pony Crashers

In 2019 it was announced that one of my all time favorite beat-em-up game, Castle Crashers, would be coming over to the Switch. To celebrate, I decided to draw one of my favorite characters to use in the game, Pink Knight, along with another favorite from an equally colorful but considerably less violent show, Pinkie Pie.

In Castle Crashers you’ll come by animals that you can ride in certain levels, so drawing Pink Knight riding into battle on Pinkie was an easy choice.

I started by finding a good pose for Pinkie. She’d be the type to happily bounce into a battlefield, so I needed something energetic.

I went with the second pose and roughly sketched where Pink Knight would sit, along with his signature lollipop weapon.

I refined the sketch and added two hamsters Pink Knight uses in his attacks. I thought about adding a defeated enemy they’d be prancing away from, but ended up ditching the idea.

Inks

Flat Colors

I colored the lines to match the style of My Little Pony and added Pink Knight’s rainbow power, along with the sparkles and hearts that come with it. One colorful background later and it was finished!

Castle Crashers means a lot to me and this still stands as another one of my favorite pieces. I started doing a series of these with the other knights in the game that I’ll have to get back to later.

Thank you for reading!

In 2017 Sonic and The Legend of Zelda had an interesting crossover, and I wanted to draw a picture inspired by that. However, I never ended up finishing it and eventually gave up on it. Jump ahead to 2020 and the idea came back to me again, this time with me fully committing.

First, I had to figure out which of the Zelda games I wanted to combine with Sonic. My original idea was with Twilight Princess (which I’ll still get to eventually), but after thinking it over I decided to go with Ocarnia of Time for inspiration.

I took time to look at some of the game’s art to figure out the type of mood I wanted the picture to have. Then, after gathering as many references I could find of Sonic’s outfit from the official crossover, I got started.

I had the image in my mind of wandering into the forest and encountering with the fairy that travels with you in the game, Navi. I wanted to really capture that feeling of wonder, with Sonic reaching out in curiosity,

Next I refined the detail in the sketch as much as I could. I pulled out a lot of forest references for this one. Also tried to get the most out of the references of Sonic’s outfit.

Detailed Inking

Flats

Basic Shadows

Basic Lighting

Overlay + Effects

After adding extra effects and details, I came away with an illustration I’m still very happy with now! I’ll have to revisit this crossover combination again one day, and maybe finally tackle that Twilight Princess picture.

Thank you for reading!