Saturday, January 21, 2012

Hunky Space Harrier

I don't know if any of you noticed, but buried within this post about Darwin Yamamoto's recent trip to Tokyo's retro-games shop, Super Potato, was a brief note about the New Yorker being a designer and illustrator.

Well, a good example of Yamamoto's abilities as an illustrator can be seen in his recent--and rather hunky--portrait of Sega's Space Harrier:


Go here to see an animated version of this portrait, by the way. (The static version, above, was taken from here.)

To see more such portraits of famous and not-so-famous game characters--including Jennifer from Rule of Rose, Vincent from Catherine and Francis York from Deadly Premonition--check out this Flickr set.

20 comments:

Viewtiful_Justin said...

That portrait set is amazing! I want to get three of them in identical frames and hang them in my hallway. The only problem is choosing!

RetroKingSimon said...

I think Mr. Harrier must be pretty hunky anyway, that giant cannon must weight a lot! :P

Random J said...

Space Harrier. The sex symbol that time forgot...until now. *sits and watches his hair blow*

Bryan Ochalla said...

Justin: Oh, yes, Darwin's portrait set *is* amazing. Not sure why I failed to mention it until now. Anyway, yes, you should get three of them and hang them in your hallway -- and then send me a photo of this ... trifecta :) BTW, I don't know which trio I'd choose either.

Bryan Ochalla said...

Simon: Yes, I think you're right! I'll bet his legs, especially, are HUGE :P

Bryan Ochalla said...

You know, Random J, your line there -- "Space Harrier: The sex symbol time forgot" -- could be an alternate headline for this post :)

Also: Watching his hair blow is quite mesmerizing, isn't it?

Kimimi said...

Wow that's really nice work!

I'd love to try pixel art myself but I always chicken out of it :S

Bryan Ochalla said...

Hey there, Kimimi! Hmmm, I think you need to break through those nerves and just give it a try. It's not like you have to show the world your creations -- especially if you don't like the end result.

Kimimi said...

That's true, I'll have to have a think and see what I can do!

(It's hard not to get intimidated by such beautiful work though ^^~)

Bryan Ochalla said...

Well, yes, I can understand being intimidated by Darwin's work. It's not exactly your typical pixel work, though, is it? If I were to make some pixel art, it would be MUCH simpler -- kind of like what you would have seen in the 8-bit era :)

Darwin said...

Hey, thanks for sharing this and the great compliments!

There's a whole lot of awesome pixel art that I'm intimidated by, but I just figure why not try it out. It should be fun. :)

Oh, and I really want a new Space Harrier game. There was a tribute level in Bayonetta, and would love more of that... with the red suit of course.

Bryan Ochalla said...

You're very welcome, Darwin! I absolutely love your style, so expect to see more of it here in the future :)

As for wanting a new Space Harrier game: Um, YES!! I'd love to see one on the 3DS, especially, although I'll take one wherever I can get it.

BTW, I didn't know Bayonetta featured a tribute level. Guess I can add that to the reasons I should pick up that game...

Darwin said...

I was just watching this Bayonetta clip on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9A8Brnm7Yrw&t=1m6s

I should go play it again! :)

Bryan Ochalla said...

Oh, wow, that's definitely cool, Darwin. Thanks for sharing the link. Like I said earlier, I really have to get and play this one. I'd by lying, though, if I said the main gameplay didn't worry me a bit...

Random J said...

@ Bryan:
Use it! The people must know about how sexy this man looks from the front *continues to watch his hair blow*

Bryan Ochalla said...

Thanks, Random J! I'm not sure if I'll actually change this header or not, though. We'll see. The current one is so ... simple. Maybe I'll save yours for a future post about Space Harrier.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy continuing to watch his hair blow in the wind :)

Kaze said...

YAYYYY Darwin!! XD I also love his Shadow of the Colossus pixel art piece!

And I don't want to be tempting you to buy more video games, but Bayonetta was my game of the year for 2010! lol =]

Bryan Ochalla said...

Kaze: Oh, yes, I think I saw the Shadow of the Colossus piece on Google+, or maybe on Darwin's Flickr photostream? Regardless, I agree that it's great.

You don't need to worry about tempting me to buy Bayonetta: I've been feeling the temptation for some time now! I'll get it eventually, don't worry :)

coolpowers said...

I really need to pick up Bayonetta too - it's such a SEGA love-letter. I've played it some, just never owned my own copy.

But back to Space Harrier. One of my all-time favorites, because it just screams VIDEO GAMES to me. I'm desperate to play Planet Harriers, but I don't think I'll be able to do it outside of emulation, if that ever catches up. It just sits there in MAME, taunting me with the NON-WORKING tag.

I've dabbled off and on with my own homages, but never been very serious. And my protagonist is usually female, sorry :D

Also, your work is gorgeous, Darwin.

Bryan Ochalla said...

I love the idea of a Sega love letter, coolpowers. If Bayonetta is, indeed, such a game, I'll really have to pick it up at some point.

As for Planet Harriers: It's too bad Sega's never ported it to one of the consoles. Who knows, maybe they'll bring it to PSN or XBLA someday. If not, hopefully MAME catches up sooner rather than later.

I also love the idea of a homemade Space Harrier homage, BTW. Oh, and I'm ALL for a female protagonist. I know I'm gay, so I probably should want to play as guys (or at least see and interact with them) all the the time, but I actually prefer female leads most of the time.