Brandon Inada's Blog

Stumbled onto this interesting, manga/anime-inspired Super Mario Bros. piece by artist Saejin Oh while researching my previous post:

A preview of the entire "Super F-ed Up Bros. World 1-1" piece.

It seems that the original Super Mario Bros. World 1-1 continues to be a source of inspiration for artists everywhere (in this case, South Korea).

Just to warn you, the entire piece is a bit graphic in terms of it’s depictions of highly stylized, over the top violence; to view the entire piece, violent bits and all, click here to go to the artist’s page on deviantART.

(I love the way he incorporates the title screen and card and the cool Starman effect midway through.)

You can check out more of his stuff at his work blog here.

Here we have a really cool piece of video game-related embroidery by Elsa Olsson who hails from Sweden:

World 1-1 Embroidery

That’s right – the entire first level of the original 8-bit Super Mario Bros., Goombas, Power Up Mushrooms, and all!

Embroidered Goombas

World 1-1 - A Work In Progress

The project, begun in September of 2008, is still a work in progress; once completed (Elsa hopes to finish the project by spring of this year), the entire piece will measure 244 by 16 inches – a little over 20 feet long!

Super Mario Bros. World 1-1 Cross Stitch

Cross Stitch Pattern For World 1-1

Earlier this year, Elsa posted a short video clip of herself (and her kitty Klara) showing the current status of the project:

Check out her blog at http://supermariobrosworld1-1.blogspot.com for more about the project!

(The site is in Swedish; I used Google Translate to read her earlier posts…)

Artist Travis Pitts came up with this fun T-Shirt design (“We’ve Got Some Work To Do Now”) featuring Velma Dinkley of Scooby-Doo fame and the titular Great Dane chewing on what appears to be some vanquished monster’s (Frankenstein’s Monster?) hand:

I love the older, battle-hardened, post-apocalyptic version of Velma shown above.

The Mystery Machine (now Misery Machine, apparently) has been refitted with side-mounted chainsaws for hacking away at undead armies.

(Wonder what the giant wooden stake up top is for?)

Also, Shaggy, Fred, and Daphne are no more it seems.

What a great concept!

-

Here’s what the artist himself had to say about the design:

Sticking with my favorite theme of heroic girls … and injecting realism or plausibilty [sic] to silly pop culture icons …, I knew I wanted to make a certain teen detective [and] her canine companion into the sole survivors of a Monsterpocalypse for the threadless loves Horror contest.

Everyone knows that it’s always the timid, quiet, second-string female character that gets the dramatic arc and has the wits and skill to survive most horror movies. I struggled for days trying to come up with a semi-realistic interpretation of this toughened, nerdy survivor-type gal- until I remembered I was dating one, and asked her to model for it.

Fun stuff!

Click here to buy the shirt over at Threadless.com and to check out more of the artist’s designs!

Looks pretty awful (“This is Iron Fist!”), although I like the real-life “Character Select Screen.”

I’m surprised by how faithful the film is to the look of the characters, Yoshimitsu in particular.

Hiroyuki Tagawa (Shang Tsung from Mortal Kombat) looks fairly ridiculous as Heihachi.

Also, I’m not too sure about the actor playing Jin Kazama (Jon Foo, who does have a background in martial arts).

Here he is, looking a bit more Jin-like in the Japanese movie poster:

Not bad, right?

I think it’s the actor’s voice more than anything else that sort of ruins it for me; Jin has always had a pretty manly (Japanese) voice in the games.

Alright, I admit it: I bought this Totoro plush for myself the other day…

He’s even got a little bag of acorns slung over his shoulder…

Too cute.

If you haven’t already guessed, I’m a big fan of Hayao Miyazaki’s work; My Neighbor Totoro happens to be my all-time favorite, with Nausicaä Of The Valley Of The Wind and Spirited Away rounding out my top three Miyazaki films.