Game-Art-HQ

This is Dynamite Headdy, the protagonist of the game by the same name, and one of the hardest boss characters Twin Freaks.

I must say i was amazed and also surprised when i saw this fan art for the 1994 Sega game popping up at dA a few days ago. It is very rare that those old 16 bit games get any love if they are not from Nintendo or Sonic the Hedehog.

So i asked the artist behind this work, Michael Sterns aka gsilverfish a few questions about it, as the start of a series of articles here on Game Art HQ which shows you not only the art but let`s you know more about the artists and their inspirations!

Hiya Michael, your Dynamite Headdy piece is a quite unusual one among the ton of Zelda, Sonic and Mass Effect works we see day by day on dA.

What was your inspiration to draw a scene from this nearly 20 year old Sega Game all of a sudden?

The truth is, that I am perhaps obsessed with the game company Treasure, and the fan-bug just happened to strike all of a sudden.

Their games started coming out just as I was hitting my formative teenage years, so in a way they’re the “band” that I grew up loving.

Since they don’t put out much these days I have to go to other means to get that certain “fix.” (That’s also why I still draw classic-inspired Sonic every now and then.)

In Headdy’s case, there doesn’t seem to be much out there in terms of fan art, so I also wanted to try to fill that gap a bit.

For the scene in particular, I really thought a lot about what would make sense for me to do, and what would work for my style.

I like to take 2D games and kind extrude them out into more 3D shapes, I want to keep them looking like the game, but also not just look like a 2D scene tilted sideways!

Headdy is kind of unique in that all the levels take place on a “stage” and you can actually see the flatness of many backgrounds, so I tried to pick a scene that could be unflattened and still feel true to the game.

What kind of tools did you use for this piece and how long did you work on it?

I started with a few sketches on paper, then scanned them to my computer and moved into Photoshop. I use a Wacom Intuos tablet for input.

It took several hours, mainly on coloring.

Can we expect more Retro games related works from you?

Definitely, but it may not be the sort of works people are expecting! I’m currently working on my own retro-inspired game, Tiny Barbarian. I try to resist indulging in fan art these days in favor of my own original stuff, but like I said, sometimes it just can’t be helped–it’s sure to happen again!

Thanks for the little Interview @ Michael “gsilverfish” Sterns, we look forward to see your future works! (Alien Soldier ftw!)