Pixelmash Theatre - the rest...

As there still appear to be some people on the planet who haven't seen the pixelmash films I did some time back, here are the remainder in no particular order in one handy-to-reach (and easy to squint at and ruin your eyesight) place...

Purgatory 1 in 188k

Ages before I did the full length Star Wars animations, I was messing about with seeing how much I could pack into a 250k GIF file - and the resounding answer seemed to be "quite a lot" - These were originally done for the website b3ta (the puerile digital arts community) back when I was a member. I think I'd either just watched Unforgiven and had read too many Preacher Graphic novels when I did these. It was only designed as a one off, but I somehow managed to shoehorn in two sequels as well. Have some moody monochrome western pixel jiggery-pokery.

Purgatory in 256k

Looking back at these, I'm quite fond of them. They're way simpler than my later stuff, and I quite like the distinct lack of colour to them. The first ones a proper self contained story and didn't really need a sequel, though - and the second one quite clearly has some nicked rotoscoping footage of a horse galloping as well. Shameless thievery.

Purgatory 3 in 116k

These didn't get a great deal of response on b3ta when I posted them, I seem to recall. However, a few months after this I did the original Star Wars Trilogy and everything went crazy for a couple of weeks - I was being interviewed for magazines and getting goody bags from Lucasfilm, and these particular gifs seemed to loop the internet for several weeks. Awesome (but very odd) times.

Ghostbusters in 244k

If memory serves (and you have to remember I am very old) these are presented in the (kind of) order I made them in. Ghostbusters was an attempt to try something a little different, and with hindsight I'm not sure it works - it's supposed to be watched like a comic with multiple panels, but it's all a bit busy and some of the art in it is very very rushed. However, I like the bigger size to mess around with - I seem to recall really struggling to fit this within the 250k confines I'd set myself. I never did Ghostbusters 2 for the same reason I never did Star Wars Episodes 1, 2 and 3 - because these used to take me ages and I couldn't find the drive to do films I never liked - and boy did I hate Ghostbusters 2.

Back to the Future in 251k

These were all done around the same time as I was taking submissions for the Indiana Jones trilogy that I did - little by little I was messing more around with photoshop filters and learning tricks and techniques that made each subsequent pixelmash slightly easier or prettier.  I'm really fond of Back to the Future - namely because I love the larger look and detail of the sprites, even though it loses something in the storytelling. The detail meant that it simply couldn't be as long as the other ones, although I like the look of Marty McFly in these.

Flash Gordon in 240k

Flash Gordon - I'm quite fond of this one as well, although it's a little rushed. I am however happy I managed to get the "Hawkmen - dive!" bit put in there. And you'll see how I shamelessly stole the Flash Gordon Logo from the internet and didn't even attempt to do a pixelmash version myself. Some interesting parallax in there as well - that takes forever in the archaic way I was designing these things.

Jaws in 228k

And then the last one I ever did. Jaws. Really going to town on the bloody photoshop filters with this one, which makes bits of it look pig ugly when the colour depth is toned down. Still, I really like this one though - and am particularly fond of the close up on Roys face and the fact I managed to get the head floating in the boat - the one bit of Jaws that still scares me to this date.

And finally, because they're my favourite films, Alien and Aliens. I like these a lot, and a bit of trivia for you, fact fans, is that Druid (the other occasional contributor to this blog) drew the face of Jones in Alien. A lot of the rest of it looks a bit video-gamey though....