Retronauts Podcast Cover: Below the Root
Retronauts, the long-running retro video game podcast, is always a joy to work with because: 1. the episodes are about video games and that's fun! and 2. they appreciate art experimentation. I have been one of the illustrators on the podcast and some of Jeremy Parish's video game book projects since 2020.
Above is an episode about Spinnaker Games and Below the Root, an influential early game created in collaboration with Zilpha Keatley Snyder, the author of the fantasy novel by the same name and the Green Sky Trilogy. The game and book series has plenty of interesting 1970s and 1980s-style cover illustrations, so it was a fun challenge to go in a new, colorful direction.
Below are two mashups of existing ideas but with video games added to them. The one on the left is about Stephen King's influence on video games. The cover is inspired by the haunting cat illustration from the original Pet Sematary cover with a Nintendo controller and characters from Earthbound, a game that draws on King's work. The bottom right is a mailbag episode with the postman from Animal Crossing drawn in the style of Mr. ZIP, the old USPS mascot.
You can read more details of the coloring style for the Starfox cover below. (Spoiler: I dig using Retro Supply Co's ColorLab brush set.)
Retronauts Podcast Cover: Nintendo Power Comix
Retronauts Podcast Cover: Minesweeper
The covers below for some extremely fun but fairly broad ideas: the why of studying video games (left) and the Wonder of Mario (right and not to be confused with the game, Super Mario Wonder). The Wonder of Mario is about games that filled the hosts with wonder the first time they played them, so I created a character's scrapbook of video game highlights. The grey cat looks VERY much like my cat, Cosmo.
Below are even more conceptual pieces. The left is about new, high-tech ways to play retro games in 2023 ... but in a very 1990s style and color palette. The one of the right is about video game anthologies like the recent Atari 50.
