ෆ፧💜【MαнoυSυιSυи】💛፧ෆ

Concept sketches and final sketch before painting

The sketch has the list of enemy characters and a few different thumbnail sketches of Dedede. The gist of the artwork was to show the characters working together to set up the fighting ring for the fight that happens in game with the 4 small paintings. With the middle painting being Dedede in the decorated room. I re-sketched 2 of the small paintings I was having trouble visualizing and some background and foreground bits.

This sketch was the original sketch for my piece before I was told I needed Dedede in it. I plan on coloring this, but I'm busy so it will just have to be a sketch for now.

Background and foreground

The background pattern is the pattern from the sides of the fighting ring, but without Dedede's face and symbol. It was made with alcohol markers and the white lines are painting with acrylic pen.

For the foreground, the light purple drape is from where the crowd sits, and the side banners are from the main fighting ring. Both painted with gouache with the side banners having paper stars I cut out using my Cricut and drew the gold with a pen. The bottom part of the foreground is the ropes and poles of the ring.

Paintings

Top left - The area the Waddle Dees are in is the room before the fight Dedede

Top right - Noddy and Simirror are on the covering the sides of the stage, but Noddy fell asleep and is not being helpful.

Bottom left - They are on top of the stage but looking up at the support beams

Bottom right - Also on top of the stage, but it is angled facing downward

Middle - I thought it would be funny if Dedede used his strength to step down on the ropes. Also, do you notice that Mario and Peach are in the crowd?

Stickers, stamps, & paper

Stickers - I lied when I said everything was made using traditional mediums >:) the stickers were drawn digitally, printed and rescanned. Yes, they're actual stickers and I will stick them on to everything.

Sticky note & breezes - Words on the sticky note were carved out of rubber carving blocks and using ink to stamp it onto a sticky note. The breezes are from the start screen of string breeze and are finger painted on paper with ink

Wax stamp - wax seal was also carved from rubber carving blocks. Scanning the wax stamp was difficult because it wasn't flat, so I took a picture of it instead

Scanner & Editing software

For the scanner, I used a Canon Lide 400 scanner and for the price it's a pretty good, but this is my first scanner, so I'm not sure how other scanners fair.

I used Affinity Photo 2 on my iPad to put everything together. I originally used Procreate, but after seeing the quality I realized I needed a photo editing program. So I used the free trial from Affinity to make the final artwork. Original I wanted the final piece to have a white border but decided against it and instead added shadows to make it look like a spotlight. Also added some shadows to some areas. I also bought

Everything but it's not scanned

One of the biggest challenges was trying to figure out how to condense such a broad and varied game mode into a singular composition. Referencing the original stage progress map was only the natural decision, and the next step was to further condense each stage into a singular polaroid snapshot.

Part of the research process involved scrubbing through the entire gameplay footage and screenshotting notable background and level design motifs (Above is a mere sampling pared down from the original 100+ screenshots taken!), as well as picking and choosing treasures and enemies I felt were interesting from each stage! Of course not everything I wanted to include could make the cut, but I still tried to include nods and motifs wherever I could!

After planning and drafting was making the actual assets for the piece, which involved rendering each individual sticker and polaroid on their own separate canvas before compiling it on the final piece, just like a real scrapbook! The process was definitely more time and labor-intensive than I would have preferred, but it did allow better control and flexibility over how everything was arranged!

Overall this zine was an exciting and learning experience, and I again recommend checking the rest of it out, as everyone put in just as much love and detail in every page! 💖