28.4.2025
Paint Tool SAI + Photoshop

What on earth have I done this time? Pixel art? Really?

In tradition of turning Touhou bosses into birds and other beasts, here's Shinki and her most memorable move, later named Devil's Recitation when Byakuren uses it during her boss fight. (see a clip here if you're curious what this mess would look like in-game https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bhqg6Dr357E)

I figured pixel art would be fun to try. I had rediscovered SAI's binary tools and some of my Photoshop pixel brushes and decided to do something a bit different. Fits the ancient graphics of the original game as well.

This is actually based on a really old sketch of mine from around 15 years ago. Take a look: (Shinki) I deliberately made the composition more claustrophobic and cluttered to enhance the chaos.

In other news, I don't know how I managed to finish this in the middle of my art drought. I've been in a really rough place most of this year and I don't know if it'll get any better anytime soon. Trying to ride it out but not having a lot of juice for art is only making me more miserable, so it was nice to finish a slightly bigger project now. Perhaps the chaos of the picture reflects on my life situation at the moment, who knows.