Fantastic Swords! or "how I spent my Saturday mornings as a kid"

I have a little book that I keep all kinds of crazy ideas in that spill out of my head at random moments during the day. One such idea that I had was to create these giant paintings based on comic covers, panels, and characters in general. I've done a couple already and I'm really happy with how they turned out. That then led me to think, "Why should they all be real comics? Why not fake comics that have all the elements I want in them! I am, after all, the one holding the paintbrush! I'll be making the rules around here, you defenseless canvas!"

So for this upcoming batch of paintings, I wanted one of them to be a totally original creation of my favorite 80's cartoon swordsmen. The result is above. Could you imagine this being a real team!?! Seriously, who would have the slightest chance against He-Man, Lion-O, Leonardo, and Snake Eyes? The answer is no one. I don't care if you bring in Apocalypse, Darkseid, or Thanos with the Infinity Gauntlet. Heck, bring in Galactus if you want.

He-Man would lift Galactus up by his big toe throwing him off balance while Leo and S-E ninja jump all over the toppling soon-t0-be-corpse slicing and dicing just as Lion-O throws a powered-up Sword of Omens straight through big G's chestplate. The body never even hits the ground, but rather it rains down in the form of fresh sushi rolls. Game over. They have a hearty lunch, share a round of high-fives, and have an after party at Castle Greyskull.

That's how the Fantastic Swords roll.

I'll post pics of the painting (and the other bunch o' paintings) when I finish. I did this entirely on the computer start to finish, using Painter, Illustrator, and Photoshop. Inspired by the great John Buscema and Marvel comic covers of the 70's (beautiful pieces of art).

My SQUADRON game is out on iTunes!!

Here is the main title screen. It was a lot of fun to put this art together.
Here's an early development game screen shot. I made the "map" with a combo of different photos and some digital painting.
This is the very early concept art piece that I put together when we were still deciding on the direction of the game.
Here is my first pass at the game over screen. I thought it was really cool and intense like this! However, we lost a bit of nerve when considering the average iPhone/iPad casual gamer and pulled back a bit to skeletons that were a little more subtle. I still want to have a secret unlock that brings in this full strength skelo-glow. Radiation is like that. It automatically makes people glow and walk around like sentient rave glow-sticks.
Here's the pencil sketch I did for the main screen. I had a lot of inspiration from the old DC Blackhawk character. (and Lady Blackhawk of course!)
Early sketch and art test for the device in the game. It gets nasty.

Why hello my fellow Nerdorks! My friends and I have recently finished and posted our newest offering to the nerdiverse, The Squadron! Its kinda like a mix of Flight Control with Centipede, if you can fathom that.

You tap and drag paths for your fighter planes to follow as they patrol the screen bombing and firing on Nazis as they attempt to infiltrate the ancient device at the center of the screen. If you don't stop them in time and they enter the device, bad bad things happen, like when you eat several pounds of Taco Bell while drinking copious amounts of milk just passed its expiration date.

So head over and purchase it and leave some kind remarks! I would appreciate it a ton! I might even buy you a single taco if the comment is nice enough. But don't wait around on a hunger strike until it appears.