Life Through the Pixel Glass: Independent Art Look

Because she’s feeling a little under the weather, I’ll be covering LTTPG for Squiddy this time around. Since I had the reins behind the feature for this post, I decided to shed the spotlight on two artists I’ve discovered on the web that possess this innate vision in their portrayal of video game inspired art. Their art spoke to me on levels that moved me to share their work with everyone this week.

The first artist is Darick Maasen, a 30-year-old modern artist residing in Chicago. Darick creates several different Pop-influenced art pieces, from the nerdy side of things with canvas and sketch work, to crafted constructs using materials like wood and taxidermy animals! Darick’s work has been featured at the event I AM 8BIT, and is slowly taking the net by storm with his continue work on constructs and sketches. You guys and gals can find his work on his website here. Also, make sure to fan him on Facebook if you’re cool like that.

The next artist is a fellow by the name of Jed Henry, an author and illustrator of children’s books. Jed has recently taken it upon him on his personal Twitter to start a series of Ukiyo influenced Nintendo art depicting games and characters from the 8-bit and 16-bit era. As you can see, Jed’s already done Samus, Megaman, and Link. He plans to expand the his portfolio with a sneak peak at his next work based on Mario Kart. Mr. Henry plans to open a Kickstarter campaign soon to help fund the series, and plans on making the pieces more authentic with Kanji lettering and talk of actually doing traditional woodblock design from which Ukiyo originates. You can find his work on Tumblr, where he works to not only update his series as often as he can, but will also answer any questions you may have.