McCloud's Cockpit Crusher (commission) + canceled comm sketch (Patreon)

Today I finished a very unique commission! There's two reasons why it's unique. First of all, it's the first time when I'm making a pixel art commission. I expected that sooner or later somebody will ask me for this considering my escalating interest and growing skill at pixel art but I didn't expect it to happen so soon. And secondly, it's not just pixel art but a 16-bit style pixel art which is a very new thing for me. All this time I was making more retro pixel art with more primitive style, mostly simpler shapes and flat color fillings with no attempt to make it look realistic, no shading, no complex 3D shapes, nothing you could see in 16-bit era of Sega Genesis and Super Nintendo. Obviously, I was afraid to even try. I assumed that if I'm good at pencil shading I may be the same good at pixel shading but still the only way to overcome this fear for real was to really try it on practice but I just didn't have enough motivation for it because I love minimalism in pixel art and prefer caveman era of game style over more complex stuff, not to mention that furry fandom is already over saturated with high res pixel art in a style of 16-bit graphics and higher to the point when you barely can even see pixels. Not that I don't like 16-bit, obviously not, it's a part of my childhood too after all so I was very happy when my friend Yokta Stone suddenly suggested me a pixel art commission idea. 

The task was to draw Fox McCloud from Starfox bending over with a main focus on his giant booty with Fox fondling it with one hand and leaning on his Arwing with the other. Pixel art should have follow SNES limitations as close as possible which meant using original 256x224 resolution, background from the first level of SNES Starfox, polygonal Arwing ship and of course I used Fox's palette from his SNES sprite picking only colors which are presented on it, well, almost, I added few more green shades for his pants because that ass was too big to make a smooth gradient without extra shades. Also was asked to do CRT filter versions.

It was a bit difficult first because I never drew Fox McCloud before and realistic anthro characters in general is not my specialty, especially considering what tricky angle I picked for this art, low angles are always hard to figure out but I managed to make it look good. And yes, it's the first time I'm making a pencil sketch for a pixel art. 

Next I had to figure out how to make Fox's face look right, even with good sketch it was still tricky because of the resolution. It's a difficult part of pixel art, every pixel can matter, it can be too high in one position, too low in another position and there's no middle option between them, so it's very easy to mess up a face with just one pixel when character's eye consists of just few. But I managed to make the face look good here. 

Background wasn't that hard. To make Arwing I found its most accurate 3D model on Sketchfab, turned it at the angle I need, took a screenshot, put in my project, outlined every polygon and filled it with colors from original sprites, you can see it on one of the images showing work process stages. Landscape is just taken straight up from the first level of the game. 

Commissioner's task was simple, two versions with pants and pantless, even anus and genitals were asked to be not visible but I couldn't help but do lots of fun for my own amusement. I did naked version with balls and most importantly a whole bunch of fart and scat content. I went veeeeery far playing with it, much farther than I expected, spending whole two last days on this work. It's not very hard but the process of working with layers is extremely monotonous and time consuming. Results turned out very impressive, I still had to slightly simplify stuff because I'm still not perfect at drawing animations with complex realistic movements. Anyway, simplification fits game aesthetics so it still looks nice.

Also need to mention that Fox's hand on main versions is slightly different than on dirty ones. The thing is I imagined Fox just gently putting his hand on his buttock and decided to share the results with commissioner only when all extra stuff was finished. Stone loved everything but asked to put some shade under the hand like if he is giving his butt a bit of a squish. Obviously I can't sacrifice myself and spent few more hours just to add a slightly different hand to dozens of images. They still look good anyway.

The content is divided on three folders with main stuff, fart content and scat content. Fart content has a lot of videos because I wanted to make it feel more real with some 8-bit fart sound and it really did everything much better. The only problem is that online video editor  I'm using messes up video's fps a bit and Fox's ass cheeks don't look like they vibrate the same fast as can be seen on gifs. Maybe I try to download Sony Vegas later and revamp these. In any case, these videos were still good enough to make me bust a nut several times so I hope they do it to you too. Scat folder has content wit Fox pooping endlessly and struggling with some severe constipation, these ones were very complex to make and I'm very proud of these animations. There's also one video where constipation animation was combined with farts, of course it needed a sound version as well. 

I'm sorry for everybody who is not into filthy things, I don't have many innocent extra alts to share here except naked versions and this hole which was initially made for my filthy desires but I thought that just a look of a big hole can satisfy somebody too so I saved it as well. But even something as simple as making Fox slap his butt or rub it would be very hard, realistic body movements are much more difficult than animating such abstract shapes as gases. 

This work was a major breakthrough for me, now when I finally overcame my fear of realistic pixel art I know that I can do it and can suggest people pixel art commissions with much more confidence, I'd be glad to make more stuff like this for money. I'm still not aware of my skill limits and what things I can't do but the only way to find out is to try. Anyway I don't take money beforehand so there's nothing bad if I say "Sorry, I couldn't do it, it's too hard for me." 

And now for some less pleasant news. Me and Stone actually planned a double commission, a pencil drawing and Fox pixel art. Commission idea started with him asking me what am I thinking about characters with completely shaven butt. Not so long before this conversation I watched one episode of Johnny Test where Dukey got his butt fur removed and was very excited about it calling himself "Senior Smoothybuns" and asking everyone to rub his butt. There's just no better candidate for such idea so I suggested him, however Stone admitted that he is not a big fan of Dukey and can agree for this idea with two conditions: Dukey will be accompanied with Dudley from TUFF Puppy and the next commission will have a small discount. I agreed with those conditions because I love Dudley no less than Dukey and pixel art is easier than pixel drawing so it deserves some discount anyway. But when I did the sketch Stone realized that it still doesn't work for him. It's not my fault and it's not about my style, he just thought that another character will make the scene with Dukey more acceptable but it didn't. So, commission was canceled with Stone compensating the time and effort I spent on the sketch with 20% of the initial price and I had to just go on with pixel art idea. It was a very awkward situation and one of the reasons why I want to stop doing commissions in future when Patreon income will be enough for a good life but I don't blame him. Situation is still understandable, I was compensated and Stone is just a very good customer, he is the one thanks to whom you got incredible works like "Intense Rivalry" with Crash and Tiny, "It's a Butt Time" with 5 Crashes, "Ratchet's Secret Obsession" and the recent sequence with Volk and Vityai cumflation. I just feel very sorry that such a good idea was canceled, I even managed to jerk off to the sketch already, it has a great potential for a plenty of exquisitely dirty edits (you can easily imagine) but god knows if I ever finish it just for myself now or not. It can take forever. The only chance is if somebody will shelter a poor thing and take this commission on themselves. Idk if it's gonna happen. All I can do for now is to fulfill my duty on sharing this sketch with you here.