A while back I was asked to be a part of a special Street Fighter tribute book from Udon. It's a massive book full of various artist's take on the Street Fighter world to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the series. I was honored to be asked to participate and I spent a lot of time trying to figure out who I'd draw. When it comes to  the game, I tend to be a Ken man but in my opinion he's not that much fun to draw. I ended up settling on Zangief since I've always thought he was hilarious. Here's a peek at my contribution.

During the Paint the Line series I had a lot of requests for individual panels to be made into wallpapers. I went ahead and made a bunch based on what seemed to be the most popular. Thanks to everyone that mailed me about the artwork in this series. We've been talking about doing Paint the Line for more than two years, so I've had a lot of time to think about these scenes. It was fun to finally draw the match on the submarine and the kiss between Tycho andOksana after thinking about them for so long.

Speaking of oksana, I had a lot of people mail me to tell me that she's "the hottest girl you've ever drawn." I think you are probably right but I honestly can't take much credit for it. The character of Oksana is based on a real table tennis player named Biba Golic. She plays in exhibition matches all over the world as a part of the Killerspin Krew.

During my vacation I played a lot of Final Fantasy Tactics A2. At this point I feel very comfortable recommending it to fans of tactics games or FF in general. The game is really beautiful with gorgeous backgrounds and special effects that look like they belong on the PS2 rather than the DS.  I also read  a great book by Jack  Mcdevitt called Seeker. I've picked up quite a few of his books because his covers tend to meet my stringent requirements. So far I've been really impressed with everything I've read from him but Seeker stands out as being especially good in my opinion. If you dig hard Sci-Fi you should check him out.

So, that's it. The Line has been well and truly Painted. I won't say where the painting occurred, as that might constitute spoiler material. This was originally supposed to be two separate strips (which probably shows) but I accidentally said it was ending today so he drew both.  Let's hear it for the artist, ladies and gentlemen!

Have you ever heard of Fairway Solitaire?  It's one of those "casual" games you might find while you're slumming at Big Fish.  Except this isn't one of those games where you have to click and click and click until you find the hidden broom.  Oh no.  

We'll be choosing the Omeganauts for PAX this week, those brave souls who will compete during the event for this year's ultimate prize.  We start that process tomorrow, and they're chosen at random from a list of preregistrants, so if you'd like to be considered for this noble endeavor you'll need to preregistrate.  Or, preregister.  Either one!

The second to last installment is now go, which means we'll again have to forage for news come Wednesday. It's been nice down here, beneath the hatch, out of the rain. It's been a Goddamned vacation, an opportunity to run my brain under cold river water, snowmelt coursing down thwarting crags to rinse my taxed meninges. I am overjoyed that I never had, or took, an opportunity to talk about this 2.4 shit, and algorithmic flexing of a community tripping over itself to act as proxies in this week's PR skirmish.

Substantially improved my day.  The man turns one of crazy animatronic pizza house bands into some bizarre interpretive art form.  Saw it here originally, but you should check out this site for the background.

I guess things can only heat up so much.

Oh, ho! It would appear that things are heating up! Particularly near the booster rockets, I would imagine, but that's not the only place.

It's the sort of thing that isn't covered explicitly by the rules,  but it does make for simple adjudication.

I guess this is just like post day or something. I'll try and put everything else I want to mention into one post here.

Our store now has Penny Arcade book 5. This one kicks off with a very nice introduction from Wil Wheaton and then covers all our comics from 2004. You can also pick up a five book bundle which will get you significant savings.

Also new to the store is our very first hat. This one comes emblazoned with Kiko's "Heroism" design.

In other news, these guys are playing like every single Mario game ever and their doing it live on Ustream. Under normal circumstances I'd call these guys bat shit insane. However, they're doing this in an effort to raise money for Child's Play. The only thing I can't understand is why they didn't call it the Mariothon. I mean, come on guys.

The next installment of our epic D&D adventure is now online. People really seem to like Jim Darkmagic so I made a wallpaper based on the art for today's podcast.

I don't know if it's the summer break or what but I've been getting a lot of mail from people who are just now trying out our game. Many of them end with questions about episode 2 and it's release date. I can't say for sure when it will be done but I can say that my work on it is pretty much complete and I've actually started sketching and visualizing some of the elements in episode 3. I've also had a few people ask about moving their character from episode 1 to episode 2. Your character will transfer over and you'll actually get some cool bonuses if you do. That's not to say that you couldn't start the series at episode 2 but those of you moving your existing characters over will just get a couple extra treats.

Like I said, my work on the second episode is done for the most part. I'm still looking over all the new cut scenes as they come in and that sort of thing but all the concept art has been done for a while. In fact I thought I'd share one of my favorites with you guys here. I don't want to go into too much detail about where you encounter these guys or why but here's the design for one of the new enemies.

By the end of this excursion, I vow that no line will be left unpainted. Part two of our Line Painting Extravaganza (LPE) can be found here. Because these comics are being stockpiled for his vacation, I basically have them all in front of me now. If you consider the premise ridiculous, and this would be understandable, know now that we have only begun to redic. Making games is a hard, hard dollar, and I think that Precipice will probably give me my fill of the practice, but God Damn what I wouldn't do for a turn-based, strategic game of Table Tennis with Paint the Line as its thematic underpinning.