Calv’s take on The Great Wave off Kanagawa by Katsushika Hokusai, in pixel art [?].
Originally posted by Calv on Pixel Joint. [+]

Black and White in their home; a broken car in a backstreet in Treasure Town.

I watched this animated film today, and all I can say is that it was astounding, in every way. The attention to the details is extraordinary; each frame is full of wonderful detail, it can be used as a standalone piece of art. The animation is slick, the music is great, and the colors really stand out.

Robolert v1.0 is finally the complete version of this high-tech intrusion-detecting line of robots. The robot is relatively tiny at 35 cm in height, and only 2.5 kg in weight. Being that portable, it has become very popular with shifting guards. They bring it with them to the location, switch it on, and then let it wander around. It makes their job so much easier.

Technically speaking, the robot carries two very sensitive optical cameras located in its eyes. It detects the slightest changes in the environment. Its feet are also padded with very sensitive devices that detect sound waves transmitted through the ground. When a verified intrusion is detected, the robot produces ear-blowing alerting sounds from 6 loud speakers set on its antennas (2), ears (2) and legs (2). Moreover, 2 extra speakers that work wirelessly are projected from both of its arms into different directions of space to extend the range of its alerts as far as possible.

It comes with a remote control that controls the unit, and also shows where the unit is situated.

Robolert v1.0 was designed by TripleH Labs with portability and effectiveness in mind.

More pixel art is on my DeviantART page.

• Having recently talked about Studio Pixel’s Cave Story, I thought: why not talk about pixel art?

• From Wikipedia ,

Pixel art is a form of digital art, created through the use of raster graphics software, where images are edited on the pixel level. Graphics in most old (or relatively limited) computer and video games, graphing calculator games, and many mobile phone games are mostly pixel art. Pixel art is distinguished from other forms of digital art by an insistence upon manual, pixel-level editing of an image (without the application of image filters, automatic anti-aliasing or special rendering modes), often at close magnification. In this form, it is commonly said that “each pixel was placed carefully” to achieve a desired result.

• Pixel art, while not aware of it at the time, constituted a major part of the art I perceived as a child. Evident in retro video games, graphics drawn in such way was to me instantly related to high technology. It looked unique and inspired. The precision put behind each tiny image is more than that of a large modern image, which is amazing. Today, as an adult, pixel art is still interesting to me. Video games with retro-style, in which pixel art is heavily utilized, still bring a warm nostalgia to time passed. I think only those who have witnessed pixel art as children grow up to appreciate it.

Read on for examples of this type of art and how to create it yourself.

Cave Story (洞窟物語, Doukutsu Monogatari) is a freeware action-adventure video game released in 2004 for PC, designed and created over five years by Daisuke Amaya, art-name: Pixel. It has been translated by fans to English by Aeon Genesis.

The game has been highly received by both critics and gamers. In the July 2006 issue of Swedish game magazine Super PLAY, Cave Story was given 1st place on their list of the 50 best freeware games of all time.

A PSP port was developed by a fan, -Z. It supports PSP’s native screen format, and is overall emulated almost perfectly. Only a few text glitches here and there. It also come with Japanese text in addition to the English text.

• Website of PSP version of Cave Story
• Cave Story tribute site
• Cave Story on Wikipedia