Well, I don't know if I'd call it "art," but I am trying to paint for the first time since my beloved sixth grade art classes. With that said, I think this may be a project on my level, or it may turn into a horrible trainwreck for your own amusement.
Behold stage one:
Oh, what will it be, what WILL it be? Find out on the next page. I will throw two clues out here, though.
1. Despite current appearances, it is a video game craft project.
2. I got the idea from a t-shirt, so you know it's classy.
I don't really know much about art. I really loved the class in school, but the last painting I did was on the walls in my house. I know nothing about what techniques I should utilize, what the brushes or paints suit my needs best, or even if I'm doing what one would call, "a good job." I am having some fun, and in the spirit of gaming, I have established some rules to follow as I paint.
1 – Except for the canvas background, everything only gets one coat. Once the paint dries, I'm done with that color.
2 – Try to use as few brush strokes as possible. I'm trying to keep it very, very simple.
I have been able to follow my two rules so far, but to what end? Well, as I said on page one, this was inspired by a t-shirt I recently bought from Threadless.com. That t-shirt design was actually part of a series by Brock Davis, an actual artist. I thought it was really awesome idea, and something I might be able to half-way emulate.
As I said before, I am not an artist by trade or hobby, so I may not be using the best materials. I'm using an inexpensive canvas, a variety pack of brushes, and acrylic paints. Here is how I started out tonight.
If you looked at Brock Davis's work and you know your games, it's probably pretty obvious where I'm going with this. Last chance to guess before I spoil it on the next page.
It's Pac-Man! The proportions didn't go as well as I would like, but I'm doing this for fun and relaxation, so I'm not stressing. I did use the tape measure to find the middle of the maze and keep a few things even. Most of if was just eyeballed based on the screenshot I had open on my iPod.
I also wasn't happy at first with how light my strokes were in a few places, but the last time I did painting this fine was on some D&D miniatures a decade ago. I'm just putting that out there.
I really considered stopping here for the night to let the maze walls dry, but it struck me as very wrong to leave it without the main man, the main Pac-Man.
I like my Pac-Man blobs. I did the two lives icons in single strokes, but I had to fudge my rules a little on the Pac-Man in the maze. I'm happy with how he turned out, and I'm looking forward to finishing up this project this weekend.
The finished project is now on the last page.
When I started painting the pac-dots, I knew I needed to make a path for the Pac-Man I painted earlier to 
get from the starting point to the place I put him, so I figured that out. Then, I tore off some newsprint and put pieces down over the paths I didn't want to paint. That worked out well, but then I started thinking about the ghosts. I knew that the original Pac-Man had set patterns for the ghosts, and even though I was trying to avoid getting too into the details, I fired up my MAME cabinet to figure out their placement.
I was able to get Pac-Man in that location with those pac-dots and the Power Pellet missing. I had to eat a ghost, but it is possible to get him to that place without dying or eating more pac-dots than I painted. I paused the game, busted out my other four colors of paint, and finished it up without too much trouble. I did have to bend my rules about brush strokes, because the ghosts were just too faint. I thought that would have been kind of neat at first (they are ghosts), but it just wasn't doing anything for me, so I went over them a few times. Also, the cherries in the maze looked like a red wang before I added another stroke or two.
I like how it came out, and I'm thinking of doing one of the first screen of level 1-1 in Super Mario Bros. It was a fun project, it didn't cost much, and it wasn't difficult to make. If something like this interests you, be sure to check out my inspiration as well as the i am 8-bit works.