5th at the Revision 2024 Textmode Graphics Compo (March 30, 2024) (VOD)

When Revision 2024 was coming up, RaccoonViolet encouraged me to join its Textmode Graphics Competition. Thus, the weekend before the entry submission period opened, I began drawing up a piece of concept art for the futuristic solarpunk world where Cyber Purge takes place, where nature is part of all civilization, and which is populated by people of all shapes and sizes. It took only two days to finish, after which I used a third day to do some touch-ups. Ultimately, it would place 5th at a compo stacked with excellent entries, which is no mean feat for an artist entering the biggest demoparty in the world for the first time!

This was drawn entirely in the original Moebius rather than my variant of choice MoebiusXBIN. Per the rules of the compo, I had to not only draw this with the standard VGA 8x16 font (instead of my usual 8x14), but also do it for the classic ".ANS" ANSI art format, which is a text file that uses ANSI escape codes (as opposed to a video memory dump like XBIN), which meant I couldn't use characters that would be interpreted as control codes in MS-DOS. This, for example, ruled out using the round dot characters (• and ◘) in any fashion, as code page 437 assigns them to the codes for bell and backspace (respectively). On top of this, I was not only limited to the default 16-color EGA palette, but also forbidden from using bright background colors (or "iCE Colors"), further restricting how I could use the 16 colors together.

Luckily, by this point I'd developed a sense for how to fit within the limits imposed upon me, and I am overall pleased with how this came out in the end.

I would like to thank everyone who attended Revision 2024, in-person or remote, for the love brought to this piece, a first-time demoparty entry which won 5th place in a Textmode Graphics compo stacked with outstanding entries at the biggest demoparty in the world. I was thrilled to see my ANSI artwork shown live at the E-Werk and the worldwide livestreams, and hope to see everyone again with more ANSI action next year! (Photos by RaccoonViolet)

Here is an animation featuring all the workstages for this piece. Note how big the tree started out before I shrank it down over successive stages. :)

(No sound since it's all handled via OBS)

I don't remember if I ever shared this, but it's one of four anime-style bumpers I made for stream AFK transitions. Ironically between not streaming as often as I tell myself because [brain chemicals], often forgetting to take breaks when I do stream lately [see: brain chemicals], and making other transitions like the Super Quiz, and having four different bumpers, it's a pretty small chance anyone's ever seen most of these.

Viewership isn't the point, I just found them fun to make, but art can't be appreciated in a vacuum. I'll put 'em up on my site somewhere down the line.