Hey hey! It's your boy back once again to do the update! How's everyone's December been treating them so far? Hopefully none of you lads and lasses have been getting sick, I've just about gotten over a sickness myself. Anyways, we've got a nice new batch of submissions to break down, so let's get right into it!

This week is a very interesting one, as a lot of these new additions are all batch submissions, rips one by one single person. We have DelfinoDurians' rips for Harvest Moon: A New Beginning and spyroid101's rips for a game called 'Dinosaur'Us'. Both of these games seems to be each one's first contributions to the site, so congratulations on leaving a first good impression!

Next up, Falconpunch and Biggest_Chungus once again deliver the goods for their respective mobile games, Fire Emblem Heroes and the Osomatsu-Kun games, so kudos once again on the consistency. MF5K, who you may have seen some time ago re-ripping Punch-Out!!, has provided some nice rips for Phred's Cool Punch-Out!!, and Modata brings us some rips from a Yu-Gi-Oh game on the PS Vita. (Gee, remember that old paperweight?)

Customs this week is a mostly Mega Man-related affair, mostly thanks to Rabbid4240's Game Boy-styled Mega Man content. Funnily enough, I've always wanted to do something like this but just never got around to it. ZEDIC0N once again delivers some of his very nice spritework, this time of the bosses from Mega Man & Bass. (Speaking of things I've wanted to do...) and Hansungkee, who seems to be on a bit of a Wai Wai World kick as of late, has made customs for the three protagonist characters from Captain N in that game's style.

And as always, more to be found in the rest of the update, so give it a look over and appreciate our submitters' hard work. Really stare at it, fix your gaze ceaselessly in their direction, let their pixels get burned int your retinas like the lights on a Christmas Tree after a hard night of drinking! Also let your local mods know that they're a bunch of Flumbos, they'll appreciate you for it, I promise. Anyways, it's about time I wrap this up like a present. But before I do, allow me to bring you a blast from the relatively recent past with another edition of MisterMike's Spriting Tip of the Day!

Today's tip is less about the technical aspects of pixel art and moreso the concepts that these pixels are founded on. It's become apparent to me that many of you lads and lasses tend to fancy particular types when making your custom work. Whether that be the simplicity of the Mega Man NES art style or the simple-yet-elegant designs of the Mario franchise's many unique characters named Mario and Luigi, people tend to get very set in their ways regarding what content they make and submit as customs on here.

Of course that's not inherently a bad thing. Many people simply vibe more with a particular franchise or style over others, typically because it's what they're familiar with, however such familiarity can just as easily become a crutch that prevents them from improving their craft. It can be very comfortable in another's shadow, after all. This is why I often strive to make sprites of things that are unique in some way, something that few-to-no people have bothered to make before. Good examples of this are my Zelda II-Styled sprites for characters from the animes Goblin Slayer and Rising of the Shield Hero, or my Mega Man 11 NES-Styled Bosses sheets. There's a certain satisfaction I feel in being able to not only make something of quality, but also make something that few have seen before.

Of course it's not like this is a unique way of thinking, as plenty people here make very unique sprites. I mean, this update contains customs for Pop Team Epic of all thing, a series which is very light on customs around these parts. But the point I'm getting at is this: Be open to new ideas, and try and challenge yourself every now and again. Look to what others have made and try to find out what cool new things haven't been tried before. After all, the last thing we need is more people submitting Sonic 1 Tokyo Toy Show customs... not that there's anything wrong with that, of course, but when so many people are doing the same thing so close to eachother... yeah, maybe try something else.

Anyways, long update has been long, time to end it already. If I don't see you lot again this month, have a good rest of your year and try to enjoy your holidays as best you can!
Peace out!