Saturday night was opening night at The Hive and Temple of Vision’s joint “Heaven & Hell” show. PixelDrip was fortunate enough to have its own section within The Hive. Despite the short notice, J was able to organize the artists and their work together. The artists that participated April (J, Simon, Diego, Sasha, Celina, Naomi, and myself) returned with work they had on display at the UGTL show. Since I talked about those pieces already, I’ll talk more about the newer artists. Making their PixelDrip debut were Ricardo Martinez, Megan Horejsi, and John Park.

Ricardo brought in two paintings of Beat and Gum from Jet Grind Radio. That’s another game that the world needs to see more of. Ricardo posted his initial sketches of these online. I’m glad he took the time to rework them because the final paintings’ poses are an improvement over the originals. After looking at these two, I can see how Jet Grind Radio influenced Ricardo’s art style.

After hearing her talk about it for a good couple of months, I was glad to finally see Megan’s “They’ll Never Suspect A Thing” painting. Megan’s a die hard Legend of Zelda fan, so it was only natural for her to create this piece. Her painting is actually the first in a series she’s doing based on Majora’s Mask and we’ll probably see more at the next show in November. I’m glad she chose Majora’s Mask because that’s one of the underrated entries in the Zelda series that often gets overlooked by its predecessor, Ocarina of Time. Seeing it also reminds of Megan’s fantasy comic strip, “The Conjurors,” Which is currently on hiatus. *cough* draw more comics, Megan *cough*

John is another of the artists I’ve known for quite some time. Whether it’s due to exploding heads or projectile vomiting, John’s illustrations are always seething with intensity. His illustration of Mario punching out a koopa is no exception. If he ever gets a chance to continue working on this, I’d love to see it colored. I think it could add even more energy to the piece.

Celina participated in April, but she brought some new material this time around. I was pleasantly surprised to see the painted Pac-Man comic because I rarely get a chance to see examples of Celina’s sequential storytelling. Suffice to say, she once again managed to bring a smile to my face with it. I don’t care what anyone says, a well-paced joke about domestic household troubles is always funny. She also had a painting of gangsta versions of Mario, Luigi, and Princess Peach. You won’t be able to see that one in person anymore, as it was sold that night.

Like always, The Hive was a great venue and provided a great mix of artists on display. The art from the show will be on display until October 30th. Make sure to come by during Art Walk this coming Thursday, October 14th. It might be the last Art Walk for a while as the event may become quarterly instead of monthly.