This is fanart for Bubble Bobble, a game that I have never ever played in my life. So why did I draw it? Well, the answer's pretty simple. Earlier this week, DecafCoffee from the 910CMX forums dropped a line in the threads of a bunch of artists there, requesting various things from us to try and get us to do something a little different from our usual fare. And he appropriately titled it the "Out-of-the-Box-athon." My assignment was to draw Bub and Bob trapped in their own bubbles. And yes, much like the Galvantula fanart I did before it, it was different from my usual fare. =p Once again, I found myself dealing with a character design far too simple and cute to try and force extra details onto, so that meant the technical beauty had to come from the environment, i.e. the bubbles.

Speaking of the bubbles, when I came on dA earlier today to browse pics of Bub and Bob for reference, I stumbled upon a cool-looking sketch of some bubbles on the front page. So I checked out, and sure enough, in the description, there was a link to this tutorial. I didn't follow the exact instructions in that tutorial exactly to the letter (I drew the shapes freehand and colored them using a layer blending trick rather than including the color as part of the highlight layer), but damned if those bubbles aren't some of the most fun and beautiful things I've ever drawn. o.o Much love and props to *Apofiss for putting up that tutorial! You guys should seriously check out his gallery (it's mostly pictures of cats, but so is the internet in general these days), he has amazingness.

Bubble Bobble is (C) Taito.