READY

So, on my Tumblr (and to a lesser extent on my Flickr) I've started this thing of taking pictures of cups of coffee I have when I go out. Sometimes there's an accompanying pastry, but I'm a bit strapped for cash, so only coffee this time. Originally, I was going to post the one photo (on the left), and then later post the other with some comment like, "recharged." That's when I started thinking about the Mega Man games with "Ready" at the start of each level. I don't do as much game-themed artwork as I'd like to, and this seemed like a fun little gag to throw out there, get used to more complex layouts (compared to my normal stuff). 
ENMAX is a reference to Thexder, a really neat old-school platformer from back in the days of Tandy (Radioshack's old internal brand of personal computers). It was developed by Game Arts, best known for the Grandia series of RPGs. Thexder NEO is a remake released on the Playstation Network and what I've been playing more recently to get me in the right mindset for another somewhat gaming-themed work I'll hopefully have up in the next day or two. 

Note: The coffee didn't cost 0.50USD, that's only the tip.

Blue Nazca Four

This one was fun. I don't work with much color, and I wanted to challenge that here. I knew I wanted the line to be orange (because yellow really doesn't "pop" against blue as well as you'd think), but I wasn't sure how to do it. There was no way orange marker was going to show up on blue, and that would have been really tedious to paint around, if not impossible. I tried a color exchange in post, swapping the blacks for oranges (this was on One, since I hadn't finalized the linework for Four), which seemed to work, but not as well as I would have liked. I tried doing the line in a vector program so I could add it over the background in post, but the only vector program I'm really familiar with is the one in Google Drive, and that was really hard to work with. Finally, I decided to scan the background, invert its color (which would be more orange since it's a very light blue), layer it behind the second scan (now with the line work done in ink), and set the blacks to transparent. So, it's not only a nice, orange line, but it's got a texture to it.

VECTOR 5NA1TF

Ladies and gentlemen (and all those in between who say, "Nuts to labels!"), I give you the first and possibly only appearance of 5NA1TF, a robot made using a vector editor in Google Drive's office suite. The background, embers, and text are done in GIMP.
The serial number (which would have been visible on the main body had I found a shade of gray I was happy with) stands for "5ir Not Appearing 1n This Film" as he is not part of the storyline for That Which Never Lived.

PSYSTAR: WRAITH SYMPHONY

Released as RABID RALPH'S ROCKET RHAPSODY in the US with terrible, terrible box art not unlike the image above because we're uncultured swines like that. 
Anyway, just something I farted out in GIMP in ten minutes—including a bathroom break—after watching that Futurama episode where the Martian doomsday rocket leaves earth, cutting a lovely blue streak against an orange, cloudy sky. 

Also, someone somewhere posted this diatribe (against a gradient background they probably labored over for hours) about how science has ruined their imagination, making them second guess and scrutinize every piece of fantasy art they either come across or make. To that person, I offer this image and these words:  SUPERNOVAS TURN OXYGEN INTO GOLD. That fantastic enough for you? 

You Needn't Fear

You Needn't Fear by *NeuronPlectrum on deviantART

Tried something different with this one, albeit it started as just faffing about instead of working on other stuff. I put the watermark below the image instead of over it (I'll have to figure out how to put a drop shadow on text in GIMP) and I also submitted this directly to my Tumblr page (instead of just using the share buttons on the Deviation page). I don't quite agree with the notion that Tumblr is a good place to post art in lieu of either DeviantART or the like. At least, I don't think it's a good place to post art exclusively. I may write more about this sentiment, but not right now.

UPDATE: And just for the sake of redundancy (and entertaining the possibility of using Blogger as well as Tumblr to post artwork directly, here's what the image would look like if uploaded directly here).

Star Squid Map

Star Squid Map by *NeuronPlectrum on deviantART

Two Forests

Schwarzwald by *NeuronPlectrum on deviantART
VIVAIO by *NeuronPlectrum on deviantART