Hand-Drawn Game Guides: Mega Man

Wily's Revenge Art Reveal + A Closer Look at the Collector's Tier
about 1 year ago – Mon, Feb 03, 2025 at 10:05:47 AM

Hi everyone,

Hope you had a nice weekend. Today I wanted to share with you a look at the key art for Mega Man: Dr. Wily's Revenge. We're considering this section of the book "Bonus Content" and with that it's going to be getting a different treatment both in presentation and art.

As you can see, I'm going with an overall cuter vibe for the characters, and the actual content will feel more like the layouts you'd see in Nintendo Power. As there is a lot of overlap in enemies and abilities in this game, I thought it would be cool to approach it with a different look. Hopefully you like it, as this piece will be featured as Side #2 of the double-sided posters in the Collector's Tier!

With this we figured it would be a good time to walk through the Collector's Tier extras in more detail than we've previously offered. Let's take a look!

1. 1. Hand-Drawn Game Guides: Mega Man Hardcover Book - Obviously you're getting the full hardcover, physical guidebook that includes coverage of both Mega Man and Mega Man: Dr. Wily's Revenge.
2. 2. Hand-Drawn Game Guides: Mega Man Digital Book - You'll also get the digital version of the same book!

1. 3. Double-Sided Bookmark - The bookmark features the lovable Mets! It'll come in a protective sleeve with a tassel. (They'll be aligned vertically for the actual bookmark, but I lined them up horizontally for this post.)

1. 4. Sticker Sheet - We're also going to include a sticker sheet with some iconic bad guys, and of course Mega Man himself.! (The characters we'll choose for this one are still subject to change, but this image offers a good idea of what to expect.) You'll be able to place these guys wherever you want. I'll probably load up my CRT with them!

1. 5. 10 Double-Sided Art Cards (3.5 inches wide by 5 inches tall) - In the book each boss encounter (like the Guts Man fight above) will have tips and text overlaid on it, similar to what you saw with the VS. Cut Man art. For the art cards we'll feature the full art without any of the tips overlaid! Then, on the reverse side, we'll also feature a piece of forward-facing profile art for each character. You'll be getting cards for Mega Man, Roll, Dr. Light, Dr. Wily, Bomb Man, Guts Man, Cut Man, Elec Man, Ice Man, and Fire Man. (Also, if we hit Stretch Goal #3, you'll additionally be getting an 11th card featuring the Yellow Devil, which we shared last week.)
2. 6. Two Double-Sided Posters (18 inches wide by 24 inches tall) - The posters will feature the key art for both games. And since these posters are double-sided and you'll be getting two of them, you'll be able to display both sides without having to choose one over the other!
3. 7. Your Name in the Book - And finally, you'll get your name printed in the book as a special thanks! (After the campaign concludes, you'll be sent a survey. In it you'll be able to specify which name it is you would like to have printed. You can pick your own name, or a friend's name, or whatever! It just can't be anything that includes offensive language or advertising.)

As mentioned before, some of the layouts and art on these extras may be tweaked by the time it comes to do the final printing, and every piece of art will need to go through Capcom's approval process. But hopefully this gives you a much better idea of what to expect!

If you've already pledged at a lower tier but would like to upgrade to the Collector's Edition, you can adjust your pledge by first visiting the main project page and then clicking the “Manage your pledge" button. On the following page, select "Change your pledge". You can do that any time before the campaign concludes at the end of the day on February 13.

After the campaign is over, pledge management will shift over to BackerKit. You'll get an email notification and a link that will take you to their pledge manager interface, where you can also switch to a different tier or add on extra items. All of these extra items will be available separately as add-ons through BackerKit, but getting them all together by pledging for the full Collector's Edition saves a lot of money versus adding the same items to your order later on! So go ahead and grab the CE package if you want the best value.

Thanks again for everything and enjoy the rest of your day!

~Phil

Prize Man Giveaway #3! + Giveaway #2 Winners!
about 1 year ago – Wed, Jan 29, 2025 at 10:01:35 AM

Hi everyone,

Before we hand it over to Prize Man, I wanted to extend another thank you to you all: We recently crossed over 2,100 backers and we're nearing $100,000 total! Insane!! Once we hit that, we'll unlock our next Stretch Goal featuring fancy, printed endsheets for the book that will be overflowing with conceptual sketches. After that, our next Stretch Goal is at the $120,000 mark: If it's also unlocked, everyone pledged at the Physical Tier and above will be getting a sweet double-sided Yellow Devil Art Card added to their order for free. You can see samples of both below!

In addition, this week we were also named a Kickstarter "Project We Love"! It's a great honor and we're proud to have earned it from the Kickstarter team. So, thank you to Kickstarter for that! OK, on to the giveaway!

~ Phil

Prize Man taking over from here! We've got a great one coming up, but first let's congratulate the randomly selected winners from last week's The Impact of Iwata giveaway:

Benedikt Ludwig

Manley Peterson

Mr. MegaManFan

Congrats to our winners! We'll be in touch soon to figure out where to ship everything.

Now on to Giveaway #3....

We're happy to announce that we'll be giving away a one-year subscription to Nintendo Force Magazine to three lucky winners! That's six issues of NF Magazine delivered right to your door for free! (And if you win and you already happen to have a subscription to NF, you can gift your prize to a friend or family member and spread the joy!)

To enter, leave a comment on this post telling us what your favorite video game magazine is. It could be a currently running one like NF, a classic like Nintendo Power, or heck you could even mention a zine like Hand-Drawn Gaming. Remember that one? Or if you don't feel like writing a comment, simply "Like" the post. (That said, you might have a better chance of winning if you leave us a little something in the Comments section.)

Good luck to everyone! I'll see you again next week for our final giveaway!

~ Prize Man

New Art Preview: Climbing Yoku Blocks!
about 1 year ago – Fri, Jan 24, 2025 at 10:18:50 AM

Hi everyone,

Happy Friday! You might remember in Hand-Drawn Game Guides: Metroid there were large art spreads that showed off each new environment, really placing Samus within the surroundings she was exploring. People really loved those, and so I wanted to include something similar in Hand-Drawn Game Guides: Mega Man. While they might not always be full spreads, I'll be working in scenes like that throughout the book.

Today I wanted to share one of those scenes, which features none other than the infamous Yoku Blocks!

Also known as Appearing Blocks, Vanish Blocks, Bun Blocks or several other names, these "sometimes there/sometimes not" blocks likely ruined your day at some point in your life. They're generally some of the most difficult obstacles to overcome in every Mega Man game, though I think the blocks featured in the first Mega Man are some of the toughest! (Especially the blocks on Ice Man's stage.)

I hope you like today's art. Look forward to more like it in the final book!

~ Phil

Prize Man Giveaway #2! + Giveaway #1 Winners!
about 1 year ago – Wed, Jan 22, 2025 at 10:00:38 AM

Prize Man here! 

Last week we asked you about your favorite video game or Mega Man-related memories and you gave us some fantastic answers! Rest assured the team read through every single one of them. Because you all provided such great answers, we pulled two names from the Comments section and one name from the "Likes" section. Without further ado the three winners of Giveaway #1 featuring 202X: Video Game Reflections are . . .

Tim Langley

Jeramie Shake

Will Brown

Congratulations to our winners! Phil will be in touch with the winners shortly to figure out where to ship these prizes. Thank you to everyone that participated!

And now onto Giveaway #2....

We're happy to announce that we'll be handing out three copies of NF Publishing's first book, The Impact of Iwata! The Impact of Iwata is an incredible look into the life and achievements of Nintendo's legendary President, Satoru Iwata. 

Coming in at over 220 pages, the book tells the story of Mr. Iwata's entire career, including his time at HAL and Nintendo. It features spotlights on all of his milestone games and career highlights, and is full of stories, amazing artwork and even quotes from Mr. Iwata himself. Nintendo fans will absolutely love this fantastic tribute to Mr. Iwata's life!

To enter, just leave a comment on this post telling us about your all-time favorite game developer (it can be an individual like Shigeru Miyamoto, or a whole studio like Capcom). Or if you don't feel like writing a comment, simply "Like" the post. That said, you might have a better chance of winning if you leave us a little something in the Comments section.

Good luck to everyone! I'll see you again next week!

~ Prize Man

Stretch Goal #1 is Nearly Achieved! + Stretch Goals #2 and #3 Revealed!
about 1 year ago – Tue, Jan 21, 2025 at 06:05:55 PM

Our humble Hand-Drawn Game Guides: Mega Man Kickstarter has been kicking around for a solid week now, and here at the one-week mark, we find ourselves right on the cusp of clearing our first Stretch Goal! We set the bar to hit at $80,000, and as of this writing we're sitting right at $79,000. So hopefully we'll clear that first hurdle soon!

If and when that last $1,000 comes in to get us over 80k, everyone's physical copies of HDGG: Mega Man will be officially upgraded with an extra gloss effect! Phil and I have agreed that we like Stretch Goals that everyone gets to benefit from, so we kicked things off with one of those.

So . . . how about another?

Another enhancement that could benefit every printed copy of the book would be to print some extra art on its endsheets! "Endsheets" are those extra pieces of paper in hardcover books that are placed between the cover and the main block of interior pages. Most of the time they're just blank white, or sometimes another solid color. But for an additional investment during print production, they can be snazzed up with some extra art!

So for Stretch Goal #2, if we hit $100,000 or more in pledges, we're going to kick the boring, blank white endsheets to the curb and swap in some additional Phil art in their place. Our thought right now is that we would use those positions to showcase some of Phil's earliest Mega Man sketches – his style-exploration brainstorming pages from when this project was in its absolute infancy and he was just beginning to find what Mega Man's look would be for this book. It would be a nice way to (literally) bookend the final book!

And how about a little more? Let's go ahead and toss Stretch Goal #3 into the mix:

If we keep climbing and manage to get up above $120,000 in total pledges, then we're going to create an additional Art Card and add it to everyone's packages who have pledged at the Physical Tier and above. Currently, the Collector's Edition tier and higher are hosting a Set of 10 Art Cards – these will contain art dedicated to the 10 main characters of the first Mega Man game, meaning Mega Man himself, Dr. Light, Dr. Wily, Roll and the six Robot Masters. This bonus Art Card would add an 11th character to that mix: the iconic Yellow Devil! But . . . you'll have to wait to get your first look at Phil's take on the good old "Rock Monster." Gotta save some stuff for later updates!

More Stretch Goals are being brainstormed over and above those, so let's keep that support rolling in! 

And that's all from me tonight, but come back tomorrow for Prize Man's Giveaway #2 . . . as well as our reveal of who won Giveaway #1!

~ Lucas M. Thomas