Bauwerks
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Bauwerks
@bauwerks.net
96 followers 69 following 2K posts
Writes for software companies, and sometimes the VFX/animation industries. Also an amateur animator and hobbyist photographer in my free time.

https://bauwerks.net

Tags: #art / #animation / #photography
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Update: looks like it is from Pocket Power (dn710203.ca.archive.org/0/items/Retr...) — see p. 35. Also spotted this cool Katsuya Terada drawing for an Iron Sword ad a couple pages prior, too.
Iron Sword ad with a Katsuya Terada color drawing of a Conan-like warrior holding a huge sword in his right hand facing downward and touching the ground.
December 20, 2025 at 10:37 PM
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Good points! I was thinking back to that Snake's Revenge ad when I wrote that post, but I went by memory instead of pulling it up from my Imai folder. Now that I've pulled it up, even his more realistically-drawn characters still look pretty rounded in the facial features than that RCR illo.
An ad for Snake's Revenge for NES, with character artwork by Shuji Imai. The characters are drawn a bit more realistically than Imai's more cartoony style for the Howard & Nester comics or most of his other illustrations, and the facial features are more rounded.
December 19, 2025 at 9:24 PM
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I'm flipping through that issue of NP you linked to on your latest Tumblr post with Imai's Double Dragon II artwork, and I spotted this in the River City Ransom section (archive.org/details/Nint...). Wasn't sure if this was Imai too — not much hatching or stippling, but the facial features...
December 19, 2025 at 3:53 PM
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🤣
In the same vein as "apply for that job you feel unqualified for", should I take this as a cue to put my amateur hat into the ring?

bauwerks.net/los-angeles/
Color photo looking southwest along the Malibu coastline at El Matador Beach, with a square-ish rock formation on the left side and sunbeams barely peeking in from the top-left. Color photo looking at some sparse rocks in the middle of the ocean at El Matador. The morning fog/haze is still lingering. Black-and-white photo of rocks amid the fog at El Matador, with the sun shining and looking blurry through the fog. Black-and-white photo from inside a cave looking through the small, San Francisco-shaped opening out towards the rocks and beach at El Matador.
December 18, 2025 at 5:55 PM
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I agree w/ Derek's comments in general, but I want to present this as a counterpoint to the quoted excerpt he highlights. At the end of the day, Kojima's running his own small studio that's released 2 games in 10 years. They need to sell!

(Source: automaton-media.com/en/news/deat...)
In a recent interview with Nikkei Cross Trend, Hideo Kojima gave some insights about how Kojima Productions approached development of Death Stranding 2: On the Beach, including the tricky subject of difficulty. “We gave a lot of thought to difficulty,” Kojima says. He notes that despite ultimately attracting over 20 million players, the original Death Stranding had some “pretty sharp edges,” so improving playability was one thing he was conscious of with the sequel. “We wanted to retain the theme and gameplay mechanics, but make adjustments so it’s easier to play. That’s why we added more vehicles, for example.” Interestingly, he admits to intentionally leaving in some “extreme” design choices in the first Death Stranding, which led to the game having two major points where players dropout rates soared. One of these was the mission in which you deliver President Bridget Strand’s dead body. On the other hand, when making Death Stranding 2, the developers didn’t include these kinds of intentionally punishing moments, and more players are able to reach the game’s ending as a result. At the same time, Kojima is aware that the milder difficulty made some hardcore players find the sequel “lukewarm” compared to Death Stranding, commenting that the right balance is hard to find when it comes to difficulty.
December 18, 2025 at 5:17 PM
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Relatedly, just this morning I read this interview w/ Seaman creator Yoot Saito in the latest issue of APWOT, where Saito says Shigeru Miyamoto was a huge supporter of his game, even wearing a Seaman shirt to an interview & saying "If these weird games don't sell, then our industry won't survive".
What was the reaction at Sega when you first shared with them your concept for Seaman. Was there much scepticism about such an unusual idea, and unproven technology? Yoot Saito: When we first proposed Seaman, there were of course people who were sceptical of the concept. I heard that there were voices within Sega, especially from the sales force, saying that it was wrong to put so much effort into something like this as a launch title for the company's new hardware. But there were many allies in this project too. Outside of Sega, Nintendo's Shigeru Miyamoto was particularly supportive of the idea from the beginning, and since Nintendo was preparing to launch a new disc-based machine, business negotiations for bringing Seaman to the GameCube also existed in parallel with Sega. Who was your champion at Sega? Yoot Saito: The person who served as our point of contact in negotiations with Sega was Mr. Irimajiri, who at the time was the vice president of Sega. He later became president of Sega. He used to be the president of Honda USA where he had established a reputation as a genius engineer of gasoline engines. He didn't know much about games, which is a good thing for us, because that's why he was on board with our Seaman project. He didn't have any preconceived notions. At Sega, it was mostly people in the marketing department who opposed us. They were constantly pushing for games that would be guaranteed successes in the market, and had less time for more experimental concepts. Even though Seaman launched on Dreamcast, Miyamoto-san continued to support us. He appeared in a videogame magazine wearing a Seaman T-shirt. In that interview he pointed at his shirt and said:, "The Japanese game industry will be ruined if games like this don't sell." I am so honoured.
December 15, 2025 at 5:14 PM
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While watching ep. 10 of Crayon Shin-Chan I paused on this frame and immediately noticed the weird textures visible through the mom's skirt. It's actually semi-transparent and you can see the background through it, though I'm not sure what those other visible lines forming a Y come from.
Screenshot of Crayon Shin-Chan episode 10 where Shinnosuke is climbing up a female mannequin in a pink bikini, and Shinnosuke's mom is covering the right side of the frame as she runs over to grab Shinnosuke. The shopping mall's display cases are barely visible through the mom's light blue skirt, and there seems to be some kind of texture like folded paper creases, and it's only on the skirt area. The rest of the mom is opaque. The next frame of Shinnosuke's mom running over to grab him. You can still make out the display case through her skirt, and the weird textures from the previous frame are also in the same spot, just not as visible as the blue skirt has moved over on the frame.
December 15, 2025 at 4:03 PM
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It's fun seeing Azuma draw those characters in his current style, like in the Supplementary Lessons miniseries, and even Yotsuba (if you read the fan translations).
A cover of Azumanga Daoih: Supplementary Lessons, with the cast lounging around on the floor and on a loveseat in someone's living room. Everyone's reading, snacking, or holding teddy bears. A panel from chapter 114 of Yotsuba & !, where Osaka is dressed as a gym teacher and talking to the girls by a low-hanging bar. She says, "Hey ya'll. Hayasaka, and Ayase, and..."
December 14, 2025 at 4:40 PM
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Yeah, I know that's Funassyi's official role on paper or whatever, but let's not kid ourselves, or deny the joy on Sasaki's face here: this is the real prize, in his mind.
Funassyi jumping up in celebration with the jockey (D. Sasaki?) who won whatever race is being celebrated here. Sasaki (?) looks like this jump is the real prize for him.
December 13, 2025 at 8:49 PM
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<sarcasm>Ope, huge dent, damaged goods, that's gonna affect the retail price. Who'd give that as a prized gift?</sarcasm>
Side profile of Funassyi facing left, the face heavily pushed inward and looking like a massive dent. Another crop of Funassyi and its dented left side, this time holding its arms up and probably trying to pull the costume back out to form.
December 13, 2025 at 3:47 PM
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I'm not too familiar with Saito's art, but one thing is immediately clear: dude draws good hands.

His art style is very appealing and has qualities I miss seeing in modern illustration, but his hands-drawing tells me all I need to know about his skills.
Crop of Link's hands from one of the illustrations. He's holding his sword in his left hand, with the index and middle fingers opened up a bit, and his right hand is partially open. Crop of Ganon with his left hand open and aiming down to grab something. Crop of Ganon's hands projecting a fireball like Ryu or Ken's hadouken, or Son Goku's kamehameha move. Another crop of Link with his right hand open, showing foreshortening.
December 11, 2025 at 8:10 PM
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Snatcher dedication intro screen, but text is replaced to say "This video is dedicated to all the da hong pao I drank while working on it."
December 11, 2025 at 6:04 PM
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........................😑.................................

Thankfully I don't need to spend time and energy refuting these in the comments because others are already doing so.
"Demon Attack (1982, Imagic) - Intellivision I spent my morning testing out a Mattel Intellivision that a friend gave me and came to some pretty startling conclusions. The console’s (very) noisy RF signal goes some way to adding texture to its simplistic graphics." (Screenshot from Demon Attack showing a space ship on a moon-like planet with Earth off in the distance, fighting a couple aliens in space with visible interference noise on the screen.) "Frogger (1983, Sega) - Intellivision This isn’t standard RF noise either. It is definitely a few steps above the Famicom for example. Hard to believe this is the reality of how players saw the home versions of their favorite arcade games for many years." (Frogger screenshot with similar noise, more visible since the colors are brighter) "Centipede (1983, Atari) - Intellivision What is striking to me is how in motion, through the haze, this truly does FEEL like playing Centipede. The player can make out just enough information to keep things playable, and the soundscape is mostly in tact as well." (Screenshot of Centipede, same noise as the previous two photos) "Donkey Kong (1982, Coleco) - Intellivision I’m not saying any of this is preferable, but it’s a far cry from the blocky objects I’m used to seeing when I’ve played games from this era via emulation over the years. But man… no wonder the NES felt like a revelation lol." (Screenshot of Donkey Kong, same noise)
December 11, 2025 at 5:46 PM
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I feel like staying grounded in a creative job/industry by telling yourself that it's still a job is an underappreciated skill. Go too far in the artsy side and you sound like a detached loon (method actors always in character), go too practical and you sound soulless ("Eh, it's a gig").
"Coogler said, adding that he truly fell in love with filmmaking once he understood that, at its core, it's a job."
December 10, 2025 at 9:57 PM
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I've got nothing on who did what for the Animaniacs logo, but on a different note — Dismukes's portfolio is kinda wild.
The full logo for Animaniacs with the characters posing inside the WB shield. The classic logo for Megadeth. A logo for Full House.
December 10, 2025 at 4:03 PM
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Look who's back! (I really need to work on my spot metering, though.)
Another praying mantis on the street.
December 4, 2025 at 11:18 PM
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A crop of Shinya Arino's head with a couple golden ratio arches centered on his left eye, and on the tie knot in the illustration of his interview in the newest issue of APWOT, and just seeing how the arches align with Arino's head.
December 2, 2025 at 5:17 PM
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I don't have the Aladdin art book (did they make an art book?), but I do have Mulan, and here are production stills from that art book compared to this 35mm/blu-ray comparison. This book was published in 1998. Pic 4 is the back cover, you literally don't even need to open the book to compare these!
35mm/blu-ray comparison of Mulan from a scene with Chinese soldiers riding horses on a snowy field. The 35mm shot looks yellow-white in the snow and background, while the blu-ray has a slightly cooler look for the snow and the background has a more olive green hue to it. Production still from the Mulan art book. The sky in the background is more olive green like the blu-ray shot in photo 1. A production still of the main bad guy pointing two fingers to screen right. The back cover of the Mulan art book of horse-mounted soldiers riding in the snow. Like picture 2, the cool-blue snow and olive-green sky more closely match the blu-ray than the 35mm print.
December 1, 2025 at 12:28 AM
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Disney's had a (deserved) bad reputation for restoring their films with oversaturated colors for 20+ years, but that doesn't mean vivid colors were verboten, as these production stills show (also from the Lion King art book, again from 1994). Which version do you think these more closely resemble?
From the Lion King art book, a production still of Mufasa and Rafiki hugging. Colors aren't quite as vivid as the blu-ray but are closer to that than the 35mm print. Production still of the zebras kicking up dirt and beginning to kneel down. Color sheet diagrams of Rafiki and Zazu from Disney's CAPS system. The colors again more closely resemble the blu-ray than the 35mm print. Production still of impalas looking up at the orange-red sky, very vivid-looking.
December 1, 2025 at 12:28 AM
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Am I the only person w/ a copy of the Lion King art book from 1994 — or at least the only person with it to bother looking at the production stills in the book for comparison? (pics 1–2 from Ani O article/post, pics 3–4 from The Art of The Lion King)

animationobsessive.substack.com/p/the-toy-st...
These companies, ultimately, decide how Toy Story looks today. Still, for some, it’s nice to see the original version of the film again — the version Pixar originally intended to make. It’s evidence that the film did feel different back then. The memories were real. Screenshot of Animation Obsessive's 35mm/Blu-ray comparison of The Lion King. The 35mm print looks bright, with washed out/faded colors of the scene in the intro with Mufasa and Rafiki hugging at the top of the hill, looking out at the blue cloudy sky and green land. The blu-ray is better balanced with brightness, shows more details in the artwork, and is a bit saturated, though not garishly, in my opinion. A production still showing a far shot of Rafiki holding up infant Simba to the animals as sun beams shine down from an opening in the sky. Colors are vivid and resemble the blu-ray more than the 35mm print, though maybe not quite as saturated. Production still of Rafiki holding up Simba up close. Again, colors and balance match the blu-ray more than the 35mm print.
December 1, 2025 at 12:28 AM
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It's not much more detail, but Holmes Chan (who is HK-based) mentions some tidbits here: sg.news.yahoo.com/hong-kong-be...
During the mourning period, celebratory events organised by the government will be axed or postponed, and officials will reduce their non-essential public appearances.
November 29, 2025 at 4:22 PM
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I was just thinking the other day about getting back to my Shin-Chan backlog — between this thread and a Spoon & Tamago post about a Nara art teacher who made Shinnosuke leaf art, I'm taking these as signs telling me what to watch this morning.

spoon-tamago.com/hamacream-fa...
Fall leaves arranged to look like Shinnosuke from Crayon Shin-Chan, done by an unnamed Nara high school art teacher.
November 27, 2025 at 3:44 PM
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If you've ever watched the last episode of Golden Boy, you don't even have to know about the animation industry to tell that these depressing, decrepit drawings of animators collapsed at their desks are barely an exaggeration.

(Pic 1 from vgdensetsu.net/riekokodama9/, pics 2–4 from Golden Boy ep 6)
From the VGDensetsu article, two photos of work desks at Japanese game companies showing workers sleeping at or under their desks, and one desk with cardboard opened up and covering the underside with drawings of a house exterior to indicate their makeshift home. It looks very depressing. From Golden Boy episode 6, a shot of several animators at an animation studio sleeping at or under their desks, one man is sleeping on three chairs spread out to support him sleeping on his back. One man in the back is collapsed at his desk and nearly falling out from his chair that's barely supporting his ass. From Golden Boy, a shot of an animator obscured by blankets and surrounded by empty beer cans, porn mags, and a bag of food. His desk is disheveled. From Golden Boy, a closeup shot of the animator collapsed at his desk from photo #2. His face is just buried into his desk's surface and animation paper, a huge puddle of drool leaking from under his face where his mouth would be, and a long string of drool spilling over the edge of the desk.
November 24, 2025 at 5:35 PM
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No, it went under my radar, too! I'd be lying if I said it doesn't remind me a certain Japanese cartoon that a certain famous director worked on, but since I haven't watched that show either, this is a good excuse for me to put both of these in my queue and see how they stack up.
Cover for the Sherlock Hound show on DVD, showing Hayao Miyazaki's drawings of canine Holmes and Watson staring at something towards the ground not shown on the box.
November 20, 2025 at 4:30 PM
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www.chicagotribune.com/2025/11/19/g...
From the article: “I expressed to him just how proud we are that he is a product of Chicago and that he’s perhaps more popular than Michael Jordan,” Pritzker said in the interview. From The Last Dance, a screenshot of Michael Jordan sitting on a chair in his home, next to a small end table with a glass of some kind of brown alcohol and a cigar, a somewhat pained expression on his face, and the subtitle "...and I took that personally".
November 19, 2025 at 7:09 PM