This is really more of a preliminary preview than anything about the continuation of The Vid Styles. Seeing as I just wrapped up the first 7 with the inclusion of the “missed” tracks, it is now time to put together the next round of Vid Styles.

Vid Style 8
As of right now, due to an overwhelming amount of positive feedback, Vid Style 8 will be all 8-bit and 16-bit related music. So basically during the 3rd Generation Console Era and 4th Generation Console Era. Now whether or not this will include remixes is still in the air; I am planning on it now not to have any remixes and just original scores. There are some parameter breakers here as well – minus the ones that have been laid out since Vid Style 6. The biggest parameter breaker is if it “sounds” 8/16-bit, it can be potentially included also (like the entire Scott Pilgrim vs The World: The Game Soundtrack).

Vid Style 9
More than likely while working on Vid Style 8, I’ll stumble upon either music or remixes that I want to add but can’t (I currently already have such one). So instead of waiting several years for another “normal-like” Vid Style, Vid Style 9 will either be made at the same time or just after Vid Style 8. If it’s simultaneous, then their artwork will coincide and possibly be my first double-disc cover art. If it’s near the same time, they’ll be possibly of similar design but more than likely distinctively separate.

Not exactly sure when these will really get put on the front burners as I have a few more artsy things I want to knock out or try to before taking my hand into this, but it’s within the mid-range set of burners right now and should only be pulled closer to the front as time progresses!

You know, I don’t think I’ve ever posted anything about these here in the entire history of me working on the site, or if I have, it was a brief notation. That kind of surprises me, but then again it wasn’t really anything that big of a deal to me; just something I did on the side since MP3 players were still not that big back when I started these. Anyway, random beginning to this but back in 2000 I discovered making compilation discs and began working on several of them. Most of which were pretty awful, but I did make a niche into one style that was J-Pop music from rather popular Animes that I either had seen or just liked the tunes from. The first one was called “Sean’s Music” with “Anime Style!” as the sub-title. The first one ended up working out so well that it spun off into 15 different albums sort to speak. The artwork evolved over time (but this was back before I understood resolution, so printing them looked terrible since they were all at 72ppi instead of 300+ppi) and that all finally ended in 2005.

Around 2003, 6 months after I started college, I got into some small debates about video game music and how it was good music to listen to just as much as everything else. So from the Anime Style series, I spun that off into “Anime Style” with the sub-title “Vid Style.” Short for Video Game Style which had tracks from several popular (and not-so-well known at the time) video games.

The original cover that started it all.

Apparently this became rather popular amongst friends, and even friends of friends, and friends that I hadn’t talked to in years by this point! I was rather surprised by this, so I set off to make a sequel to it several months later from the music that I didn’t pick to be on this album in the first place. When that came out, I dropped the “Anime Style” main title and just named it “Vid Style 2″ using the similar awfully gaudy hand-drawn logo that I did on the first album cover. Nearly as popular as the first one, and even a number of the same friends began to give feedback on what to do and not to do next (if there was a next at the time).

The second album’s original cover art.

So some time passed, and I got that urge to make a 3rd many months later. After carefully going through remixes and original songs, the 3rd one came out. It wasn’t that great, the flow of it just wasn’t there like the first 2. So I was planning on making that the last one as I’d figure that was that – a nice trilogy and that would be the end of it. Yeah that totally didn’t happen.

Mid 2005, nearly a year after making Vid Style 3, I once again started to work on Vid Style 4. I don’t recall what possessed me to make another one, but since so much time had passed from the 3rd one, that there was a good chance that it could sound different. Boy, did it! Reverting to more actual pieces from games instead of remixes really changed the overall tone of the album to something much more pleasing. This became the best one to date that I had created, I wouldn’t find this out for several years though. The larger gaps seemed to make them better, and so I rested upon making 4 and didn’t think about it until more time passed. Another year later, I began to work on Vid Style 5 using the same parameters that I did for 4; the outcome was much worse – THE worst in fact to date of the series. I decided to officially end the series after this.

The Third Album Cover	The Fourth Album Cover	The Fifth Album Cover

Mid 2008, nearly 3 years after I finished Vid Style 5, I had acquired a number of really nice game pieces thanks to friends and buying a number of sountracks (yes, I acquired ALL of this music legally!) and was wondering what the heck to do with them. So I brought the series out of retirement and created Vid Style 6, which redeemed the series big time using revised parameters than that of Vid Style 4 & 5. Around the same time I redid the artwork and playlist for Vid Style 1, and redid the artwork for Vid Style 2 to have them match the series’ “style” a bit better but keeping to their original designs… well that’s a lie – Vid Style 2′s artwork got overhauled. I already began to think about Vid Style 7, as there was no doubt in my mind that I would continue the series now.

The Sixth Album Cover	The First Album Remake	The Second Album Remake

Late 2011, nearly another 3 years after Vid Style 6, I created Vid Style 7 thanks to a bit of help from friends for suggestions as to what I needed to add or should add to this one. Without (almost) breaking the same parameters that I used for Vid Style 6, I finished up 7 and it topped Vid Style 4 for best album, or at least I feel like it did (although everyone seems to agree that Vid Style 1 was the best). So there was a lull and I am already planning the 8th installment of the series, but not before I finished this one up with a collaboration disc that had everything I’ve done to date included. I went back and cleaned up EVERY file, tag, album art, and so on so it was MP3 player ready at this point and even included a whole new album to wrap up some of the loose ends that had been created throughout the series. Basically songs that never made the cut in the first place; strangely this album came out fairly decent and it ultimately got the subtitle “The Lost Tracks” and broke every single parameter rule that I had set out to withhold since Vid Style 6.

The Seventh Album Cover	The Lost Tracks Album Cover

So with all of the albums cleaned up, finalized, edited and revised (Vid Style 2 & 3 got new tracks and Vid Style 5 got revised tracks), I went to put together what ultimately became “The Mega Collection” spoofing an old Sega Genesis style box-art since this was being made for a DVD case. The artwork became something amusingly obscure, but it worked and I feel it combines all of the albums nicely into one package. A booklet was made as well to list out every single song and where it originally came from. This concludes “The First Quarter” as the collaboration disc was supposed to be called way back when I just finished Vid Style 5 – thankfully that never came to pass until now.

Now, I DO NOT make these and sell them, I do them as a hobby and this is the artwork that I created (or spoofed) to give it that nice finished touch. And no I didn’t get them by dark means, I went and got the music by either purchasing the soundtracks, or by getting them from OCRemixes.org, or from the actual game companies’ website. So the designs for the albums are mine, but the music itself I do not claim – so don’t come beat me up!

So now that person, RainbowCrash88 (aka The 8-Bit Brony) has started to make Season 2 into 8-Bit goodness as well! So I decided to make a Season 2 piece of album art to go along with it! Once again, I DID NOT create the central piece of work in this, just laid it out similar to the Season 1 version.

I was debating whether or not I wanted to post this one, what the heck. It’s not anything really ground breaking but I made another desktop background that I’ve been needing to make for quite some time. It’s similar in style to another one I did about a year ago and it works for the character depicted in it too.

This was a bunch of experimentation, then the idea finally hit me pretty hard! If you look way back Here from 2008 when I made the previous wallpaper for my PC, it was in need of being face lifted pretty badly. So finally got around to doing that and here it is! I’m mostly pleased with the outcome, although I wish I could have inverted the white, but it made the effects all screwed up in the process. Completely done in Photoshop CS2 and it took about 4 hours, mainly trying to get the colors and the blends to cooperate the way I wanted them to.

I was arguing with myself if I wanted to post this or not, but what the heck. Let’s start with some history first!

Amongst everything else I’ve been working on: my book, hanging with friends/family, work, some WoW when I can, I stumbled upon a little show that surprisingly is extremely good even though the target demographics are nowhere near my age group. Apparently, I’m not alone and there is a massive following of this show for the same reasons that I like it and then some: it’s animated well, the plot is well done, the characters are unique, and it’s colorful with good moral points. Heck, there’s even parts of the show that tug on emotional strings. The show is My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, yeah the first part of that show title will most likely have people looking at me like I’m insane (or more insane depending on the case), but it’s nothing like the stereotypical past incarnations of the show because those I can’t even watch. If I like a show, cartoon or not, I’m going to watch and enjoy it to the fullest extent of my persona. There’s really not enough typing I can do here to justify how well this show is, just put aside your adulthood/manhood for 20 minutes and freaken watch Episode 1!

Honestly, I heard about the show originally through the wonderful Cheezburger Network sites with one called “My Little Brony” and being the curious one decided to take a gander at the funny pics, which in turn caused more curiosity that led me to Know Your Meme to look up some of the connections that I was seeing at My Little Brony. One of the pages based on a character named “Derpy Hooves” had a YouTube link to the entire 1st episode. So I was like “eh, what the heck” and clicked it… within about 5-10 minutes (the opening title sequence did make me cringe at first) I was hooked on it. That episode ended in a cliffhanger so I watched the 2nd episode to watch the conclusion and it was GOOD. Ultimately it led me to watching the entire first season and really enjoying it quite a bit.

Once I delved into the show, I started to research the phenomena group that it had created calling themselves “Bronies.” That lead me to a really good resource site for the show called Equestria Daily which that’s where I fully discovered the fan base behind the show for the folks who are not part of it’s original target audience. It also has influenced me positively in terms of not letting my own projects slip away, like my book that has been completed, but it needs some correcting love before I send it off to be torn apart in Proofreading Land. I do have someone that I know giving me the friendly poke pretty often to finish my part too, and I appreciate that as well. Anyway, through all of this, another friend showed me another amusing video on YouTube that “spoofs” the series kind of like how AMV Hell did to anime, this did it to My Little Pony. I enjoyed that hilariously thoroughly and at the end of it an 8-Bit song played from the series that sounded like an old NES game. I enjoyed that so much that I looked up who made the song and discovered this person recreated all of the songs from season 1 into 8-Bit goodness.

Which FINALLY leads to the above image, which is my fan made album art for the music! As with most of my latest pieces, I DID NOT draw/color the image used in the piece of work, I just laid it out to play homage to an old NES cartridge box. It didn’t come out exactly how I was envisioning it, but not in a negative way though and I like how it did turn out from what I was originally thinking. It is purposely pixelated to represent those old box art covers, so you’re not loosing your mind thinking that it’s not supposed to be pixelated. Surprisingly, this turned out to be a bit harder than I thought, but mostly because the central image wasn’t cooperating and I ran through several different ones to get the feel that I was looking for.

This little idea came to me after the latest Jaunt gathering that has now been re-dubbed “Nerd Night.” Since I mostly do the bartender thing (until I am inebriated) my place ended up being dubbed “SMurphy’s Bar” with an additional tag that I’ll work on shortly, am too tired to do it now. This is the full completed sign and I actually want to get this made into a real sign for my place. My industry skills and hobby have finally met and it turned out fairly well in my opinion. I chose “Tavern” over “Bar” or “Pub,” as it sounded a bit classier. The established date is that far back because that is really when these events started to really take off. Prior to that they weren’t anywhere near as in depth.

Alright! History time!

Back in fall of ’03, when I was a fishy in college, I made a number of compilation discs since this was prior to the MP3 boom. So I didn’t have a fancy MP3 player yet, just a CD player that I toted around the college campus to listen to tunes. One of the compilation discs was one called “Vid Style,” short for Video Game Style. It basically pulls music from various games, mostly ones that have influenced me in some way; although a couple of them I went out on a limb.

I can’t stand doing the whole sharpie thing to a CD when I make them, so I will go and create some sort of cover art for each disc and this series is no exception. There have been 6 of these so far and now wrapping up the 7th one amongst working on my book and trying to freaken play WoW. The covers evolved as time went on (they’re not posted here to show this yet) so for this one I wanted to do something drastically different. I sought out to create a “retro-arcade” cover idea and this is what it came out to be.

It was a pain in the @$$ and had a number of challenges from the original image to the final design. I can’t think of what I could have done to make it any better, but I think it could have been. Heavy personal criticizing I know, but sometimes I do that when working in Photoshop on stuff like this, although I might brighten it a tad. Oh, and no I don’t do anything irrational like sell these or anything, it’s just a hobby that I still enjoy doing for such a long running “pseudo” series. The music I get for these is legit also.