Fan-art thread

[Quillax]

Thanks, Sodium! The Little Ampton is in the top-right corner, holding the plug for the tree, though its coloring makes the outlines blend in. I only spent a few hours working on this, because I wanted to make something that could be nominated in Keen Awards 2024, and... I don't know. When I posted it, it's still 2024 in the leftmost time zones, but 2025 elsewhere. I guess the lesson here is to not hold off until the last minute; I came up with the idea around Christmas. At least it was very fun to draw!

Anyway, I was looking through the Commander Keen Reddit group a while ago, and found these weird fanart by StarHitchhiker:




Source #1, #2

I nominated them in Keen Awards 2024, because while the dates shown in the art say 2022, they were posted on Reddit in 2024, and I can't find them elsewhere (it doesn't help that many social media sites are so locked down for guests). I think the second one looks very cool, kind of reminds me of OrbKeen, but I'm not so about the first one. That one seems a bit too weird, although Keen kind of looks funny. I've briefly looked at some of the non-Keen art this person made, and there seems to be some characters that are proportioned similarly to Keen in the first art piece, as well as "Boing boing"s being uttered along with strange patterns. Seems like StarHitchhiker has a thing with surrealism.

[Nospike]

That's a cool find, I love the second one. The first one reminds me of Keenbot although the similarity is probably purely coincidental.

[Symphony]

Hi!
I'd love to share with you some pieces I drew.
I use acrylic paints on wooden boards.

[Quillax]

Ooh, that looks fantastic, Symphony!The Keen Dreams artwork in particular is very nice! I always like seeing traditional (i.e. non-computerized) art!

That's a cool find, I love the second one. The first one reminds me of Keenbot although the similarity is probably purely coincidental.

Man, I totally forgot about Keenbot! Granted, I'm sure it's a coincidence like you said.

[dark]

Nice job Symphony! Those do look quite nice!

[SodiumtheGlitcher]

Just remembered a birthday card my older sister made for me when I was 6. Below is the outside and the inside of the card.




It's actually pretty good!

[Nospike]

That's amazing not just the gesture but the attention to detail too. Love it.

[Dave216]

I can't believe it, but out of nowhere I managed to dig out some pictures of Keen levels I drew. Judging by the dates, it was some 19 years ago, and I was around 6 at the time. I don't know why it says KEEN5 on the second one when it's obviously 4. It seems I could make levels back then, but counting was just out of my reach, or something. And I tried beating it by looking at it, but God knows what's going on







I think seven-year-old me would probably go mad if he had Abiathar at the time

[dark]

I think those are pretty good considering your age at the time.
You had a good idea of what the graphics looked like even down to minor details... Did you draw the picture while looking at the game on the screen, or from memory?

Also curious how you became aware of keen considering it was probably over 10 years old and designed for an operating system people didn't really use anymore by the time you were a child to play it

[Benvolio]

I love those, Dave216. Really reminds me of drawings I would have done when I was 10. Very little chance of them being found now. Yours are better than mine anyway.

I actually made a hand-drawn User Manual for Keen1 at that time too, I think it was actually relatively well made. But gone now. I liked to draw things in blank copybooks at that age.

Others included:
- An encyclopedia of Pokémon, which was populated from information scavenged from 1999-era Altavista/Webferret as well as the contents of trading cards including ones borrowed primarily to add information to my book.
- A "novel" which was basically a reimagining of Keen4 as a story, with heavy elements of Star Wars blended in.
- A detailed "Lord of the Rings" book complete with writings in several of the Runic alphabets
- A four-part graphic novel based around infant TV shows such as Teletubbies, Barney and Friends, and Bananas in Pyjamas. This was actually more when I was about 12 or 13, so these clearly were shows that I had disdain for and was using as vehicles for some actually quite violent material. In fact Barney was depicted as a ruthless dictator and when Saddam got apprehended in real life, I worked that into the story.

All lost now.

[Dave216]

I think those are pretty good considering your age at the time.
You had a good idea of what the graphics looked like even down to minor details... Did you draw the picture while looking at the game on the screen, or from memory?

Also curious how you became aware of keen considering it was probably over 10 years old and designed for an operating system people didn't really use anymore by the time you were a child to play it

I don't recall ever looking at the screen and drawing, at least at that time. Later my siblings taught me I'd get better results if I was not drawing from memory.

Yeah, now that I think about it, I really should have been the generation that skipped over DOS and Keen. I think it's because my dad had several 486 computers around the house always, and one of those had a bunch of games on it. And we never had a PlayStation, only an Amiga and ZX Spectrum, so I never got into "modern gaming" at that time until much later.

I love those, Dave216. Really reminds me of drawings I would have done when I was 10...

It's a shame you lost those, Benvolio. I would love reading that manual. The later stuff you did was something that would come out of an episode of South Park.

[Roobar]

Nice drawings. While the enemies are from Keen 4, the level aesthetics looks more like from Keen 5.

[SodiumtheGlitcher]

I saw your drawings, Dave216, and that made me want to post some of my own. I made these when I was like 8. I keep all my Keen drawings in a Keen binder that I have. Below are pictures from A REAL MOD IN PRODUCTION!!!!!!






The mod uses Alphamatic graphics, and is 32 levels. So stay tuned for more info! I might start a thread about this.

(Wow, who knew I could use childhood drawings to promote my work? )