Street Fighter Bigelow
Here we have the legendary Bam Bam Bigelow in the style of Capcom’s equally legendary Street Fighter II. What with this and WrestleFest, there certainly was a lot of stunning pixel art floating around in the arcades in 1991.
Basically, I drew Bigelow directly alongside the Zangief model, trying to copy one of his poses and deviating from there. This mostly entailed bulking him up; he was a big chap, but also incredibly agile with it. That’s what made him so impressive to watch.
Of course, the magic of pallette swapping allows me to come up with alternate colour schemes for multiplayer mayhem, should several players wish to be Mr. Bigelow – and who could blame them? He bore the flames for much of his career, so it was actually quite easy to mimic some of his other outfits.
I do think the facial likeness could be better, but it got to the point where I felt like I was going backwards with that. Who knew it would be harder to get a face right in pixel art? That said, I’m happy to have finally got this done as it’s something I’ve wanted to do for a week or two, only I kept hitting a wall with it.
It’d be great to see him in RetroMania someday.
jaywalks 
Hi Jay, I think you have pretty well nailed Bgelow’s appearance in your sprites. I know from experience of photo editng .PNG files that there is only so much you can do with limited pixels. I used to edit renders of lightsbers created with an online app that created preview images; To do this I added layers of colour to replicate paint or powdercoating techniques….and I manually edited the pictures pixel by pixel (and sometimes adding up to 7 layers!).
Just as a final point of trivia, it is kinda spooky that Bigelow was famous for his “Flame” gimmick but in the year 2000 he became a local hero when he rescued three children from a burning house. He received second degree burns to 40% of his body. He later described his heroics as the “best moves I ever did!”.
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Great, thanks FT! Indeed, it can be a challenge, and quite tedious at times. But it’s great when it clicks and starts to come together.
I was actually thinking the same about the fire whilst working on this. Good old Bam Bam, a great wrestler and seemed like a nice guy. A rare breed in wrestling, sadly.
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Hi again, Bam Bam had his issues earlier in his life with scrapes with the law but straightened himself out with wrestling. Sadly he succumbed to the downsides of pro wrestling – the injuries and painkillers.
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I wasn’t aware of those early crimes – a shame, but I suppose it’s good if, as you say, he straightened himself out.
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Excellent work right down to the pose, the background, and the way all the colours just pop! Some happy memories of those crazy fighting games on the Sega Megadrive in the 90s 😎
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Thanks very much! Those flames were the “click” moment I think, they turned out better than I was expecting. 🙂
Ah yes, memories of jotting down those LONG move combinations on a scrap of paper. Hit left, left, right, up, A, down, Start, up, B and you might throw a punch! There actually was a WWF fighting game, WrestleMania Arcade. It was basically a WWF version of Mortal Kombat – Bam Bam threw fireballs, Undertaker walloped you with a gravestone, etc. etc. It’s bonkers but fun.
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Thanks for the link Jacob! Was fun to see that video. The graphics were, and still are, so appealing, and when you think of the details put into the background of the spectators (even though they don’t move so often) it’s a joy to see.
I had the pleasure of seeing the Undertaker and some other big names live at NEC Birmingham in the early noughties, was so cool and a brilliant atmosphere 😎
I always sucked at fighting games and got beaten by friends regularly, even though like you I tried to write down and memorise the combinations lol.
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Having now worked on a game myself, I find I’m even more appreciative of all those little details, especially considering the lesser hardware they were working with at the time.
It’s so cool that you got to see The Undertaker! The Lord of Darkness… not quite the Prince of Darkness, but close 😉 One of the most atmospheric entrances for sure. I never did go to a show – they didn’t seem to come to the UK very often during my fandom, and I don’t think my parents would have been very keen to sit through it! They were the type who would constantly tell me how fake it was – that punch didn’t even hit him, Undertaker isn’t really dead, etc. 😆
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I don’t know much about this guy but I will say it looks absolutely incredible, I’m a big fan of retro games myself and love the pixel art style in the games such as Mario bros 3, the original sonic and many more that add to my collection 😄 I think the only retro fighting game I’ve played so far is super punch out for the snes, I’m no good at it tho that’s for sure 😂
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Thanks! This was lots of fun. Yeah, the pixel art from that era still holds up. Shamefully, I never really got into Mario (we were a Sega/Sony household) but those early Sonics are outstanding.
I was never very good at the pure fighting games either; the button combinations were so convoluted, I just used to mash punch or kick and get nowhere 😄 I preferred wrestling games, where the action was generally slower paced and easier to control.
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