As Seen on TV Exhibition

Art made on a Sega Mega Drive

Sega's Art Alive! has a lot of limitations. 16 colours, a control pad for input and no way to save your work, but I wanted to create something beautiful. 'As Seen on TV' is a collection of art made using a Sega Mega Drive, a control pad and a copy of Art Alive!. I recorded the screen to capture the process knowing the original drawing would be lost as I turned the system off.

 

As seen on TV Digital Book

 

Check out the artworks, see where they've come from and read about what inspired them.

Own something unique

Rock something unique made using a Sega Mega Drive. Pick up a framed copy of Killer TV, a dead rodent puzzle, fish bones on a baseball cap or an angry fly across your bed. These pieces have been made available on Redbubble to own.

Each piece was designed in about an hour using nothing but the Sega Mega Drive, a control pad and a copy of Art Alive!

Tiny Fly

 

This opportunistic fly leaves his mark, vomiting onto everything he touches. Nothing is sacred.

Breakfast

 

A more abstract approach in Art Alive. Using big shapes, I wanted to give breakfast a Western desert feel. The background is barren and stark, but there's a bounty of eggs and bacon to those in it.

Fish Bones

 

What's in trash? The fish bones sitting on top are a throw to the 90s designs that inspired me, but the trash is filled with textures, food, worms and an eye ball.

Fish Bones is a much more detailed piece that uses black to try and create space around the images found in the trash can.

Beheaded

 

This can has been beheaded and left for dead. No one knows its struggle.

Killer TV

 

Ever play a video game that really sucked you in and got you invested? Maybe it wanted to play you back.

While designing each piece, I used the thickest line weight possible. I felt images with thick, bold lines and bright colours would work best with Art Alive!

Party Prawn

 

Ready to boogie, this neon prawn is enjoying the isolated depths of the ocean.

Toaster Ghost

 

This shocking ghost will find a way to disturb any peaceful moment.

Dead Rodent

 

This rodent was struck by a skateboard but his passing has been honoured with a crown of corns. The flies are ascending towards heaven, guiding the dead rodent's spirit.

Blender Head

 

Sometimes when your brain feels like mash, everything on the outside can look and feel calm.

Angry Fly

 

Giving something small a big voice, this fly had a lot to say.

Art Alive!

Produced in 1991 for the Sega Mega Drive (Sega Genesis in the United States), Art Alive! is a program that lets you create your own artwork on the system. Art Alive! is limited by the hardware only allowing you to use a palette of 16 colours, there's no layers, no pen-tool for creating bezier lines and it only supports the Sega Control Pad. There's no support for additional accessories, such as the Sega Mouse (which was released in 1993).

The artwork cannot be saved either. The instruction manual recommends using a VCR to record your work. This limitation in particular meant that each artwork I produced was done alla prima (completed in one session) and took about an hour. Once you turn off the system, the piece is deleted.

Art Alive! comes bundled with a selection of templates so you can start painting straight away as well as a range of stickers you can paste into your scenes. There's also an animation tool that lets you draw frame-by-frame or paint on an existing animation.

The software was developed by Jay Obernolte from Farsight Technologies and Chris Ziomkowski. The game credits state it was developed by Western Technologies.

A spiritual successor , Wacky Worlds, was developed in 1994 by Head Games with more resources. Instead of focusing on a painting tool, Wacky World embraced the ability to place stickers to create scenes.

Own something unique

Rock something unique made using a Sega Mega Drive. Pick up a framed copy of Killer TV, a dead rodent puzzle, fish bones on a baseball cap or an angry fly across your bed. These pieces have been made available on Redbubble to own.