Video 1: Upgrading the Hardware
The first in a three-part series of videos chronicling a project about the process of of upgrading an Atari Mega STE so that it can be used to create a five page comic using NeoChrome.
Pixeling in the Retrosphere*
Creating a Comic Book on 1980s Hardware
Pixel Art Comic Project by Marin Balabanov
About this Project
In 2018, I started this project to create a comic story using 1980s computer hardware. To be specific, I refurbished a thirty year old Atari computer, upgraded it and then pixel-painted a five page comic using the art package NEOChrome Master and only 16 colors.
On the following pages you will find the project videos and the project documentation.
Video 2: Initial Designs and Proof-of-Concept
In this second video I show how I created the plot and the initial sketches for the comic, as well as a first colored proof-of-concept to get a feeling for the process.
Video 3: Drawing and Finishing the Comic
In this final video I walk through the process of pixeling the comic on an Atari ST using NEOChrome.
Table of Contents
This is the full documentation of the project showing how I upgraded an Atari Mega STE, sketched the characters and backgrounds, and then pixeled a five page comic in 16 colors using the paint package NEOChrome.
You can read the documentation as individual web pages by following the table of contents below (recommended) or the whole documentation on one page (not recommended).
- Assembling the Equipment
- Choosing the System
- Wishlist of Extended Capabilities
- Making the Screen Upgrade
- New Floppy Disk Storage
- Hard Disk Replacement
- Input Galore
- The Upgrade Procedure
- Why not use an emulator or an FPGA?
- NEOChrome as the Chosen One
- The Zoomed View
- Color Picker
- The extended NEOChrome Master
- What do all the Bits mean?
- 512 Colors vs. 4096 Colors
- Tangent: Overcoming the Atari ST's 16 Color Limitation
- The Right 16 Color Palette
- Pixel Art Techniques
- Dithering
- Anti-aliasing
- Combining Images to Single Page
- Planning the Story and Designing the Visuals
- The Story
- The Synopsis and the Breakdowns
- Proof of Concept
Project Documentation On One Page
You can open the Project Documentation on a single page. This is not recommended because the navigation is a bit more confusing.
[*] The original title of this project was "The Future
was 16-Bit".
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