Though a myriad of new games come out each year attempting to push the metaphorical envelope, only a few manage to make their way to the top. This prompts me to wonder, “which substantial qualities decide this?” A number of them we already know from the start, but others are pleasantly discovered during intense and even casual gameplay. Simply put, a game needs to be rewarding to be thoroughly enjoyed. Mind you, a player can be rewarded more than one way via great gameplay, graphics, storyline, voice-acting, and/or re-playability just to name a few. Blazblue takes the time carefully mesh all the preceding factors together so elegantly, that if you aren’t stuck playing longer than the pre-defined time frame you planned, then something must be wrong with you. In fact, Blazblue has received so much positive notoriety a second game is already out in arcades. For the most part, people already know a bit about the two new characters called Tsubaki and Hazama, but a question I’m sure resides in the back of many people’s minds is, “what about hidden characters or future downloadable content?” Unfortunately, I can’t reveal much in that regard, but what I can tell you is FinallyAnime! has a very special guest who brought our dreams to life in a way we never thought possible.

Enter BouncekDeLemos: a modern artist who TRULY puts sprite art back on the map. When FinallyAnime! staff stumbled across Bounce’s DeviantArt page looking for BlazBlue art to nonchalantly batch post, to say we were pleasantly surprised is an insult. Artwork of the characters the entire BlazBlue community has been wanting to play graced my eyes and we knew right then we HAD to get an interview no matter what. Fortunately, bless Bounce’s heart, he decided to take time out of his busy day to be interviewed. After the interview, sprites of every BlazBlue character and every color of their palette can be found below. And if anyone wants to fight against me in Blazblue, I’m on the Playstation side and just add, “glencocoe” – I play Nu (v-13) and play Litchi a lot. Oh and btw, the Ragna palette redo is from Dustloop. All other sprites by the amazing Bounce. All regular blazblue sprites are copywritten and owned by arksys.

Q: Hello there! So I guess before we start, where in the world did you get your name, BouncekDeLemos?
A: I kinda made it up. It’s sorta a mix between Juan Ponce de León (a Spanish explorer) and bouncing lemons(?). If you were to pronounce it, it would sound like “BOWN-SICK-DAY-LAY-MAS”. People just call me “Bounce” or “Bouncy”.

Q: How long have you been doing art for and what really drew you into the art world?
A: I’ve been doing art for most my whole life. I started when I was about 4-6 years old, I would draw out my favorite video game characters, as well as jot down ideas for new games. Video games were a big influence to me — and my fave system at the time was the Atari 2600. Well, it was the only system at the time I should say.

Q: I noticed your sprites first, but is there any other art you enjoy doing even more, or at least as much?
A: I have had a creative side to me, not just in drawing, but also building stuff as well. Mosty case mods for video game consoles (hardware) and hacks for old games(software). Believe it or not, I find software editing a whole lot easier than hardware… maybe because software’s so inexpencive. It sounds like different hobbies, but to me, it’s art.

Q: Which artist’s do you admire and what was one of your favorite pieces of work from them?
A: To tell you the truth, I really don’t know anyone that I look up to in particular. I mostly got my influences from many manga artists (too many to name) and kids at school that I thought drew way better than I did.

Q: Blazblue is a very unique game where to be quite honest…not too many people know about! How did you stumble upon Blazblue? Was it from playing Guilty Gear or some other reason?
A: What made me stumbled onto Blazblue was not only Guilty Gear, but anime and fighting games in general. I love games like Street Fighter, Virtua Fighter, Tekken, and Soul Calibur… fighting games has always been a fave of mine, next to platformer games.

Q: Why did you decided to do the BlazBlue sprites? Just for fun, or are you secretly working for Arc System Works!
A: Oh no, you found me out! XDD Just kidding, I started making them out the fact that most of the NPCs in the game do not have any sprites, so I decided to make them. That, and I love high resolution sprites which not many games have. I’ve worked with game sprites before, but BlazBlue seemed like new territory.

Q: What is your favorite anime show that you would advise Evveerrrryone to watch? And in addition, what was your favorite movie? It can be anime-inspired or not.
A: I do like Lucky Star, Bleach and Naruto, but there’s too many to name that I like! The only series I’ve seen all the way through was Dragon Ball Z and GT. Currently, I am watching Detroit Metal City, which I wouldn’t advise anyone under the age of 17 to watch, but that won’t stop anyone. XD My favorite movie would have to be Death Trance, Tak Sakaguchi who played in it, is one of my favorite action movie stars. I also like many old cheesy kung fu flicks.

Q: Do you plan to work with this sort of thing in the future? What are your aspirations?
A: Sure do, I would love to work as an artist for 2D games like BlazBlue. Rather it be for a indie group, community or professional, it doesn’t matter to me–and it doesn’t matter what type of game it is either. ^_^

Q: What was the hardest/funnest part of doing these sprites?
A: The hardest thing would have to be the selective outlining, which is the coloration of the black outlines to match the group of colors/shades of colors you are working on. That, and if you are working with certain formats, there are color limitations. The funnest thing is tring to figure out how it all works out and seeing the completed project once it’s done!

Q: I saw the Bayonetta pic with Arakune on a TV SCREEN!!! AMAZING!!! How did you do that and who in the heck is Bayonetta?
A: LOL! That was mainly a “thank-you” to everyone who featured the Bayonetta sprite in thier blogs and sites. Everyone wanted to see what it would be like running full-rez on the actual game console, so I devised a plan on how to run it on the XBOX 360.
As I’m not sure at the moment about her background on who Bayonetta is, but I do know that she’s stars in a video game made by the guys that did the Devil May Cry games. Being a fan of the DMC series and action is what drew me in to Bayonetta.

Q: >.> Wait! So does she actually play!?! Like as you can control her??
A: [no,] I searched for a high rez background, which was very difficult since to this day, it’s difficult to find one. I did successfully found one with Litchi and Arakune that was in full rez, so I photoshopped my sprite onto Litichi and ran the picture file via external hard drive through Xbox’s picture viewer. A fun little hoax, even though nobody was fooled. XD

Q: Is that actually you in your profile pic, pixilated? Because I love the hair; it’s so classical.
A: He does have the same hair as I do, lol, but no… that’s Tak Sakaguchi, action film actor. One of my fave actors. The avatar was done by one of my friends on Deviant art.

Q: Were alllmost done! Who in Blazblue is your favorite character & why?
A: Noel Vermillion. She’s easy to use, and since I’m a fan of Gun Kata, she’s one of my faves. I also like Ragna and Taokaka.

Q: Last question of the day, phew. Which sprite would you want to play the most, what sort of play style would they have and what would one of their distortions be?
A: You mean outta the sprites I made? Hmm… That’s a tough one. I would have to go with Rukia Kuchiki from the Bleach series. Maybe she could have differnet styles depending on if she’s in her Gigal or not. Her “San no Mai, Shirafune” could be her Astral/Distrotion Finish.

Thank you SOOO much for your time Bounce along with the sprites you put together for us. Your art is just a joy to behold. In my opinion, it’s priceless and should be up there with the Mona-Lisa. No bull. But anyways, thanks for having us and staff and I at FinallyAnime look forward to talking about any art you make in the future I know I said question 13 was the last question, but do you have any parting statements?

No prob, I would like to thank you and FinallyAnime so much for taking your time to ask some questions and featuring me on your site! I would also like to thank you for such nice comments you’ve given me! I would be honored if I was to see my sprites next to the Mona-Lisa in an art museum. XD Oh and if anybody has any questions, or comments, feel free! <3

You can contact Bounce @ his Deviant Art Page Here