This Friday, November 18th begins Desert Bus for Hope 5! For those of you not familiar with the event,
Desert Bus for Hope is organized by members of
Loading Ready Run who play the old school video game
Desert Bus nonstop to raise money for Childs Play.
The charity group Child’s Play was created in 2003 by web comic guru’s Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik of
Penny Arcade. Every year thousands of dollars are raised by the video game community to provide children in hospitals games and toys. They have recently expanded to over 70 different hospitals worldwide.
While the video game desert bus is being played video game, nerd inspired geekry is auctioned off both in live auctions and silent auctions. There are also giveaways and call-in's by some pretty amazing people.
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I contributed two pieces for Desert Bus's silent auction. The first piece "Afternoon on Yoshi's Island" is based on the SNES video game "Yoshi's Island".
Matt bought me the game when we were in college because he knew Yoshi was one of my favorite Nintendo characters, but I never got a chance to actually play the game all the way through until recently and it's just amazing! The colors, the game play, and wonderful little Shy Guys running around on stilts...it's definitely one of my gaming favorites.
I thought Kamek the wizard was pretty awesome in the game as well...he got a little nod in my painting :)
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| Afternoon on Yoshi's Island, 7.5 x 7.5 inches, Gouache & Ink on paper, © Nicole Gustafsson 2011 |
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| Afternoon on Yoshi's Island (view) © Nicole Gustafsson 2011 |
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| Afternoon on Yoshi's Island (detail) © Nicole Gustafsson 2011 |
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The second piece I created is a tribute to
Magic The Gathering card game. I played it with my now husband back when we were teenagers in high school, and then went to college and didn't play for years up until about a year ago and now we can't get enough of the game.
Which btw LOVE the new Innistrad set...amazing artwork and gameplay.
I'm intrigued by unusual lands being an environment based artist, so that was the basis of the painting.
Matt came up with the theme and wording and I did the illustration. I was just thinking today it would be fun to do a creature card of our own creation. And of course I had to make it a mythic rare!
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| Fivelwaeg's Arboretum, 9.75 x 6.5 inches, Gouache & Ink on paper, © Nicole Gustafsson 2011 |
All the silent auction items people donate will go up at different times.
I will be sure to update everyone when these pieces go live for bidding.
Tune in to
Desert Bus at 6:00 PST on Friday evening for the start!
