On Halloween, Daniel Cattell talks to N-Sider about bringing retro video game sprites to costume life
Brandon
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Though Halloween (that's today!) seems like the ideal time to get all crafty and dress up in a homemade representation of your favorite geeky pop-cultural figure, one serious pixel-art fan says there's more to his work than just making costumes. Dan Cattell first made a splash in game circles with widely-viewed pictures of his work—life-sized video game sprites that are worn as suits and fully moveable by the people inside—last year. "After I debuted the Torizo, I found it on blogs shortly after," Dan told me. "It didn't take long for me and my friends to find a different photo of it on virtually every photo-sharing website that I could name within a minute... but they didn't hit crazy levels of popularity until we did the photo shoot for Nintendo Power."
The "costumes" are now referred to by Cattell specifically as cosPIX. This is partially due to his receiving angry comments from forum posters upset that "cardboard cut-outs" were getting so much attention—when in fact there's much more work that goes into them than people realize. "They occupy an interesting space between costume design, painting, optical illusion, and sculpture," says Cattell. Most recently he spent bunches of time making a gigantic Ridley cosPix (over eleven feet tall!) which was exhibited at Steadman Art Gallery in New Jersey.
Sure, to some they might just look like "cardboard cut-outs," but what is it exactly that makes them so interesting?
The "costumes" are now referred to by Cattell specifically as cosPIX. This is partially due to his receiving angry comments from forum posters upset that "cardboard cut-outs" were getting so much attention—when in fact there's much more work that goes into them than people realize. "They occupy an interesting space between costume design, painting, optical illusion, and sculpture," says Cattell. Most recently he spent bunches of time making a gigantic Ridley cosPix (over eleven feet tall!) which was exhibited at Steadman Art Gallery in New Jersey.
Sure, to some they might just look like "cardboard cut-outs," but what is it exactly that makes them so interesting?
