I finished the first brand-new level for the Special Edition of Dirk Dashing 1 today. It's a small level, but it's a fun little boss battle between Dirk and E.V.I.L agent Nasty Knuckles. It takes place at the end of Part 1.

In the original game, Nasty Knuckles didn't make his first appearance until Chapter 2-4. But I want to introduce some of the characters earlier in the game, so that the demo levels show off as much of the game features as possible.

Like I've done with all the other characters, I went back to the original pencil drawings and started from there. But in the case of Nasty Knuckles, I also made a few minor changes to the drawing before I scanned it in. First, I never liked his hat, so I drew a rounder ball cap. Second, his shoulders in the final game art always gave me the impression that he had a hump, which wasn't what I intended at all. So I fixed that. And third, I softened his jaw so it wasn't quite so pointy. Here are the before and after sketches:



Here's what the final art looks like with cel shading and a shadow applied, in comparison with the original:



As you can see, I also tweaked the color palette a bit. I used some richer greens on his jacket and a slightly different yellow for his sweater. I think he looks much better now!