Artists are starting to make their choices known in the form of art. Technically, this isn't one of them, but it's just so cute I had to post about it. Later on, I plan to post some of the legit Krystal4Smash art. As for this one, the art is originally by ukalayla, but someone on KnowYourMeme made it into a ballot image.

Ayano sent me a lovely drawing of Krystal from Japan's Nintendo Dream magazine, dated February 2006! It was drawn to celebrate the new year by Takaya Imamura, who is responsible for many of the Star Fox characters of old. In it, Krystal is wearing a haregi (a Japanese festive kimono dress). Enjoy this little piece of obscure Nintendo history. The in-context picture is below.

As mentioned in the previous post, Nintendo is actually legitimately taking suggestions for Smash Bros. DLC characters! (I know, I can barely believe it either.) Every entry will be seriously considered by the team, so your suggestion for Krystal needs to be serious as well. As a sample, here is what I submitted (or tried to submit, the site appears to be taking a pounding right now). It's short and to the point due to the 500 character limitation.

One thing I want to stress above all others is this: when making your suggestions, please be positive! Talk about the advantages Krystal has in and of herself, as well as how she is differentiated from other characters. Speaking negatively against other choices as a way of making Krystal sound better is not a very friendly tactic and probably won't win you any respect from the developers. After all, the other fandoms want to see their characters too. We should be happy and supportive of their efforts as well. We're all gamers! We should be friendly to each other as we are (virtually) smashing our opponents off of stages and into bottomless pits.

Vote 4 Krystal in the Smash Bros. Fighter Ballot!

The live-feed is online now! I'll be watching, and I hope you will too! If any relevant news pops up during the presentation, I'll post it below.

Updates

• Nintendo is doing more DLC characters for Smash, Lucas was just revealed.
• Iwata is asking for character suggestions!!! Smash Bros Fighter Ballot coming!
• No Star Fox, looks like. :( E3 can't come soon enough!

Alright, it's over! Time to go vote for Krystal! Be sure to mention some of the reasons she would make a unique and interesting new fighter:

• Capable of staff-based and gun-based combat
• Popular female character
• Telepathic character
• Previously popular request for Brawl
• More Star Fox representation while avoiding clone characters
• Finally, a Star Fox character with a Final Smash that ISN'T A LANDMASTER!!!

Here's exciting news that I've been holding back for a few weeks due to non-disclosure agreements. However, I now have officially received permission to reveal that I will be taking on a new role in the Star Fox fan community. To my shock and pleasant surprise, Nintendo contacted me in March to request that I act as an official fan liaison for the Star Fox series. Apparently word got around to the higher-ups that I was both a long-time Star Fox fan, and technically competent in the game development space, given my previous job at Electronic Arts and masters degree from DigiPen.

What does this mean? Well, it's my job to act as an intermediary between the development team working on Star Fox and you guys, the fans. I'm to gauge what the fans are looking for in a Star Fox game, both the upcoming Wii U game, and future Star Fox projects (which I unfortunately cannot talk about, but rest assured, Star Fox is not going away anytime soon.) As the Wii U game nears release, and during post-release, I will also be summarizing the Star Fox community's reactions, comments, complaints, etc. across all social media platforms so that Nintendo can best understand their hits and misses with hardcore fans and newcomers to the series alike. Historically, Nintendo has had a very secretive and disconnected modus operandi when it comes to fans. I guess with their recent interest in the mobile games space they're also taking more direct steps towards social media as a communication interface between creators and fans.

The part-time job doesn't begin until after E3 2015. Until then, I'm looking for what you want to see in the next Star Fox games, and also what you don't want to see. Leave a comment and tell me how you feel! Oh, and before you ask, no, I don't know if they'll be talking about Star Fox in the Nintendo Direct later today. They didn't tell me about it, so there may be little to no Star Fox talk in there. Again, I'll be operating in a semi-outsider, contractor-style role here. There are probably a lot of things in the development process that I will learn about the same time as you guys. On the other hand, NDAs are very strict, so there are hard limits on what I can say regardless of what I know. Please understand.

Update
Good news! I got permission to post a video about this new fan liaison role.

A couple of you have emailed me to let me know that someone going by CakeInferno might possibly be the long-lost Greyfirefox under a different name. I've conversed with him and can confirm that, yes, CakeInferno is Greyfirefox. The reason he disappeared was due to overly critical comments from some "hard-core Star Fox fans." They were badgering him about the technical accuracy of his Krystal rig and animations to the point that he was no longer enjoying himself.

After taking a break from the internet for a while, he has returned to do 3D graphics once more under this new name. However, this time he is focused on subject matter that is mildly NSFW using different, but similar characters. It is because of this potentially NSFW content that I urge caution if you wish to view his new gallery directly.

Meanwhile, Greyfirefox will be sending any future Krystal content to the Krystal Archive for posting, to the possible exclusion of his own gallery. No word yet on how often and what kind of content that will be, but he did state that he will not be using Krystal in any future NSFW projects.

CakeInferno on DeviantArt | CakeInferno on FurAffinity

There was a big rumor floating around yesterday that Nintendo would be showing, among other things, the new Star Fox game in a Nintendo Direct scheduled for April 1st. It didn't seem all that plausible to me, but this morning, Nintendo announced a Nintendo Direct for April Fools Day, so... wow, who knows! If you want to see the crazy rumor and what Nintendo will supposedly announce, the translated information is on NeoGAF.

Thanks to Kevin for the info.

As part of my research into the next version of the site, I've implemented one of Krystal's tattoos as a SVG image (Scalable Vector Graphics). Because it's a vector, this tiny file is infinitely scalable. You can make it as big or as small as you want and it will look correct. This is a stylistic version of the tattoo. It's accurate in terms of alignment and the number of spiral turns, but it's more 'perfect' and clean than the real one.

I had fun this afternoon learning enough of Inkscape to build and manually compress this image. Download and use for this vector free in your Krystal projects, no crediting necessary!

Yesterday, Zelda series producer Eiji Aonuma issued an apology and announced that the Legend of Zelda for Wii U will not be appearing at E3 2015 and will not release in 2015 at all. By way of explanation, he said new and exciting gameplay possibilities arose during the development of the game. So significant were these ideas that they decided to push out the release date so they could fully explore them. Nintendo has never been shy about taking as long as it takes to make good games. However, in recent years, they have adopted a strategy where they avoid announcing or showing titles until they are very far in development, or even ready to release, to avoid disappointment at missed deadlines. The fact that they so publicly promised the game this year, then delayed it, I think speaks to the significance of the gameplay innovations they are working on.

There's no telling what this means for Star Fox, since Mr. Miyamoto stated it would come out before this Zelda game. Hopefully we will still see this one at E3.

Another find by Brian, this cosplayer appeared at Paris Manga 2014, a manga and sci-fi convention in France. Neither of us know anything about this cosplayer other than their on-stage appearance here. Like Mancoin's performance in the previous post, this Adventures Krystal fursuiter does a short, choreographed fight sequence with Krystal's staff to music from Star Fox Adventures.