As all fans of slightly creaky (but still jolly fun) coin-ops will know, this image is a spoofy thing based on Final Fight, the venerable arcade beat-em-up that explores the lighter side of brutal urban vigilanteism. It was created as a surprise present for Vince Suzukawa, a totally ace artist whose work can be viewed here: [link] (among other places), and it stars his characters Drake Braeburn (the dragon) and Cody Frost (the tiger) in the roles of Haggar and...erm...Cody. Yes.

Those who've played Final Fight may spot that Drake and Cody are mimicking the moves of their on-screen counterparts, and that the two bad guys are animal versions of villains from the game. The lion is based on Hugo Andore, the huge meat-headed wrestler bloke with the questionable dress sense, while the rhino is based on Bill Bull, the big fat beardy chap who always came charging onto the screen head-first (I thought turning him into a bull would be too obvious).

This was my first ever go at computer colouring, and I remain thoroughly pleased with it. The characters were drawn in pencil and pen, then coloured in Photoshop and pixellated to look like sprites, and the background was grabbed directly from an emulated version of the game. The lettering and energy bars, meanwhile, were cut and copied from screenshots and then painstakingly redrawn with a mouse. This was incredibly fiddly and made my fingers go numb.

Drake and Cody are the copyright of the splendid Mr Suzukawa. Infringey types will be clouted up the conk with a spinning lariat.