I did this for class. The assignment was to do "bad art". We could interpret this any way we wanted. So, I decided to do fan art of a Master Chief™ (or rather, Grif from Red vs. Blue), using the Halo 3 Mountain Dew Game Fuel™ as my media. The black lines were drawn with india ink, to make it stand out more.

On the TV is Grif in Season 2 of Red vs. Blue. I also have the action figure I used for reference and an empty can of Game Fuel™ on the easel where my pic is being held up. This is not the finished version, I will upload a picture of that later (I had to turn it in for critique, I took this picture prior to then).

About the Game Fuel™: When Halo 3™ came out, a bunch of other things came out with it, like the limited edition Game Fuel™ soda. A lot of people made fun of it because of its presumed power to make you better at gaming. Also because most people thought it was the nastiest stuff on the face of the earth. Those people have obviously never tried wheat grass juice.

So anyway, I was one of those few people who actually LIKED the stuff. So when October came around, and stores stopped stocking the stuff, I was saddened. Then, one day, I stopped at Safeway where I found a whole stack of them...on sale. So, I bought all that they had left (8 cases), with full intent to drink it.

In the end, I only ever finished a few cases before the stuff expired. I guess I thought I was holding it for a special occasion or something. But in any case, now I had all this soda that I had no idea what to do with. I had some offers from people online to take it off my hands, but as it turns out you can't send soda through the mail because it's a pressurized drink. So, it appeared that I was stuck with the stuff.

So then my teacher comes and gives us this assignment, and I guess I was drinking soda at the time when the brilliant idea came into my mind that "Hey...this stuff has color. Why don't I try to paint with it?" And I remembered that wonderful color of Halo 3 Mountain Dew Game Fuel™ that I loved so much, and the idea for this picture was born.
I took multiple pictures of the image, one with the flash on so that you can see the sheen left by the dried soda, one with ambient light. At one point I tried to add sugar to the drink to make it a thicker consistency, but it was already so saturated that the sugar didn't dissolve at all...but it left a rough texture that I liked so I left it in. I tried using regular Mountain Dew™ for the background, but it didn't show up quite as much as the Game Fuel™ did. I would still like to try and use it in the future if I can figure out how to make it a thicker consistency.

On the subject of "Bad art," which was supposed to be the theme of this project...I considered things that were generally not accepted in the traditional art field. Soda is not a traditional medium, for instance; it's difficult to paint with, for one, and there's also a danger of attracting bugs (mine did not attract any bugs, by the way). The other thing is that this is essentially fan art; another thing generally not accepted in the traditional art field. Overall, I like it, though I can think of a few things that I can improve on if/when I do more of these in the future.

I want to thank Rooster Teeth, Bungie, Microsoft and Mountain Dew. Without you, none of this would have been possible.