PopCap’s doing something for the community again. If you head to eBay, you’ll find a PopCap Charity Auction eBay Store page filled with rounds of exclusive art. Buy it and you’ll not only get the joy from owning an original piece of game-inspired artwork. You’ll also get a warm feeling that comes from knowing your money just went to help out the Starlight Children’s Foundation and SpecialEffect.

That’s because all of the money PopCap earns from this four week long auction will be going straight to those two charities…

A pink bunny licking ice cream cones is probably the last thing you would expect this story be about. To be honest, that picture could be of just about anything and it would serve the same purpose. This is a drawing from the upcoming PlayStation Move game Beat Sketcher. Beat Sketcher is scheduled to be released on November 23, 2010 on the PlayStation Network.

Time to look at pretty pictures on your iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch again. Square Enix has released another art gallery program, but it isn’t filled with Final Fantasy images this time. It’s filled with Fullmetal Alchemist art. The Fullmetal Alchemist Gallery is now available on iTunes for $1.99.

Unlike the previously released Final Fanatsy XIII Larger-than-Life and Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children Complete Larger-than-Life apps, the Fullmetal Alchemist Gallery app is just about looking at pictures and finding new backgrounds for your iOS device…

Disney Interactive Studios gave a lot of booth time to Epic Mickey at E3 2010.

Available Fall 2010 for Wii, Epic Mickey will include more than 60 Disney animated characters and feature a brush-wielding Mickey Mouse.

With the power of paint and paint thinner, a 1920s-to-1930s-era Mikey is able to erase and redraw the game’s environment (*cough* Shaun White Skateboarding *cough*) in this action-platformer-RPG hybrid designed by Warren Spector (and developed by Junction Point Studios).

Micky has quite a presence at E3 2010. There is an enclosed section of the floor that only houses Mickey products. Several kiosks demoing Epic Mickey wrapped around the booth and artwork lined the walls. There were also iPad comics featuring Mickey and his pals that we posted about earlier.

In the light of the fact that the United States Supreme Court has decided that, later this year, they’re going to be considering Sen. Leland Yee’s law that was blocked by a US District Court..

The law was blocked when the video game industry sued the state of California, citing concerns about whether or not the law was against the constitution.

The law banned the sale of violent games to minors. It holds the punishment of a $1,000 fine for each offense. The law, although passed, was never successfully enacted. Still, Adam Sessler, in an episode of G4′s Sessler’s Soapbox laid out part of the question perfectly: Are video games protected speech

Handmade items always make a fantastic gift, no matter what the occasion, but they’re especially suitable for Valentine’s Day gifts. It’s a good way to make someone feel special, since you’re getting them what could be a one-of-a-kind item that’s exactly his or her taste.

Sadly, not all people are crafty enough to create their own gifts. A good alternative is to check out the various shops at Etsy.com. Many of the artists selling their wares there have a wide variety of items and gadgets appropriate for your video game valentine.

To make shopping easier, Gamertell has gone through some of the Etsy shops to put together a list of some of the best, homemade video game gifts. If you buy something now, you should be able to get it in time for February 14, 2010…

For my latest melted beads project I decided to remain old school, this time with Link from The Legend of Zelda (NES).

I found a lot of sprite designs online for this one but none were lage enough to maximize the 29×29 pixel grid. Again I used PCStitch to convert images I had found and edit it to make the desired design using the Pyssla beads 10-color pallet…

For my second perler beads project I chose one of my all-time favorite arcade game icons, Peter Pepper from BurgerTime (1982).

Click through for the pattern…

Inspired by the cross stitch projects (and by our very own Jenni Lada), I picked up a pack of Ikea’s plastic beads and decided to give a go at some 8-bit art.

Since I live pretty close to an Ikea, I picked up Ikea’s bucket o’ beads (aka Pyssla, US$5.99) which contains ten colors, most of which are appropriate for old-school avatars. For my first project I opted for a Racoon Mario from the classic NES game, Super Mario Bros. 3. For the working base I used Ikea’s Pyssla bead shape set (US$2.00) which includes four colored shapes. The largest is the white square with 29 x 29 pegs.