Dither Boy in Marathon by Visual Developer & Artist, Allan Parker

Allan Parker (also working under the 'Broke my pencils' alias online) is one of my personal favorite artist accounts on Twitter, not because I am heavily biased to anyone who will share Dither Boy WIP screenshots, but because they worked on one of the most graphic-design-coded games of all time, from: Marathon from Bungie!

Allan's work is no doubt the result of many tools, processes, habits, preferences, and years of practice, but I am very proud to say that Dither Boy was part of Allan's process in creating these in world visual assets and posters in Marathon.

Artwork by Allan Parker for Marathon/Bungie

The posters and a favourite background of mine I created for Marathon.
Any favourites? #marathonthegame #Marathon pic.twitter.com/ThaipU67vl
— Broke My Pencil (@artofallan) June 17, 2026

When asked, Allan said that "I fed images through Dither Boy, the assembled them using Affinity" but if you scroll through the Broke My Pencil Twitter account, you can see there are clearly a wide array of tools and processes at play in both personal and client work. If you head over and follow you are not going to just get an extra person on your feed posting dithering every day, meaning you might even discover something new for your own process.

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Personal Art by Allan Parker:

I call this Anxiety.

I'm thinking this is recorded data from an extremely tense skirmish that went kinetic. Warning shots interpreted as hostile action. This person was NOT expecting engagements that day.

I love degraded UI so much. pic.twitter.com/QK1iJNhJyS
— Broke My Pencil (@artofallan) July 31, 2026

Recreating it roughly here. But after some futzing with the base I arrived to this. Which is a good base to work off and do crazy post-processing nonsense afterwards. pic.twitter.com/k23EV9htLO
— Broke My Pencil (@artofallan) April 9, 2026

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Marathon has such an extremely distinct look that to me, as someone who has done a lot of freelance graphic designing in the past, the idea of getting anything at all approved and shipped in-game would be such a huge accomplishment.

It's hard not to play Marathon through the lens of being a graphic designer myself so my perspective might be a bit off, but the people behind the visuals for Marathon have managed to make an enormous amount of very loud, very deliberate graphic design feel completely natural within the world.

Artwork by Allan Parker for Marathon/Bungie

4x Artwork by Allan Parker for Marathon/Bungie

Huge Thank You to Allan Parker and Bungie

Since Bungie are a massive company, I should say that while we did clear this, Dither Boy is not being officially endorsed or recognized in any capacity by anyone at Bungie or Marathon.

I also made a small donation to the Bungie foundation from Dither Boy as a thank you to Allan and Marathon's art team for giving us the go ahead to share these. If you'd like to do the same, you can go to the Bungie Foundation below, or see Allan's portfolio and links:

Credit: Allan D. Parker
Website: http://brokemypencil.ca/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/brokemypencils/
Twitter: https://x.com/artofallan

Bungie Foundation

More prop concept work! I'm sure everyone is familiar with this fellah 🙂 One of the asks was to have the progress be more diegetic (or in-world). I wanted the different states of used and unused to be visibly different.#marathon #marathonthegame pic.twitter.com/xiUPC7A75R
— Broke My Pencil (@artofallan) June 27, 2026

I'm sorry for everyone playing marathon whose been distracted and got downed looking at my little fellahs. Please send your diodes to my vault.

Been secretly watching peeps share these around. It brings a smile to my face. Shout out to the dev team for making the trimsheets! https://t.co/D2cqTjAEU6
— Broke My Pencil (@artofallan) April 9, 2026

You've probably seen these medical scans throughout Tau Ceti. Any theories on what might be going on?

Shoutout to @josephacross and @d_goryainov for sharing their thoughts on how to approach it!#marathonthegame #Marathon pic.twitter.com/tWiWGxY8jr
— Broke My Pencil (@artofallan) June 18, 2026

If you like indie software free updates regular tutorials retro effects advanced dithering then meet Dither Boy!

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Dither Boy

Dither Boy is all-in-one software for authentic retro image, video, and animation dithering. Featuring 63 unique dithering algorithms, a stackable effects pipeline, and full color support, Dither Boy gives you unrestricted access to advanced creative error diffusion, bitmap, halftone, and modulation effects like never before!

Dither Boy is designed to turn any dithering algorithm from a functional compression tool into a granular, editable, malleable effect.

Completely crush your image detail without losing resolution, or create fine and delicate dithering patterns in your work without compromising on style.

Dither your work at any scale without losing your image quality
Full color support with built-in palettes, automatic palette extraction from your images, or download and share user created palettes
Video and animation support built in, with a timeline editor and live preview
Work with 63 dithering algorithms, all animation and vector compatible, including custom algorithms you won’t find anywhere else
Stack and reorder effects like Epsilon Glow, JPEG Glitch, Chromatic Aberration, and more
Effects designed and created specifically for Dither Boy
One purchase includes all future updates, no subscription required
Export black vectors for print and embroidery files
NEW: CMYK Halftone added in update version 6.0!

True to the visual era it was inspired by, Dither Boy requires no recurring subscription, and all future updates will be included in your purchase at no extra cost.