tisdag 26 juli 2011

Mistah Bii incoming!

Hey fuckers!

Just a small update with a full turn around of the bee-dude I did yesterday:



Been a really unproductive day though. Bought Scott Pilgrim vs the World for my PS3, so I've been grinding the shit out of that game most of the day.

I must say I really, really hated the game at first. The pacing was super off to me, felt like the entire game was limping with really long knock down time and enemies taking forever to take down. Once you get a grip of it all though, learn a few new moves and get better stats, it's a pretty cool game. It's obvious it was designed for more than one player, but it works none the less!

The game looks fucking amazing aswell, but what else would you expect from a game with Paul Robertson as lead art? Also, it probably has the best soundtrack any game has had since like the SNES days. Entirely made by the super amazing band Anamanaguchi.


Anyway, I'm slowly but surely trying to correct my totally fucked up sleeping habits. I work better during the day, so it feels kinda stupid to wake up at around 4 in the afternoon. So with that, I'm off to bed. Talk to you later suckerrrsss!

måndag 25 juli 2011

Step by step: Sprit3zzzZZZ

Ok, so I figured that instead of posting an animation today, I'm gonna show you guys my work process when it comes to creating sprites.

So first I would just like to point out that this is not meant to be somekind of a tutorial or "LOL DO LIKE THIS AND UR GONNA BE PRO DUDE!"-post. This is just my way of doing things. It works great for me, might not work all that great for you. Just a heads up.


So! I always tend to start out with finding a nice shape a like. For this particular sprite, I know I want to create some bee-like insect dude. He's going to hang around in the first area of the game, so I don't want to make him to intimidating or scary.



So I basically just draw shapes until I find something a like. Sometimes a do a bit of research before I take this step, finding references and stuff like that. For this one I felt like I didn't need to cause I had a pretty clear picture in my head of what I wanted to go for.



When I've chosen one of the sketches (i chose to go with the middle one) I'll clean it up and refine the lines until I've got a clean outline to work with. When I'm doing pixelart, I go by the rule to try always keep the outline one pixel wide. You don't need to do this, it's just how I've been taught to do it.



After that, I just color block it to get a quick feel of the colors I'm going for. Nothing fancy.
Now, what I'm doing next is probably the most important step of my work process. I show my shit to the people I'm working with and ask for input. Do they like the shape, does it fit the enemy we're going for, what do I need to change etc.

So, I showed my sketch to Vilya, the other artist I'm working with. She said she liked the overall shape of it, but that she though it would be a tad too big. With the sprite now being almost as big as the Rabbi enemy, I totally agreed and reworked it.



Since we both liked the shape I tried to keep it as close to my first version as possible. When working with pixelart on such a small scale as this, keeping smooth shapes can be a bit tricky. It turns more into a puzzle of placing all the pixels perfectly then using your artistic skills.
But anyway! I show the new version to Vilya and she gives it thumbs up. Which leads us to the next step!



Coloring! I'm not gonna get to deep with this step, cause it's such a huge topic.
I try to keep such a low color count as possible. Mainly because within the pixelart community, you always strive to keep the amount of colors as low as possible, so this is something I've been taught to always go for. But also because I think it looks much more crisp and clean when you don't go balls out and add 200 shades of the same green.

Once again I show my shit to Vilya and we both agree that the colors are a bit dull and brownish.



I do a few color changes in photoshop and ta-daa! The sprite is finished. Only thing left is a bunch of animations and this sucker will be good to go ingame!


And that's pretty much how I do it. Hope you guys enjoyed this mini walk through of mine. If it's something you guys want to see more of, you let me know! Might do something similar, but on how I tackle 2D animations. That's probably gonna end up as a video though. But yeah!

Now, I got some crappy movies and sleeping to attend to. See you later mother fuckers!

söndag 24 juli 2011

As promised, more frequent updates!

So yeah, been sitting inside my apartment for the last week or so. Working on Grindea, watching a bunch of movies/series and playing Mega man 10. Giving it one play through everday, not gonna stop til I can beat the game without dying once!
Anyway, I'm pretty much aching to get out of my apartment and do shit. If anyone wanna grab a beer (or a couple) let me know! If not, I'll just have to wait for the return of my beloved roomate to get shit started around here!




On a work related note, here's what I've been busy with. This is one of the early enemies you'll come across in Grindea, the super feared Rabbi! This is the attack animation for the sucker, but I've got a bunch more stuff for him aswell. Figured I'll post those in a video or something later on as soon as Teddys got him properly implanted into the game!

Now, I'm gonna start some crappy movie and fall asleep. 07:00 in the morning. Summer sleeping schedule at it's finest!

torsdag 21 juli 2011

Ok, so. I'm gonna turn this blog back into what it used to be. Which basically was me posting my graphic stuff and talking a bunch of crap. I'm gonna keep the English though, to keep things a bit more international. With a new project in the making, I figured I might as well try to reach out to a bigger crowd!

So, anyway. New project? Yep, that's right. New team making it? Totally.
After GGC, we (me, Vilya and Teddy) decided to do our own thing and split up with Trashtalk. We don't have any official name yet, still working on that part, but we've been working on a new project since the start of the summer!
I took a few weeks off (as did the rest of the team) to go visit home, so the last month haven't been super productive really. But now I'm back on my beloved island, ready to get back in the mix!

So about the new project. I'm not gonna go that much into detail, but it's basically an action rpg done in pixel art (fuck yes). We've drawn inspiration from a lot of old classics, like the earlier zelda games (A Link to the Past especially) and the Secret of Mana games. We all have a soft spot for Korean MMO's aswell and the focus on farming/grinding gear, so that also plays a big role in our game. Oh, and it has co-op support!

We're calling the game "Secret of Grindea" at the moment. Might change in the future, but I think it sums up the game perfectly!

Not gonna ramble on about it, I'll go more into detail as we add more stuff. Gonna post a screenshot though for all of you to enjoy! This is just a few weeks of work, so there's a lot of more stuff to be added and changed.



I'm basically doing all the animations, character/monster sprites as well effects and such. Vilya is responsible for all the environments, the GUI/HUD, menus and all that. Teddy is the Rambo-programmer and been doing a pretty kick ass job so far! I'll be posting videos and stuff later to show of more of the game, as well as my animation work.

And, yeah. That's that I guess. I'm gonna try to keep this thing updated to the best of my ability. Probably won't be once every day, but once or twice every week is my aim!
Now, back to work. See you fags around!