Paint Boy Sprites

Last week, I showed off some character concepts for a project I worked on during the autumn of my junior year in college.  The idea was to create a protagonist for a game where the player switches between three different kinds of attacks, which we later decided would be the colors red, green, and blue.  We actually did have some progress on that game, enough to make some sprites for it, like these.

 This top image shows off Paint Boy himself, rocketing through the level in typical space-shooter style.  Admittedly, it was all recolors of the same green set, but I wanted to color Paint Boy myself.  He was meant to switch between the green, red, and blue power-ups, but we also had an idea for a power-up that would essentially let you shoot two colors at once.  This double color idea led to planning magenta, cyan, and yellow palettes, too.

 Here we have some enemy sprites for what was planned to be the first level: the calculator program.  Enemies could be eight different colors, where using a different color than the enemy would make it easier or harder to beat.  Secondary-color enemies (like the 9s here) were meant to fight with multiple colors, too, and the key there was to beat them with the opposite color (use blue to beat yellow, for example).  Black enemies could be beaten by anything and didn't shoot, while white ones were indestructible.

I made these in Microsoft Paint back before I started using Photoshop regularly, and I still find Paint to be handy for sprite work even now.  This was supposed to take place in a computer, so despite the paint bucket appearance of our hero, our system was based on additive color (colors of light) rather than subtractive color (pigment colors).  We also decided to stylize the art, and I tried to create an impression that the sprites were originally crayon or chalk drawings.  That is why the colors start bright but end up more pale, as well as why the edges are not straight.

I still have a bit more to show off that details more about where this was and where it was meant to go, but this could give you a taste of what the game was like.  Next week, a look at the process of making these sprites, as well as one of the biggest things from this project.