I've been talking over the last two weeks about this game project I made some artwork for involving a character that travels through computer programs to fight intrusive enemies. His name was Paint Boy, and he could swap out the kinds of shots he fired Ikaruga-style, only instead of black-and-red vs white-and-cyan, Paint Boy worked on a red vs green vs blue system. I not only drew the original concept for Paint Boy, but I also drew some sprites for the project, some of which I showed last week. How did I make those sprites, though?
Apologies may be in order for this first image, but I needed a rather large canvas for these sprites. You may have noticed that the sprites from last week were rather rough-looking. We wanted to make the sprites look like something drawn with crayon or chalk, so I ended up making the sprites huge first and then shrinking them. You can see the results of the shrunken sprites here. In addition to the Calculator enemies, I also had some designs for enemies in the Word Processor level. They included various letters, as well as a semi-colon that I think was supposed to be some kind of bomb. This sheet also includes a number of other elements from the game, including various bullets and a triangle meant to try and demonstrate the relationship between colors.
But what fun would a space-shooter be without a boss to fight at the end of a level?
Here we have the idea for the boss of the Word Processor level: Helper Clip. Obviously, this is meant to be a parody of Clippit, the somewhat obnoxious assistant character in Microsoft Word. He is possessed by the force trying to conquer the computer and offers to "help" eliminate Paint Boy. The idea was to make this go through three phases. First, he simply winked or blinked to shoot bullets at you. You shot at both of his eyes until they darkened, at which point, he would start crying semi-colons. Once both eyes started crying, Helper Clip would block shots with his tail, making the player overcome a secondary-color shield. With the tail shot off, Helper Clip would become mad, and the final phase would begin. His weak spot was his mouth, but in addition to the explosive teardrops, the stump of his tail would also spray out bullets. Once you shot his mouth away, then Helper Clip falls in defeat.
And so ends the saga of Paint Boy. We had big plans for the project and some ideas for later stages (I think Longcat was supposed to be the final boss), but my group only worked on this for a couple of months before we just stopped. I would love to be able to work on a project like this in the future, and maybe I will return to it at some point.
If you'd like to work with me on a project like this, or if you need a sprite artist for a project, please let me know. For now, though, that is pretty much it for Paint Boy. Next week, something else.
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.
Back when I opened this blog up, I was mainly using it to show off some of my artwork when I didn't have my portfolio online yet. I just needed a space to show to potential recruiters to say, "Hey, I can draw!" Today's pictures are ones that I'm actually surprised that I did not post here back then.
One game project I worked on during my junior year of college was a space shooter game (i.e. games like Gradius or StarForce) where the player had to shoot using the primary colors of light: red, green, and blue. After we decided that the game would occur inside a computer, I was tasked with drawing up some ideas for our hero.
The top page shows a few potential ideas we could have used, including a masked man on a surfboard with a paint brush. Honestly, though, I really wanted the character to be some kind of flying paint bucket, as shown on the bottom page. The game was computer-themed, and the paint bucket was not only a common application in paint programs for the computer (like MS Paint and Photoshop), but also the one that I thought at the time would yield the widest variety of ideas. They ranged from just flying buckets with snouts to buckets carried by hand icons. Eventually, I came up with the character in the bottom-right corner: Paint Boy. Not only did the paint bucket form the basis of Paint Boy's body, but I also incorporated other painting program tools into his design: a pencil / crayon to act as his blaster, and the hand tool in order to hold the other colors when he wasn't using them. This is the design the team eventually settled on.
We actually did make some decent progress on the game, though we only managed to make one level and didn't fully incorporate a boss despite the fact that I actually drew one. Yes, I actually drew sprites for this project, and I was happy to be given that chance. Will that be what I show off next week? Maybe, I haven't decided yet.
If you like what you see, then let me know below. I look forward to hearing some feedback.
