Illustrated Pieces of Broadway

Over the past few days I have been drawing a hell of a lot in illustrator trying to get my character looking just right. The head was easy enough as I had already drawn this on paper and scanned it in. The body however proved a little more difficult. I kept changing styles and body shape but eventually I settled on this:

Adding Colour:

Creating Different Displays of Emotion:

Broadway - Split up into pieces:

BROADWAY: FINAL

As you can see from this final image there was one change I made to the image you saw above and that was his legs and feet. I was really unhappy with what I had above as it looked to unfinished. So much time had gone into desigining the rest of him and I felt I had rushed his bottom half, his feet especially, too much. Since I had gone to the trouble of making the most of him solid and somewhat 2.5D like I thought this was a bit of a let down. His claws on his feet above were just flat lines and looked like a preschooler had made them. I also felt I needed a little more cat and a little more grown up to his appearance so I added a bit of hair also and I think this joins his feet to his legs a lot nicer than the curved lines in the first image. They look like his feet rather than something that has been glued on to the bottom of a pair of stumps!

Hello Illustrator!

Today I scanned my chosen sketch of Broadway's head onto the computer and then I did a trace of it using Illustrator. Annoying thing with this though is that the scanner picked up a bit of dirt and extra "drawing lines" within the sketch so I had to do a bit of editing before I got it quite right.

When traced I got this:

I really like how it turned out. The angle is perfect, can see his face clearly so can now have some fun creating multiple heads with different displays of emotion in which I can use when I come to animate. One thing to note is that I had to delete his eyes out from what I had in my sketch as these were too corrupted with scanned in dirt and extra lines to keep, no major though can just computerize the rest no problem.

Development of Head and Sword

Two things I really wanted to get right before jumping onto the computer was to sort out my characters head for in the game and his weapon, the swordfish sword.

For the head I wanted to draw this on a slightly angled view rather than a full side on view because this would allow me to play with my characters emotion and present these different emotions in the gameplay. Having it fully side on you lose this as your missing half the face!

Sketching: Will use the one on very right in the middle row. Its awesome!

The sword is made from the head and part of the spine of a swordfish. Different variations:

Walk Cycle

Just looking at the very basics of the walk cycle and drawing my character to the side as this is how he will be in the game, can't draw him front on forever which till now is the only way I have been drawing him.

For the walk cycle I found this short video which gives a quick and easy to follow tutorial on how to draw a basic walk cycle. Will use this to develop my own.

http://sclipo.com/videos/view/animated-walkcycle-with-sunshine-sally

Broadway side on view. Little more detailed. Also holding the newly added swordfish sword. His weapon in the game.

Broadway: The Initial Sketches

Been drawing Broadway with different styled heads and bodies etc. Pretty much just exploring a range of possibilities that came to mind. Shirt or no shirt, pants or no pants. What part looks cat and where does the more human like qualities come? Hands/Paws? - This one I think I have sorted. I am going to have a sort of hybrid which I call "The Claw". It's kind of a paw but longer and thinner and it has a posable pointed thumb. So its almost a hand but the fingers are all fused... if that makes sense. Take a look at the pic anyhow:

So who is this guy...cat?

I have decided to go ahead with my cat character in which I used Klonoa and a bit of Sonic the Hedgehog as inspiration when creating him. The character will be around the teenage/younger adult years who has had a bit of a troubled life. Curiousity killed the cat is what they say however with this cat, it's just led him to growing up in an entirely different world to what he was meant to. In his kitten years he was extremely adventurous, always escaping from his owners house to explore the world that was his neighbourhood. This eventually lead to him getting into a bit of an accident and to cut the story short, he wound up waking up after being knocked out underground in the sewer. As a kitten he had no idea where he was or what had happened and so started his new life in the underground pipline city which is where my game takes place a few years on once he has grown up a bit.

In coming up with my characters name I did so by creating a bit of a story. He asks a rat friend why he calls his buddy by the name or as he sees it, by the word that he does and the rat explains its because thats his name, his identity. So my cat character then asks well who is he? The pidgeon says to him, "Well your a cat right? I used to hear a lot of talk about you on broadway". "Broadway huh...what's that?" says the cat. "From what I hear it's a place of true talent and skill" says the rat. "Then that's who I am, call me Broadway".

Final Initial Sketches

Bit of a hedgehog character. Quite like the outfit...character is too much like sonic.

Few more experiments with different animals. A tribal monkey, Fox with raccoon mask and a kangaroo. Monkey is quite cool but looks more of a sidekick character or enemy rather than a leading role.

Bit of a cat character which I created with inspiration from both sonic and Klonoa. Really like this one, looks like trouble. Mischiefous.

Him again, this time with a body:

Definitely my favourite character. Have also got some ideas for a story for this guy and an enviornment for his world. Looks like I've found my main man. ahh cat?

Some further sketches

A Cow?

How about a bear?

Body Work:

Video Game Inspiration

When first thinking about this project and the idea of 2D gaming I couldn't help but remember the old retro games I used to play as a kid and still do now 15 years on. Games especially like those made for the Sega Megadrive and Playstation one, two consoles I used to thrash in my younger days. So with this in mind, I went to my collection - rather expansive lol, and pulled out a few games that were some of my favourites for various reasons.

Rocket Knight Adventures: RKA is a side scrolling platformer which was quite possibly my all time favourite on the Megadrive. The game also had a sequal called Sparkster, also the name of the main character - an opossum knight who has to fight off an evil army of robots and pigs. How cool is that? What I liked about this game was the very simple gameplay and I love the ink and paint style. This game has some quite good significance to this project also because Sparkster is an animal who possesses human like qualities, with the armour on he looks like a human just with an animal head.

Title Screen:

Gameplay:

Klonoa: A very overlooked game but one that really stood out for me as a gamer on the Playstation 1 console. The game was set around a particular world and the game pretty much involved you as the main character - Klonoa, saving that world from "utter peril". This game had amazing gameplay, it was a mix between puzzle and a side scrolling platformer. It was also in 2.5D which was pretty cool, especially for the time. This game also had a variety of colourful enviornments which really gave life to the game and this world that they created. Something I want to implement into my game. Again, the main character is an animal but possesses human like qualities. Hands and two legs especially stand out.

The orginal is actually having a re-make done which they will soon be releasing on the Nintendo Wii. This pic shows the contrast between the two. Same game but made in different times for different consoles:

Pulseman: Thinking about it more, this was likely my most favourite game. Pulseman was a very rare title as it was only released in Japan which meant me having a copy of this game was rather sweet as I would be 1 out of a very few if any that had it in New Zealand. The game was an action platformer and what I loved about it was the easy controls, a variety of attack powers and again, the nice use of ink and paint styled colouring, really giving off that cartoonish sort of style which I really like. Just adds a sense of fun to it, it being so unreal and imaginative. It takes you back to being a kid, the good times before adulthood and you had to pay bills!

Cover:

Gameplay:

It seems I am quite the fan of side scrollers, they seem to be an occurance with all my favourite games.

Initial Sketches

Sketches:

These are the first couple of sketches I did in in our first class session. First looked at the idea of a turtle and then a raccoon. Not really a fan of either...

I also did these two drawings soon after, tried to change up the turtle idea a bit more by adding a few reptilian features such as the tail and gecko like feet.

The other I looked at a Rooster knight. Not really sure where this one came from, It sort of drew itself. Kind of cool but not what I would like my main character to be. Perhaps this could be used as an enemy character?

Let the gaming begin!

Right so today the 2 1/2 year wait came to an end as I began 2D game design. Finally I can start to really bring my characters to life by doing so in a way I haven't really done so before, user interaction.

My first project really focusses on character design and I am totally amped for it. As my class mates know I'm always doodling and making up new characters and where possible using them for my design projects. There's only really one requirement that is the character needs to be part human and part animal which I think is awesome. It allows for a lot of freedom and creativity so I can't wait to begin. Not too sure what animal I will bring to the mix, I think I will leave it up to my sketches to decide. I'll continue to experiment until one that I really like presents itself.