So I've been working on the sprites for Geas. First, a history lesson!
The very first Geas sprites were done for the original compo entry. They were done by tulokyn, who although she's been a stellar artist for some time, had never done much pixel art at all. They sufficed, since they were quick, but she hated them and I was a bit unhappy with them.
So I messed around with them a bit, tightened them up, shaded them, and got a somewhat okay sprite. These sprites got released in the tech demo. I liked them, but they were kind of uninteresting and looked pretty wooden. With a 64x64 sprite, we should have something
cool looking, you know?
I then picked up a new sprite artist. She was not a pixel-artist newbie but had never done RPG-style sprites. We worked for a while, drawing from Final Fantasy and Chrono Trigger, as well as traditional animation experience (from tulo). Things were starting to take shape. Then... my spriter got a job in addition to her schooling. She didn't really have time to keep working as the primary sprite person. I don't begrudge her getting a job, but it did mean that I had yet another job to take care of! But, I had what she'd already done, and gained a lot of experience in spriting simply by helping her out.
So then I said 'screw it'. I took everything I've learned since I drew my first bad Final Fantasy 6 sprite-edit eight years ago, plus animation roughs, new, cooler character designs from tulokyn, and sprites from Chrono Trigger, Saga Frontier 2, and various other games. It was pretty rough, but I now have a new way of drawing sprites that I am getting quicker with, and the results are delicious. For now, I have a sprite to show for it, and the potential for many more sprites to come.
I am quite proud of it! Won't you take a look? (These are double sized.) This is Kiel, the first playable characters in the game:
This rather sneaky center image edit brought to you by Overkill
