Nindel Sprite In Progress and Still Choosing Paper Over Microsoft Word

So this post comes from this website

I don't know why but I finally came up with the idea to update this website weekly or biweekly.

Below is the fourth sprite of Trapped; Nindel the merman and the last possible romantic interest in Trapped.

This is currently the base and I need to add the emotions for him.  I think I did a little better with the line art.  I am learning to keep my hand steady and make my lines with quick movements of my wrist on my intuos tablet.  Making  good line art comes with lots of practice.  Aside from being fun, doing these sprites help me practice digital drawing and coloring a lot.

I wonder what my artwork will look like in the future.

In order to become more organized, I brought a notebook and wrote "Dark Siren Games" on the cover.  In the notebook I write down the sprites, scenery, special scenes, and whatever progress I need to work on or have already done.  Of course I could always use Microsoft Word to document my process like most people who are using a game design document but I have been using pencil and paper since I was young. 

 Even Though I am transitioning to drawing more in Photoshop, rather than on paper, I guess I will always write my thoughts and stories out on paper before using Microsoft Word.

Nindel Sprite in the Process

This blog entry came from here

With Bryan’s sprite done, next up is Nindel.  Nindel is the merman who is also trapped inside of the tank with Amenti.

I might look up a line art tutorial before doing work on Nindel.  MAYBE make him a little bit thicker.  Maybe….

Doing emotions for sprites has been getting easier.  Emotions have been something that I have not drawn in my drawings before.  Now I can start putting more emotions into my drawings now and post them on my deviantart account.

Bryan Sprite is Done

     Website:    Dark Siren Games

Emotions left to right: default, angry, happy, sad, surprised, annoyed, blushing 1, blushing 2

Bryan is one of the possible romance options for the protagonist Amenti in my visual novel Trapped. He is a young scientist in the undersea lab where Amenti is being held captive.

Three down, four more sprites to go.

I got a bit of a scare last Sunday.  My computer randomly shut down while I was working on Bryan.  Thankfully, Photoshop saved a short while before the shut down so I didn't loose much progress.  The incident did make me start saving my work on my flash drive as well as my computer,  instead of having all of my work on my computer.

Bryan Work In Progress

This blog entry came here

So it’s been awhile since I have updated.  Currently this is what I for the next sprite for Trapped: Bryan.

The full shading and highlighting should be done this week.  The emotions will be done the next week after this week.  I need to stop wondering how to do better line art and coloring.  I’m more focused on delivering the story with this visual novel and generally getting my first project out there.  The next visual novel I make, I want to focus on improving my digital artwork.

Rambling

This post is also from my website

Remember a long time ago, I said I was going to have a programing/character artist job? Well this was for a video game company with a about five people. The company does have an official and licensed name but the members hardly come together to work on anything. The only activities that ever happen are meetings where game ideas and design theories are discussed, then months later a tiny bit of actual game development (from anyone other than myself) is produced.

If anyone wants to start a game company with more than one or two people, I suggest finding some REALLY motivated people.  People who are willing to make time for a project is always cool.  When I was in charge of a small game project at ECPI, the guys who were extremely busy with work and family managed to produce a lot more work than the guys who could not imagine spending five or twenty minutes on a concept sketch after school.  These guys no family or even a job to worry about.   I noticed when some people barely have any free time, they tend to work harder on a project.

With the situation in mind with the game company, working on my own is starting to look really promising, rather than a depressing path. I have used Unity and Flash in the past and would love to make point and click adventure games or some other story based games with those engines in the future. I have found a few friends who are willing to beta test my game and help improve my writing skills.  Just a few days ago, one of my friends improved my website’s design. I am a game developer, not a web developer.

I need to sit down and devote a lot of time to finishing this game.  A few days ago, I spoke with a guy who started a lot of web comics and video game projects but never finished them.  He knew he would get a lot more people to his deviantart if he finished his projects but just does not finish them. I don’t want to be that guy.

Ranting aside, it is always nice to see what people have to say about my ideas. Long ago I technically made my first ren’py game based off of a tutorial.  A lot of people seemed to like it.

That game didn't take that long to make since I used a lot of images from Google and the sprites from the tutorial.  The only time I will be through Google for my ren’py game, would be for scenery references when I start drawing my scenery.  I can also draw and write so no more borrowing sprites for me.

Speaking of people’s opinions, there are people who do let’s plays of ren’py games youtube.  Some people do play ren’py games for fun and others play ren’py because of the “wonderful” repetition that most ren’py games have.  One such let’s player is named oddscuff . I’m not sure if he is picking the game’s randomly or if he is picking a certain game because there was something interesting about it.  Either way, I find some of his videos humorous and they give me an idea on how some people view ren’py games.

Trapped Update: Sprite Sketches

This is a short update.  I sat down and designed the remaining sprites for Trapped.  Unfortunately I drew the sprites out on paper.  This visual novel has a total of 8 sprites (main character, two love interests, five side characters).  I would like to get the hang of drawing completely on the computer someday, instead of starting first with paper.   When I am at a friend’s house, I often bring my sketchbook and not my computer.  The majority of my digital artwork is done at home.

Here are the two love interests that will be in Trapped:

A human scientist who works in the lab as an assistant scientist

A merman who has been stuck inside the underwater laboratory for a few months.

I will be working on these two for the next few days.

Unette's Sprite is Done

Just finished another sprite today. I am getting used to working in Photoshop Creative Suite 6. I am still going to look at few Photoshop and line art tutorials before working on the next sprite.

Emotions left to right are outraged, angry, shock, sad, happy, and default (neutral).

Unette is the foster mother of the protagonist Amenti.  Unette is a workaholic and willingly devotes most of her time to her job than her foster daughter.

Up next is one of the possible love interests, a human scientist in training named Bryan.