Zx Spectrum Next - Game study

A new project started following Jim Bagley's live sessions.
It is a jump back in the past programming on Spectrum some simple games-like stuff.
The above is an example written in ZXBasic that is full of great features for making simple games.
Let see if we will port some of this in machine code, at least this is what Jim is trying to do....

8-Bit Invaders: phase 2

 

And here we are:
digital versions of the hand-drawn sketches are now ready... and do not want to stay into a pc all the time!
Some fresh air is required and so...
I suspect you have already guessed what is going to happen as next step!

Creating a brand

 

Now is time to explain who is this strange guy!
It is the product of the process of creating a brand for a new, hypothetical company.
This was a project for a graphic course: we have to create a new company and its main product, no limit to the imagination, requirement was to be coherent and convincing.
I imagined a start-up that was going to develop an A.I. capable of replacing its owner in all the aspects of the social/web life: gaming, chatting, posting comments and so on.
Obviously the A.I. was configurable and reporting to the owner on a schedule defined by the owner itself.
Starting from this idea there was the task of choosing a proper name, and the right font for it.
The next step was creating a graphic logo for the company.
I ended this phase with the horizontal log:

And also the compact version:

The next phase in the project was creating something special for the company and there, as you already guessed, the compact version of the name became central, with just some simple transformations a small robot character could be created:

So the small robot became the friendly interface of the A.I., especially for humans not much knowing about computers. And it was also a key graphical/emotional element for the possible applications:

It won the benevolence of the course members, and also a 3D render for the final page of the  Brand Development Guide.
As said in a previous post: all the elements of the character have a real meaning! :)

Wizard Mouse

This little fellow was sketched when my son lost his first tooth.
Here the traditional story is that: a small magical mouse that comes during the children sleep, takes the tooth and drops a valuable coins as gift.
So I made a quick drawing of my version of this fantastic character... and also this, was just the first step of a new more complex project...
As usual: more about this in a future post.

8-Bit Invaders

 

Never, never, never give a squared sheet of paper to someone that played with an 8-bit computer!!!
The risk is of starting an invasion of pixel-alien creatures!
And so it was.
I started doing variations on an 8x8 grid and sketched a bunch of them... not only the ones you see above...
a bit more :)
When I finished a question raised: 'Can I leave them just on paper?'
Obviously not!
So I started a new task: create a digital version of them...

Golosaurus Rex

 And here we go with another sketch!
Someone spoke a rare dinosaur's species.
One that was well known for his capacity of eating huge amounts of food, especially if well cooked!!!

Several specimens are thought to be still alive and walk among us ;)

 

And so it is: I've met one
of them it seems!

After making a quick pencil sketch to document the finding...
I added a bit of color to make a clear picture of this really dangerous monster!

La Guerra dei Draghi

Don't ask why but, I'm proud to show you all the result of my last project, a small book:
'La Guerra dei Draghi'.
I worked on this during the spare time of the last months (so, really, no much time :) ).
The idea was born from seeing a friend publishing a book and seeing that the result was not bad at all, and from a bed-time story that I made up for my son when he was very young.
When I started telling him, probably, he could not even understand what I was saying but he needed to know that he was not alone, and I needed a way to stay awake... so...
Now he is grown up and he still remembers some of the story, but he could not put all the pieces together and make a complete story.
But he is going to start reading on his own in a short time.

So I said myself that I could try to make a short book, in this way if he will want to know how the story was when he will be capable of reading it.

Said that I started what resulted in a long term project: I made seventeen pictures and wrote the text trying to stay simple and short, and then put all together.

Being able to finish the project and print the book was very gratifying, way more than completing a PC image or 3D project.

Now I don't know if my son will ever read it or even give it a glance ... perhaps he will not be interested any more in fantasy stories, but one can not always be sure of what the future will be ...

An object from my desk

One object, one cut, multiple techniques. 
An exercise of denotative design, focusing on a common use object.

Rogue

And now a colored pencil drawing.
From the darkness of the dangerous dungeon a lone warrior emerges, descending the path to find a magic amulet and battling hordes of monsters: Rogue.

Inspired to the old original ascii graphic dungeon crawler game.

Explore the dungeon .. find the amulet ... become a ... HERO!

Saber-tooth tiger demon (Balrog)

Another pencil drawing.
This one cames from a discussion about the Barlog that was realized for the animated version of The Lord of the rings (1978). Here the Barlog had a lion head and some sort of wings.
So I developed the idea and moved to something a bit more 'dynamic'.
The drawing is a bit more larger than the A4 aera of the scanner and, really, is more a test for the new pencils and skecth-book than anything else. The paper is rough drawing paper and, two sizes of pencils were used, usually I used just one size of pencil, but using a bigger one shortened significantly the time needed for the sketch.

Merry Christmas !!

Ok I'm a Garfield fan so, a loooooong time ago (... really I thought this work was lost but I found it by chance last week so...), I asked him help to wish you all:

MERRY CHRISTMAS !!

Rat Marauder

And now it is time for the villains!
The most vicious enemies of the Hamsters kingdom are the rats!
Those are heavy muscled creatures, a sort of giants for our hamsters: a rat marauder is almost the double of an hamster in height, not to speak of the weight and strength.
Rat marauders raids are dangerous and the hamster guards have to plan carefully how to meet them. Luckly for the hamsters the marauders move in small groups trying to steal food and valuables, more than conquer lands.

Hamster guard

Ok this is a simple one: we are building some context for the little hero of the previous post.
So now it is decided that he is a shadowy character living in an hamster kingdom where he is known as a very capable and dangerous thief.
When on his 'duties' he is always hunted by the royal guards, that never succeed in catching him.
But he is not just a selfish guy that steals to achive richness: the hamster kingdom has enemies and one of those is very dangerous ... more in the following posts.
Until now there seems no need for giving a name to our hero, or to the kingdom so ... we just go on with our bedtime story :)

Assassin Creech

Time for another post: a new sketch and a silly joke based on the title of a famous game brand and franchise ... it is quite an homophone of the title of this post where creech is a nonsense word that sounds like the italian word for hamster that is criceto. Now creech and cric sound very similar in english and italian and they both are very similar to the second half of the title of the game mentioned before, and can you guess it? Assassin is a term that ahas to do with the main character of the game and, obviously even with this small creature!  ;)
So this little guy is the dark and murderous side of our beloved hamster ... and my child liked it very much ... 'It is an hamster!' he said without esitation looking at the picture and then added 'I want to see the film of this one!' Nice idea but for sure I was not planning any film and not even an animation, just a drawing ... a sketch for a new possible character ... but now ... who can know :)

Warrior animation 1

 

Some more frames: a new frame for the heavy blow, a lateral jump  with sword and a forward with sword (a short skidding step) are added.
And everything put togheter in a new sequence.

Jump

And now another basic action: jumping.
As usual a short sequence for a small jump, using a low number of frames.

Running

Another basic action added to the list available for our warrior: the run.
 It could not seem but there are a lot of actions that have to be considered for giving an acceptable degree of interactivity to a game character.
Running is quite common in games, usually mor than walking, so how can I miss an attempt of drawing some frames for my fantasy warrior ? No way of avoiding that.
Having already done a walking sequence, I have had to match the two in some way, but a 4 frames sequence seemed not a so good result, so I went for an adjustment and added two frames to the runnig sequence, increasing the distance travelled. In this way I tried to minimize the diference ni time length of the two animations.
Obviously both the sequences are much under the clasical number of frames suggested for them, but thinking of a game context being at a low frames count could be very useful, and the result is stil acceptable, at least to me ;).

Warrior animation

Still drawing fantasy warriors: added two more frames and decided to put all togheter ... as in a game environment ... to test some basic actions: walk, stand, draw, light blow, heavy blow, sheat sword ... to check if all the action can be played separately or as a sequence.
It could be time to find an opponent to this barbarian :)

Strike a Blow !

Another action for our warrior: now that the sword is in his hand,  he can even try to strike a blow !
So nothing seriuos, as usual, and still stuck on this silly mood of drawing sketches for an animation placing the frames one next to the others instead of one over the other, models or reference images and not tracing guide lines. Why doing things in this wayy really I don't know but I'm quite enjoying the process.
Now I've managed an high blow ... but ... I think that adding one or two frames it can be expanded to a full body swing and blow.

Draw your sword !

Ok still some drawings: now let the warrior prepare for the fight!
Same idea as the precedetn post: draw the kyeframes one next to the other on a sheet of paper. This time I've to add two more poses after testing the first group of four keyframes: four were not enough for all the action, so I've to draw two ointermediate poses on a different sheet. Doing so I ended with a series of six poses, the first and the last not strictly tied to the action but good for thinking of transitions to other animations.