So I've been looking at Altered Beast for the Mega Drive lately. It's one of the first games I played as a child on my brand new 16 bit console and it's stayed with me. It's a deeply flawed game that would be of little interest to anyone who doesn't study the history of videogames and/or has nostalgic ties to it. But the art in it is very interesting to us pixel artists. I won't go into a full commercial critique here because that's a bit too broad for what I want us to do in this thread. If you haven't played Altered Beast, you could do worse than watch
this Chronsega episode to get a feel for it.
Now I want you to look at the isolated main character sprite.
This is a reduced version from the
arcade game's sprite, made to work with Mega Drive bitlengths and limits. But don't look at the arcade original too much because here's what I want you (us) to do:
I want you to modify this sprite using what you know now about how pixels work together. Do not change the palette or the outline of the sprite too drastically, do not completely remake it in a different style or machine spec. Just take what is already there and polish it using current techniques. Feel free to edit the anatomy and design of the sprite within the limits of the original aesthetic, as you understand it.
This excercise is useful because it shows the fundamental qualities of pixel art. Your edit should be something that theoretically, were the original artist working on the game to think of it, could have implemented back in 1989.
My version is below. Do not look at it before you're done with your version. Then feel free to compare and contrast, justify your changes or challenge mine. We can look at a few more sprites from this era and/or game later on, perhaps.
Here is my editAnd my edit notes:
1. What I've understood of the game is that it wants to be beefcake, but not in an ironic way (if irony were even possible in 1989 in Japanese game design). Practicality is not a concern, strength is symbolized through muscles. Muscles ultimately lead to becoming beyond-human, in-human. The undertone is similar to that of bodybuilding. So I looked for reference in contemporary body building, especially after the Arnold revolution, which also is not concerned with people being practically fit or strong or athletes, but with the symbol of strength in-itself.
I sculpted the body further and especially the legs which I believe where a big missed opportunity for conveying beefcake by Sega's artists.
2. Besides those alterations, the rest is a thorough cluster study, most of which is best contrasted against other cluster studies you've hopefully made.
3. I did some reuse of the secondary colors in primary spaces, as I am wont to do. Not much more can be done (I think, feel free to prove me wrong) without altering the palette wholesale.
Feel free to post your versions below, as well as talk to any length about the topic.
