AuthorTopic: Lineart help with a Lunch Lady boss for my retro 2d shoot'm up! (Updated)  (Read 5905 times)

Offline Flecko

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Hello again everyone,

after my last post....which was awhile ago about help with my player sprite, I have gotten much much further with my game. It is now fully playable.  You play as a kid with an overactive imagination that fights off school books, teachers heads(that shoot D minuses), and TVs. Here is a somewhat current screenshot:



The only thing I lack is decent artwork for the first boss, which will be a giant lunch lady. I was hoping to make her a cross between Lunch Lady Doris from the simpsons, and Mr. Clean. You know...manly but still flingin' mashed potatos with her iced cream scoups. This however, is turning out to be a lot harder than I thought it would be. Can anyone help out my sad lineart? I'm going to continue to work on it...but I can't get the figure quite right. Here she is:



Thanks so much guys! Hopefully I can get her squared away and then do some more background pixel art for level 1.
-Flecko

PS - this is the first public viewing of my game, so go easy on me.

UPDATE - I updated the lunchlady a bit. I made the legs chubbier and gave the appearance of bigger thighs. Also, I added some facial detail. The chin simply didn't have enough jutt...you know...it doesn't mean butt if it ain't got that jutt. Any more help? I want this thing to have good character. Thanks!
« Last Edit: February 14, 2006, 06:06:37 pm by Flecko »

Offline AlexHW

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Re: Lineart help with a Lunch Lady boss for my retro 2d shoot'm up!

Reply #1 on: February 14, 2006, 05:40:24 pm
Really neat game idea, I've had similar ideas where you'd have a person flying around, so it's cool to see this.
The lunch lady seems pretty good actually, maybe make her a bit more chubby on the thighs to match the rest of her body.

Offline crab2selout.png

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Hope you don't mind getting crits on the screenshot, as I've a couple thoughts on it.

I think the contrast needs to go down on the background items like the sky and clouds. Right now it feels like they're fighting for attention with the main character and bullets.

I tried to play around with the colours myself if you want to take a look. I would suggest shifting the hues of your shading colours a little bit(general rule is highlights move towards yellow, shadows moving to purple). Doing this gives you a wider range of values to choose from and makes things look a lot better. The bottom of he clouds could use a couple extra pixels as the flat bottoms really stick out to me.
http://img124.imageshack.us/img124/2386/cloudshot17qm.png

And as for your lunchlady, maybe give her one of those double chin things(not the one whre you've got neck fat forming the chin from behind, but a chin with cleavage cutting a regular chin in half.)

Offline Flecko

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Thanks for the suggestions on colouring crab. I really really like your edit to my screenshot, but I should have first mentioned that the only thing that is final in those shots are the sprites and bullets. The background tiles are all things that I whipped up quickly to fill it out and make a semi-decent screenshot. I mean, they're somewhat in the vein of what I'm trying to achieve...but obviously they're not done. The grass is especially pathetic, I was just needed a grass tile to make sure my multi-layer scrolling is working well.

That being said, hopefully I'll get time to update the background tiles soon, but I really want to test out my boss code. So I'm gonna try to finish my lunch lady tonight. I have updated it again somewhat, and will post here in this thread with my progress. I really like the idea for the chin, I'll see how it plays. At the moment....it looks more like a lunch man, but I'll fix it up.

And I'm open to any more suggestions or improvements anyone wants to offer.
Thanks guys!
-Flecko

Offline Flecko

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Ok, here's my newest update. I got a bit of time to work on it today. Did some messing with the head and body.



I moved the shoulder down a bit, moved the head a bit, redid the apron, and started working on the collars. Also did some coloring. Here's another question though. I plan on having the arms outstretched and holding ice cream scoups...anyone care to help me with that? I keep drawing and redrawing them, but can't seem to get them to look correct, especially the lunch ladies right arm(the arm on our left.) I've never done a pixel as large as this one, so its proving to be more time consuming than I had thought or hoped. I am making progress though.

Keep up the great suggestions, I'm listening to all of them.
Thanks guys!
-Flecko

Oh btw, this game will be released around March 20th, its for the shmup-dev.com 2d horizontal shooter competition. So the wait to play it won't be that long.

Offline Xion

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Whaaa!!!
WTF is it!? A guy or a gal? That boss would most certainly scare the crap outta me.
Question: is the lunchbeing/boss gonna be flying? If so, I would suggest a more...loose dangling of leg appendages. Perhaps akin to floating, or maybe in a state of perpetual jumping?

A lunchbeing like that I don't picture serving Ice Cream. Why would the protagonist be fighting someone that gives away Ice Cream? Perhaps some "Mystery Slaw" or "Vomitious Veggie?"

I really think you should keep with the manly lunchlady, though. Give "it" some stubble and saggy cleavage. That would make for the most frightening boss in the history of histories.

What you have so far is pretty cool, though.

Offline Flecko

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Hehe, thanks for the reply Xion. No, the lunchlady won't be flying. She'll be standing on the ground. And as for the icecream scoups...did you ever go to grade school? An icecream scoup is what lunch ladies use to serve mashed potatos. Its odd, but its the truth. If you haven't heard of any of this, listen to the song Lunchlady Land by Adam Sandler, and failing that, look around for the Saturday Night Live skit by the same name. Both will fill you in on the background details. As for why it has a mans face instead of a ladies, I dunno, I just thought it was funnier this way.

Now, back to the sprite. I had another go at the arms late last night and still couldn't come up with anything goood. I did manage to do a bit of shading on the dress, but beyond that, haven't made much more progress. Anyone feel like taking a whack at the arms? I'll post an update later on today with my progress.

Thanks guys!
-Flecko

Offline Razz

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Well, I feel kinda flattered.


I don't think my clouds really fit well with your style though.

Quote
The background tiles are all things that I whipped up quickly to fill it out and make a semi-decent screenshot.
Ya know, that kinda hurts.
« Last Edit: February 15, 2006, 08:34:52 pm by Razz »

Offline Flecko

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Oh my!

By "whipped up" I didn't mean to imply that I had made all the pixels Razz! Like I said though, the only thing final in the screenshots are the sprites and bullets. Believe me, I would never steal from another pixel artist! I originally saw your clouds over on pixeljoint I believe, and grabbed them to see how clouds look in a multilayered scrolling background.

I'm sorry that I didn't credit you here with the clouds, but I didn't think it necessary considering they aren't actually going to be in the game. Plus...I had to squish them a bit to fit the 16x16 tiles I needed. I hope you weren't offended. That was never my intention. I plan on a different look for the clouds I will eventually use.

I will of course, add your name to the credits as inspiration though  ;D

At any rate, I've made a few more edits to the lunch lady and will post it in a bit.
-Flecko

EDIT: Here is my latest update....not sure where to go from here? Can anyone make suggestions for wrinkles in the clothing? I can't get it to work out at all. Thanks again guys.





PS - Again, sorry Razz, I feel terrible about having you think I ripped you off. Its been weighing on my conscious all night. Believe me, that was never my intention.
« Last Edit: February 16, 2006, 03:30:55 am by Flecko »

Offline Razz

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Aha, no worries, mate. It's not a big deal. :P
Hakuna Matata.