Characters In a new style

[Plokman]

Hey all I'm back. Been busy making the "Pixel Art" Panels for the comic and refining the monitor glow for them. Due to that I've not had much time to sprite stuff. Gonna get on making more of the Pacman sprites ASAP but I have managed to create a new sprite for one of the new Bad-Anon members. Two of them in fact since they are Twins.



Meet Officers Bill and Ben from the game Bagman. I thought it be interesting to analyze characters who in their game are Bad Guys but are based off Heroes.

To those not familiar with Bagman the hero is a convict who is trying to collect his stashed money. Your being chased all the while by two cops.

Anyway for Bill and Ben my idea for them was that they were backwoods style Lawmen with them carrying a shot gun and all so I gave em Overalls and made their hat a Civil War Kepi for their hat.

Sprite on the left is the sprite from Bagman Middle is my custom style and I put Ralph in there for comparison. I think it came out well but am up for crits.

Also I need a bit of a idea for another style that will be making a appearance. The style Berzerk.



Not sure what Ralph should look like in that style. Anyone got a idea?

[Quirby64]

Ralph would probably be a 1 color character like everyone else. He'd probably be facing to his side, because the only other human player sprite (green whatshisface) is pointing to the side also.

Also, to save you troubles, I went to Wikipedia and found a palette that I think the game used :

16 colors like Wikipedia said, and used in the 80s. 

[Plokman]

Ralph would probably be a 1 color character like everyone else. He'd probably be facing to his side, because the only other human player sprite (green whatshisface) is pointing to the side also.

Also, to save you troubles, I went to Wikipedia and found a palette that I think the game used :

16 colors like Wikipedia said, and used in the 80s. 

My friends say the same thing. Single color with features like eyes and nose made with Black. Though the side view thing makes sense I think Ralph would be rendered like the robots with front, back, and side views.

Oh wow nice find there on the pallet. Though from the rules of Wreck-It Ralph I'm not stuck with the Games pallet alone. I mean Ralph's  hair color, Cyril's Blue skin and brown shirt, or Neff's purple skin would be in Pac-Man's pallet. So I can be a little lose with the pallet. But that is indeed useful.

Oh and for my story the human hero is named Herman Noid. Like the Speech synth made it sound.

[DragonDePlatino]

If you want to go for "historical accuracy", a game like Wreck-it Ralph probably would have run off of it's own hardware in an arcade cabinet. Unlike games for the Sega Genesis or NES, your palette and sprite limitations varied from game to game. So really, you've got a lot of artistic freedom in that department. I would recommend limiting yourself to about 4 colors + transparency if you want to retain the retro feel, though.



There's my idea for a Berzerk-style Ralph. When you boil down a character to a single color like that, you want to focus on having strong, recognizable shapes. For Ralph that would be his shaggy hair, T-shaped head and huge arms.

[Plokman]

If you want to go for "historical accuracy", a game like Wreck-it Ralph probably would have run off of it's own hardware in an arcade cabinet. Unlike games for the Sega Genesis or NES, your palette and sprite limitations varied from game to game. So really, you've got a lot of artistic freedom in that department. I would recommend limiting yourself to about 4 colors + transparency if you want to retain the retro feel, though.



There's my idea for a Berzerk-style Ralph. When you boil down a character to a single color like that, you want to focus on having strong, recognizable shapes. For Ralph that would be his shaggy hair, T-shaped head and huge arms.

DePlatino I'm going to level with you but that is a fantastic sprite. It even incorporates the no neck thing Herman's sprite has. May I humbly use that as a starting point? I do better work with a reference in the first place.

n the arcade board discussion they would of most likely been built with those colors in mind like you say but like a console they would have been limited to the pallet the board was designed for. So like with Pacman we have Neff visit he has purple skin. As far as I've seen after looking at the ripped sprites from Pacman here on SR Purple was not present. I think that pallet aren't necessarily followed for game jumps.

On the Berzerk front it would be on color but What color is dependent on who the sprite is.

Just my thoughts on your point. Heck to go back to it for a second I believe Berzerk didn't have proper color depth like Pacman does. From what I have read and remember the game was programed as a B&W system like Pong was but they realized a b&w game in 1980 would never be popular so they added a ovelay that makes the color to the monitor. I could be wrong but it would explain why the bots and Evil Otto are not color set.

But yeah a six color setup is sensible for 8-bit era sprites except in real odd cases. Seeing as I know Bowser in Pacman will be at least that many maybe mor but never go overboard with it like you say to give it that retro feeling.

[Plokman]

Small update in for you guys. Did some work on a few Berzerk sprites.



Ralph is the same sprite DePlatino did as example recolored to be the same Red as Ralph's overalls. Next to that is our little friend Q*Bert and then Felix.

As can be seen all Humanoid sprites have the gap where they would have their head. As in comic Herman Noid's head is not detached from his body when we see him "Uprezed" inside the game.

Also "Uprezing" is a term me and Klaw coined to describe the way the characters are seen from their perspective withing the games. It makes alot of sense to call it that given the Disney connection and the fact we are seeing HD versions of their sprites. (Save The Sonic characters but thats another story)

[Plokman]

Me again got a bigger update this time for you. I've been working on "reverse engineering" the PacRalph sprites. Boy are those scanlines annoying to get past. It has just been me going pixel by pixel and getting them to look as close as I can.

Progress so far I have walking north Walking south and two poses of the side view.


I've asked my friends if the side view looked weird to them and they have all said they look great. But I'm not so sure. What do you guys think? By the way there is one pose of main side view left so the animation won't look right if you try to make a gif.

Well progress is very good. Now heres a new question. What am I going to do for Eggman's, Kano's, Smoke's, M. Bison's, and 1011001's Pacman sprites? They are in the station before we get a view of the other members walking out so we never see their sprites. I want them to be true to style but at the moment I'm not sure where to start.

[Plokman]

Bigger update today I've got Ralph complete as of now. All the poses he had in the movie minus the Cherry in hand and I also have Cyril done.



What do you think?

Up next Bowser.

[Plokman]

Been taking a small break from the Pacman sprites. But I have made some more sprites for a later story.

Wreck-It Trigger style


What do you guys think? Crits and advice?

[DioShiba]

Does his face really need the shading around where his mouth should be?

Also I would consider also making minor adjustments to the size of his legs, you could probably get away with making them a pixel or two wider and still have a good sprite.

But other than that the sprite itself is a good start, just be sure to look at the reference you are using and ask what other adjustments you think you could get away with.

[Ton]

I'd go for the scale of Gato. Ralph is huge.

[Plokman]

Does his face really need the shading around where his mouth should be?

Also I would consider also making minor adjustments to the size of his legs, you could probably get away with making them a pixel or two wider and still have a good sprite.

But other than that the sprite itself is a good start, just be sure to look at the reference you are using and ask what other adjustments you think you could get away with.

Well for his face it would be very blank if I didn't shade there. Most CT sprites have a small head so the detail is more focused. Ralph has a oddly shaped head and it looks better with it to me.

As for the Legs I'm trying to keep them from being together I may try to make em bigger see how it looks.

I'd go for the scale of Gato. Ralph is huge.

While Ralph is big he isn't quite Gato sized. Nor is he heckran sized. Chrono would be roughly five foot and Ralph is only 9 feet. So maybe a tad small here but he ain't no Gato.

[Plokman]

Sorry for the lack updates. Been very busy with some important things. There will be more Ralph very soon.