Game Development: Character Concept Art

Hi Everyone,

I wanted to make a character that our development team would be happy with and fit within the story we’re crafting for our game. One of the added constraints was also creating character art that can be scaled down into a pixel art format. Now as I came into this, I had no idea how complex pixel art actually was. The amount of detail that can be depicted in so few pixels is astonishing. River City Girls is an amazing example when you look at how small the pixel dimensions of the characters actually are. It’s something that I’ll have to face when it comes to animation, another daunting yet exciting task.

Here’s the art piece:

I tried something a little different than my usual style. I tried a very cartoony anime style to keep the concept art simple enough to translate to pixel art later on. It also has the added benefit of being a quick reference to use when designing the sprite animations when we’re further along with development. I’m not sure if this is the best way to approach translating character art to pixel art, but for the character size I’m working with (64 x 32) it felt like the best way to do so. This is a new venture and I’ve always wanted to try animation!

I do plan to do a more detailed version later on as well.

Thanks Everyone! 🙂

P.S: I also wanted to make a quick comment about this blog. I know the focus has been jumping all over the place and I do apologize for that. I’ve become involved in projects outside of my writing that has put me in new, interesting and honestly confusing situations. For one thing, I’ve never had to manage a team so directly. I will aim to focus the content of this blog better so thank you for your patience. 🙂