How about hand-drawn graphics

Dewclaw · Post by **Dewclaw** » Fri Jul 08, 2005 2:40 am

I'm trying to get started working on the graphics for a character-based shmup(that is, not spaceships) and I see alot of people talking about pixeling for the sprites. I suck at pixeling and would like to make everything hand-drawn. Both me and the man with the programming skills are pretty much new at this so I was wondering, is a hand drawn shootemup doable? Can anyone show me an example of one(or any kind of game with hand-drawn, not mouse-drawn graphics)? I thank ya.

landshark · Post by **landshark** » Fri Jul 08, 2005 3:54 am

You could get a wacom tablet and hand-draw them into a pixel program.

It's also feasible to draw them and scan them in, but you are undoubtably going to have to touch them up with a mouse (or wacom tablet, it's just easier) to get the edges and coloring right.

Dewclaw · Post by **Dewclaw** » Sat Jul 09, 2005 5:03 am

So that's how it has to be. Well, I have a wacom but for some reason I can only color on computer, not draw...just can't get steady lines when I use a tablet.

Post by **Dave_K.** » Wed Jul 13, 2005 6:53 am

If you read the great ESPRade interview translated by GaijinPunch, you'd find out they only hand drew the scrolling backgrounds. The characters and enemys are all 3d polys which were animated, and then flattened into 2d sprites. Apparently it saved a lot of time from hand animating the "tweens".

http://dynamic.gamespy.com/~japangaming ... 6&p=1[url]

Dewclaw · Post by **Dewclaw** » Sun Jul 17, 2005 1:21 am

Wow, very clever...if I ever get into polygon work I'll have to remember that.

Post by **Icarus** » Tue Aug 30, 2005 2:44 am

If you know how to keyframe animate then you could feasibly hand draw, then ink all your sprites, and then scan in all your individual keyframes and animate them in-code. It would be quite difficult though, and pretty time consuming (but not as time-consuming as pixelling, although the effects can be very nice, like this guy's work.