Alright, week three of #iDevBlogADay and I haven’t been kicked off yet!
This week I’m trying something different by putting up a screen cast of me drawing one of the creatures for Dungeon Delver and droning on about my creative process, or lack there of. It’s kind of long, and I think some people will dig it and others not so much. I probably could have found ways to cut it down but if someone is really interested in seeing the whole process, now they can.
So, without further adieu, here it is:
You should really go view it in HD at Vimeo. I don’t have a pro account so Vimeo won’t allow me to embed the HD version here.
Drawing a creature for Dungeon Delver from Broken Platypus Games on Vimeo.
Let me know what you think. I’d like to do more screen casts, so feel free to give suggestions on what would make the next one better for you, either in the comments or on twitter, or by shooting me an email at mattguest@gmail.com if you’re the type that prefers to be more discreet with your criticism.
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Really interesting creative process. I’m intrigued… do you use this process for all of your games? i.e. A free form approach where you go straight from the idea in your head into drawing directly in flash.
The creatures look great by the way, can’t wait to see more of the game.
I use that process for most of what I do. I do plan some things out, but when it comes to art assets I usually just dive in. Truth is, I’m not that great of a sketch artist. I keep notebooks but they are mostly full of concepts, nothing that is really that visually interesting.
I think it leads to interesting things.. for instance, the little spiky guy I made in this video will now be manipulated to create different variants, with different numbers and placements of horns and colors and decorations. I’ve created a whole category of enemy that will populate my dungeons just by fiddling around in Flash that I probably wouldn’t have if I had tried to plan out all the elements of the game beforehand.
Attack of the Nebuloids was completely inspired by a ship that I created in Flash while taking a break from making Dungeon Delver graphics, which made me think “This could be a game.”
Unfortunately, this free-form approach is also the reason I don’t have a game in the app store yet, and have had countless Flash games started but never finished over the years. I just love to experiment, and usually once the experimentation phase is over I drop the project. Dungeon Delver and Nebuloids are my push to break that cycle.
Great screen cast Matt, watching this makes me miss drawing in Flash. I agree with you on the simplicity of the vector tools in Flash. It makes it very easy to do free form stuff like this. Keep the screen casts coming, it was fun to watch.
Nice work Matt. It’s always interesting watching someone who is proficient with a tool use it, as you get a whole new appreciation for it. I hope that Dungeon Delver is done soon, can’t wait to get t!
An excellent and highly inspiring demonstration of your vectory prowess, good sir. Being largely a programmer and naught but a budding artist, it’s great to get yet another perspective on approaching the creation of game art. Looking forward to seeing more screencasts from you.
Great post Matt, really interesting to see how you work! Did anybody else notice the Vimeo video’s id?
Delicious and nutritious screencast, Matt!
A surprising approach to drawing graphics in Flash, and an effective one, pushing the limits of the line and selection tools without fussing with anchor points.
Definitely interested in seeing more screencasts from you.
Thanks for the comments everyone. I’ll definitely do some more screencasts, this was a lot of fun
Thanks for the video. Loved how you do everything in Flash (as a developer which was hidden in a cave for some years, that’s new for me :p).
What about a video animating sprites? My biggest challenge is animating.
Illustrator CS4 actually brought a lot of the free-form “Flash style” drawing tools.
Also you can use the Subselection tool (white arrow) in Flash to edit the control points inside Flash.