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Cyberguy64 — Manny Transmission and the Gear Box
#8bit #animated #game #gear #gearbox #gearshift #gif #indie #mech #nes #oc #original #pixel #pixelart #retro #sprite #tank #train #mannytransmission #originalcharacter #pixelanimation
Published: 2017-07-07 09:09:21 +0000 UTC; Views: 1992; Favourites: 22; Downloads: 5
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Description
Hoy. Today we re-learned that living beings are way harder to animate then machines.Here's Manny Transmission, pilot of the shape-shifting mech, the Gear Box. The core idea I had behind this concept is "What if Dr. Eggman/Bowser Jr. was the hero of a game?" I've always loved little person-sized vehicles, especially if they can transform, and I relish any chance in a game to take command of one. I've also drawn inspiration from games like Blaster Master and Drill Dozer, where upgrading and transforming your mech play a large role in how you progress.
The overall style was inspired by old black-and-white cartoons. It seemed like a good match for a pseudo 8-bit aesthetic, and hasn't been done to death by other pixel artists. It also goes well with the "Steampunk Western" environment I'm planning to build around these two.
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Comments: 4
Cool stuff! I've never stopped to think about the lack of mech-piloting protagonists. I guess relying on technology is seen as a sign of laziness (e.g. Eggman, Dr. Wily) so protagonists rarely get mechs.
The sprite itself is pretty cool. Very visually-distinct and it totally carries the vibe you're going for. I would probably pull back on the amount of dithering, though. There's so much of it that it clutters this sprite a bit.
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Thanks a lot!
That reasoning makes sense. It's the kind of reasoning that gets us Mad Scientist villains like Lex Luthor or the good Doctor fighting characters like Superman and Sonic the like. Of course, when you've got super powers, you're not really exerting that much relative effort either, so in the end there's really not that much difference. Probably why a lot of people end up seeing the brainiac as the underdog.
I see what you're saying about the dithering. I'll try to draw back a tad. I was trying to use it as a fifth color, the way newspaper cartoons have that particular kind of dot shading to add more depth. It also seems like shifting the dithering between frames gives me a stronger feeling of motion, like Sub-Pixeling. It also helps to imply texture.
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