If any of the animated 2D fantasy work I have been posting has appealed to you - or if you are a fan of puzzle platformers in the spirit of Lost Vikings then I would encourage you to go over and check it out!
Grave Danger - Flying Ranged Enemy
Here is the ranged version of the flying enemy for the Train World. I wanted to add in a tech element that matched the world and give it a more armored feel so it will exist as more of a threat.
And a bonus 15m sketch. The prompts were for a vehicle with the tags "Loner" + "Prairie".
Grave Danger - Flying Melee Enemey
We needed a generic flying enemy for Grave Danger's initial development. I started out a few months ago with a blob enemy covered in tentacles but didn't know enough about Spine to make it work. Here I am coming back to a more general purpose design with a bit more work under my belt and things are working out better.
I decided to animate the wings by hand and not with a rig due to the complexity of the perspective and animation, so started up drafting a few tests in Photoshop before drawing out the sprites and putting it all together in Spine.
Next stop will be to duplicate this project and create a ranged version with a projectile weapon below where the tenticals are.
Update: Removed the blur on the wings for now at the suggestion from a friend and I feel that it matches the game style much better than before. It was his opinion - and I agree - that the path blur I was using before looked more like a DoF effect and not like motion! Thanks, John!
Grave Danger - Enemy Skin Test WIP June 16 2016
Finally got around to adding in Spine's really solid skin system and applying it to the default enemy rig.
Because the heads are all slightly different (and have different bones and animations) I had to kind of work around that by creating and attaching empty blank images to the skins for inactive heads. Im sure there is a better way but a brief search didn't reveal anything and we are on a deadline! This seems to work, but I'd love to know about other approaches.
Next step is to create a "Caster" / "Shaman" version and add in some more general use animations.
Grave Danger - Train Level WIP June 10 2016
Here are some early shots of all the pieces finally put together in Unity and set in motion along with an 80% final train interior asset set.
Many of the exterior assets have simple scripts attached to jitter them in place however the wheels were animated in Spine.
Still has a lot of polish to go! Check out https://twitter.com/GraveDangerGame to follow along with development.
Characters and character animations were created by Tony Ferguson
Currently the chairs are too big and nothing is animated, but things are snapping together pretty well. Other than the insane amount of layers to work with contraction and expansion things are pretty straight forward.
Grave Danger train level animation progress
The wheels worked out better than I had hoped! Due to the construction method of the asset however, I still haven't seen everything moving together so the next step will be to assemble in Unity so I can have an easily* updatable file in motion that I can use for reference.
I suspect the amount of z sorting will be a holy hell to work through, but it SHOULD all work...
3D Printed Gift + Early Animations in Spine
I've picked up a contract working at JB Gaming - creating concepts and assets for their new title "Grave Danger" (Facebook Page)
It's taken a month to get spooled up to the title's art style and into animating in Spine but I'll be trying to post up more art as my time allows. Otherwise, check out the game's Twitter Account for frequent quality updates!
Below is one of the first animated units I created along with 2 other skulls (not shown). I'd consider these game ready, but 80% done. hopefully, I'll have time to polish them up as I learn more.
I am also creating a train level asset that will use various static sprites and spine animations working together to create external platforming environments. Internal environments will be created in Ferr2.
The original design featured cog wheels that were supposed to be turned using a chain drive, but after a bit of deliberation, I wasn't sure that the effect could easily be animated in Spine so I am working on switching things over to a push rod system which will probably look way better in the end anyway. The gear was animated with 10 offset layers to achieve the illusion of slight 3D depth. Hopefully, it will all mesh together well!
Also, my friend Max surprised me with this 3D printed metal keychain of my signature block! He makes way more creative and wonderful stuff that you can find over on his facebook page.