LucasArts Bombsquad sprite edits: USE Wrestling mask ON Deer

I don't know how far I'll be taking this, but I've started trying to teach myself some Photoshop stuff by doing a run-of-the-mill "shameless recoloring of video game sprites" project.

I've picked out characters that I think I'm going to use for each duder, and started working on Patrick and Jeff. I'm fairly new to pixel art, so I'm open to suggestions.

*Edit, most recent version: I think I'm going to put this project on the back burner for now. I'll probably continue to work on it now and again, but not with enough regularity that I feel warrants or deserves update posts. When/if I make some significant progress, I think I'll just start a new thread (besides, some of the thumbnails seem to have broken in this thread since the relaunch).

Current progress. My apologies to Dave and Ryan specifically, I'm thinking about going back and finding slightly less unflattering sprites to start from. Also, Max, Bobbin, and Headless Indy are going to be Cool Baby, Vinny (with a boom mic or something) and Drew (with a head).

Neat idea dude.

Update: Put shorts on Jeff, stripes on Brad's vest, and minor touches on Dave and Ryan. Also I changed Vinny's base from Bobbin Threadbare to the evil doctor guy from Maniac Mansion.

Next things that I'm going to work on:

• Put pants on Vinny and make him look less like he has boobs.
• Put shoes of some kind on Brad, and maybe edit his hands some. I'm also probably going to change his suit coat to something like a plaid short sleeved shirt. I can't decide whether I should make his hat look more like a helmet or if I should keep the fedora shape as a nod to the base sprite.
• Possibly swap out Jeff's boots for some dope kicks (or whatever kids call shoes nowadays)
• Start working on Drew and Cool Baby

Mostly just made edits to Vinny. Cool Baby and Drew are probably next, then I think I'll be going back and detailing all of them.

Jeff looks like he's on that hunkadunk.

Are the words on Jeff, Patrick, and Ryan legible? I'm also a little unsure about how well the texture on Jeff's jacket comes across.

Started working on Cool Baby and Drew.

This is awesome duder!

Thumbs way the hell up. Max as Cool Baby is awful/amazing.

@BBAlpert: Nice work. I've put this on the front page in the community section.

These are nice sprites, but I would never have known that any of them other than Ryan and Cool Baby were actually supposed to be GB sprites without being told.

@Little_Socrates said:

These are nice sprites, but I would never have known that any of them other than Ryan and Cool Baby were actually supposed to be GB sprites without being told.

Yeah, some of them aren't as recognizable as I'd like them to be. Any suggestions?

@BBAlpert: I wish I really did, but I'm just not familiar enough with LucasArts classics to make a whole lot of commentary. I can definitely say that Vinny's hair is too mohawk-y, Brad's beard is too big, Patrick's outfit could do to be more definitive, and Dave needs an entirely new head.

@Little_Socrates said:

@BBAlpert: I wish I really did, but I'm just not familiar enough with LucasArts classics to make a whole lot of commentary. I can definitely say that Vinny's hair is too mohawk-y, Brad's beard is too big, Patrick's outfit could do to be more definitive, and Dave needs an entirely new head.

You're right about a lot of that. I'm looking at the sprites on a different computer, with a different resolution and a different monitor, and they look way different. For instance, on the computer I was making the sprites, there's a fairly noticeable distinction in color between Hardcore Dave's Hardcore 'stache (I actually thought it looked too noticeable at one point and lightened it a bit). But on this monitor, I can't even see that he has a mustache. It's a similar situation with my attempt at giving Brad and Drew stubble.

With Patrick, I was trying to go for a Chicago Bears shirt, but I admit the type of shirt doesn't really scream "Patrick" (it was just a recolor of the base sprite). I think I'm going to just redraw Patrick's torso entirely so he can have a more distinctive upper body. I'm thinking like a fitted t-shirt with a Jurassic Park logo on it or something.

Thanks again for the feedback!

There's something....dog-like about Brad.

I just realized that I don't have an Alex. I will rectify that ASAP.

Good work so far. I think Patrick, Ryan and Vinny all read pretty well. I do have a suggestion or two.

Small suggestion first: Ryan needs some shorts. Motherfucker is averse to pants, and those look like skinny jeans.

Brad should really have totally different proportions. The legs and arms are way too thick, and he seems too short and squat. Also, a plaid shirt is the standard easy-to-recognize Brad uniform, so even if you keep the safety vest consider changing the shirt. I would lose the hat entirely, it doesn't read as "Brad" and isn't necessary. Also, though we seldom see his feet, I have to assume he wears shoes. :)

Jeff seems a little too muscular and athletic and a bit less... how should I say this... "leisurely" than we might think of him. The dude should look like he's just kickin' it, not like he has 'roid rage. Maybe that's the joke though, in which case I'll go fuck myself. At any rate, Jeff is pretty pimp and that sprite just doesn't seem very pimp at all.

Keep at it though! It's all about the iteration and refinement. I can't wait to see Luchadeer.

awesome. i think vinny needs to have less hair though.

@BBAlpert: Now you just need an Alex Navarro and we are all set.

@Kerned said:

Good work so far. I think Patrick, Ryan and Vinny all read pretty well. I do have a suggestion or two.

Small suggestion first: Ryan needs some shorts. Motherfucker is averse to pants, and those look like skinny jeans.

Brad should really have totally different proportions. The legs and arms are way too thick, and he seems too short and squat. Also, a plaid shirt is the standard easy-to-recognize Brad uniform, so even if you keep the safety vest consider changing the shirt. I would lose the hat entirely, it doesn't read as "Brad" and isn't necessary. Also, though we seldom see his feet, I have to assume he wears shoes. :)

Jeff seems a little too muscular and athletic and a bit less... how should I say this... "leisurely" than we might think of him. The dude should look like he's just kickin' it, not like he has 'roid rage. Maybe that's the joke though, in which case I'll go fuck myself. At any rate, Jeff is pretty pimp and that sprite just doesn't seem very pimp at all.

Keep at it though! It's all about the iteration and refinement. I can't wait to see Luchadeer.

Thanks for the suggestions. I agree that Jeff and Brad aren't quite shaped accurately. Brad because I felt like using the Sam (from Sam and Max) sprite for something, and Jeff because he's mentioned several times in bombcasts and jar times that he's a big and tall guy, and Full Throttle's Ben was the biggest, tallest sprite that came to mind. But I will probably be changing them, maybe even using a different character entirely for Brad.

The shorts thing for Ryan is a good idea. I couldn't remember if it was Jeff or Ryan (or both) who hated pants. The same goes for shoes/socks, I'm pretty sure one of them abhors shoes and/or socks, but I can't remember which one. If it's Ryan that hates socks, I could maybe transplant Brad's Sam feet and give him some sandals.

*Edit: I'm thinking about remaking Brad as someone from The Dig, making a Guybrush Navarro, and if I can't salvage the Ben base for Jeff, remake him using LeChuck.

So dope.

Keep the Ben reference on Jeff, but add a belly.

Vinny looks like Steve Jobs to me for some reason. Or maybe Ken Levine?

Great work though.

Started a Stan (Monkey Island) sprite for Alex, but I'm not sure what I should have him wear. I put what I'm going to use as the base for Brad, but haven't started really working on it. I also made some changes to Patrick and Ryan, and some tweaks of Vinny and Dave.

Brad fits better as Sam, but ditch the pink and give him a flannel shirt and a cowboy hat.

@BBAlpert: Lol, this is amazing! I love Hoagie as Ryan.

A very quick and dirty (and admittedly, not very good) version of our good friend, Luchadeer. I wanted to try this as one as an excuse to play around with and attempt to learn something about smart objects in Photoshop. I may do a better version at some point, but I can't make any promises about that one.

Started on Brad's shirt, which is already starting to make him a bit more recognizable, but it's also drawing more attention to his freakish man-dog hands and feet. I also did a bit of work on Alex. Is what's on his shirt legible/recognizable enough? I really should stop trying to put text on these things, but whatever.

(it's supposed to be a Hulkamania t-shirt)

@BBAlpert: I can read "Fubu" and "Fuck Jeff" just fine. I can't read Hulkamania at all, though I can see an "H" in there. Patrick's Bears shirt is legible as a "c", but it's not really clearly a "Bears" shirt at all. I'd add an image for reference if the image loader weren't so moody all the time. The Bears logo is an orange "C" with a white surrounding, not a white "C" with orange in the middle.

Dave's mustache and Drew's facial hair still don't really read in the smaller image, but that's a minor detail. And so long as we're using the Sam model for Brad and the relatively unflattering models for Ryan, Dave, and Vinny, I think that the bulked-out superhero Jeff abstraction is fine, too. That said, from what I've gathered, Jeff also doesn't really give two shits about Full Throttle, so I'd almost suggest swapping him out on that basis alone.

For the record, Ryan and Jeff both dislike socks, but both find flip-flops to pretty much be the enemy. The former is in one of their earliest episodes (I think it's actually pre-Vinny/Brad) and the latter is from the PAX 08 episode with Rich, Alex, and Matt, where they talk about people who wore Crocs at GamesCom and Jeff thought about buying a pair. They're okay with wearing socks inside of shoes, but once the shoes come off, those socks should go RIGHT AWAY.

Personal opinion? Ditch the Sam model for Brad. Even if you get the rest of him looking kind of like Brad, it won't immediately grab me as "Brad" all the same. Meanwhile, Jeff leans pretty heavily towards Sam & Max Hit The Road...

@Little_Socrates: Thanks for all the feedback. You're right about the Bears logo. I originally had it as just an orange C on a white background, but I got greedy and tried to put the orange bear head in the center, which turned it into a solid block of orange. I'll either fix it so the C is more recognizable as a Chicago Bears C, or I was thinking of trying to go for a black/red/white Jurassic Park resembling thing. But that might also be too detailed for the resolution I'm working with (and my level).

I'm kind of torn on the issue of redoing Jeff and Brad. On the one hand, you (and everyone else who's commented on it) are absolutely right that 9 foot tall body-builder Jeff and club-handed barefoot Brad don't read well. On the other, there is a little bit of concern in the back of my mind about the balance of accuracy vs. homage. What I mean is that the best choice for straight accuracy would be to use sprites of normal people from The Dig or the Indiana Jones games for everyone, but at a certain point that would start to lose sight of the "Duders as characters from LucasArts adventure games" conceit. I think what I've got now doesn't hit the right balance, not extending far enough into "realism," but on reflection I think that losing Ben wouldn't be the worst thing in the world. Before I started writing all this out, I was mostly concerned about losing Sam from the cast of (debateably) recognizable silhouettes, although I'm liking the idea of Jeff as Sam more and more. Plus that would free up Brad to be some iteration of Guybrush, tying things up nicely...

And I'll fix Ryan's flip-flop situation.

This is bad. None of them look like giant bomb staff.

@Little_Socrates , I went with your suggestion (or at least what I ended up interpreting as a recommendation) to use Sam for Jeff instead of Brad, and it's coming out much, much better than jacked Ben-Jeff.

@BBAlpert: After the hands and feet, that one will look pretty great! His hair has looked like that at times, but right now the spikes are a little less high, I think.

Man, you guys are the best.

This is amazing! Cool Baby / Max is the best one of the bunch.

Gotta love the old Lucas Arts VGA graphics!

Sorry about the lack of updates lately, I'm still planning on finishing the set (which means making a new Brad sprite and cleaning up all the unfinished parts of everyone else).

I'm considering trying my hand at Adventure Game Studio to perhaps make a super short 1 room game with some of the sprites, but I'm not sure how easy it is to work with AGS.

Keep up the good work man !

I am really loving the new Jeff sprite. I think the hands are perfect as they are. The feet needs some work tho, but the rest of the sprite has a really good feel and readability to it.

If you feel like it, you could put jeffs new beard and hairdo in, but i dont think it is that important.

Great work !

Cool sprites. 
The change of Sam being used for Jeff was definitely good, he looks a lot more recognizable now. 
 
As for your AGS idea, from what I understand, AGS has very little coding, if any. I'm pretty sure it's mostly tiling and placing sprites, and then writing a script. 
Anyway, I'll be looking forward to your next update :)

I downloaded a copy of AGS the other day and took a look. I had tried doing something with AGS like 6 years ago, and learned a bit of the interface back then, but it looks like it's changed a lot. Probably for the better, but it definitely seems more complex now. I don't think anything close to a game like Cart Life could have been made with the version I was more familiar with.

Current plan:

• Update Jeff for new (well, relatively) haircut and facial hair. Also, give him some dope shoes.
• Eventually get around to doing that Brad sprite
• Finish the half-done Alex sprite
• Possibly try a third version of Patrick's shirt (In an update that I haven't gotten around to posting yet, I have him wearing what I hope is vaguely recognizable enough as a Jurassic Park t-shirt, but I'm still not sure it's working).