Sprites and Art for Shadow of the Farlands

Tools: Photoshop, Adobe After Effects

Roles: Art direction, 2D illustration, spriting, and animation

For a game design class, my group developed a 2D side-scroller prototype called "Shadow of the Farlands." I created the art assets and animations.

Ideation and Concept Art

We came up with a narrative involving an evil overlord who, having long ruled over the human kingdoms, now sought to conquer the monster territories. This opened up a variety of landscapes and enemies to explore. I crafted a forest stage that would house the fierce Raegor, a boss I had devised, and his savage followers.

Other bosses and enemies — Concepts from planning later stages.

Process

I began with an illustration of the character in its neutral pose. Then I would separate the image into individual body parts, and create extra part replacements that I would need for proper motion. I animated the sprites mainly within Photoshop by rotating the body parts, one at a time, while replacing parts as necessary. Afterward, I would save each group of movements as an individual frame. (In hindsight, I would definitely not do that again, as there are programs that make the animation process a lot cleaner.)