Now we can move on to this MP (whoops).
Intention Definition & Exploration of Ideas:
Since the beginning of this marking period, I have again shifted focus due to an opportunity I decided to pursue. With friends stretched around the world, I am in a game development team to remake the video game my USC Squad created over the summer. We've deemed our work Project Princess and we plan to have a final (or almost final) game by June. Since I am the main artist of the team, I am largely in charge of creating all of the sprites, and I have even created concept art of what the title screen could be.
Planning:
My team uses Trello, Google Docs, and Discord to connect and plan during the creation process. Trello is our calendar where our "Bricks" are all laid out (what we have planned to finish by a certain time). We also weekly team meetings where we talk about what we accomplished since last meeting; here we can give constructive criticism and assign new jobs. This process can be a little stressful because I have to depend on others to also complete their assignments if we are to move forward (and sometimes that doesn't happen).
Producing/Evaluating/Integrating:
Menu Screen/Desktop Background
I liked the last menu screen I made so much that, when I first heard we were going to remake The Rising Sun, I immediately altered it to fit that game. This is the result. However, straight away we decided to change the name so I saved another version without any text and it looks like a desktop background (that's what it is on my laptop right now). I am not that experienced with Photoshop so to make these I opted for a very simplistic yet impactful image. That is why I chose to use silhouettes and then a very detailed gradient for the background. I really like how these turned out; I feel like being able to tell a little bit of a story with such simple imagery is very successful, and I feel like the story of the game fits pretty well with my piece. I decided on these elements after analyzing some of my favorite games' menu screens and I noticed I was drawn towards the simpler ones. 
Sprites
After that, I've been deeply rooted in focusing on making sprites. My first sprite sheet you can see in my portfolio, and we decided that we still like the original art from the game. Because of this, I thankfully did not have to recreate all the sprites, but continue making more. The first assignment I received was to make a sliding animation for the Princess for when she slides down the walls. I created a couple of different versions. My favorite is the second one, we haven't chosen the true one just yet.
After that, I had to made a knight sprite. This is a new character so I had to make all of the actions the other characters already have. After much concept art, I finally made the final look (I do believe I am missing his jump sprites, but eh. Pretty normal stuff):
After that, we needed new enemies other than guards to battle. Here's a dark wizard and bats (I need to finish the bat flying and attack animation):
For the first level of the game, I also need to make a HUGE dragon sprite and its animations. After that, the Princess is going to be going through the castle gardens, so I am going to make a whole bunch of plant enemies.
Speaking of levels, we decided on our final narrative of the story and you can find it on a previous blog post here: Final Narrative.
Having made a ton of these in the past, making these definitely were not the most challenging project. The difficulty comes from HOW MANY there are. There are so many I have to make, and since it is in an 8-bit style it is also sometimes hard to get the level of detail you want to make it look good. I am actually having difficulty with that for the dragon sprite. It is absolutely MASSIVE so I'm a little scared to start on it (it is 3x bigger than the people sprites, plus all the animations will be hard), but I am determined and excited at the same time so it will get done... eventually.
Conclusion:
Character art is one of the most important jobs in creating a video game, and also one of the most time consuming. While it can get tiring and reflecting on this marking period makes me feel like I haven't accomplished much, I also know how hard to make and how important these sprites are to create this game. I definitely feel like an important part of the Project Princess team. I also got a lot of influence in on the story of the game, and I will soon be in charge of making the menu screen and animations (so that's exciting). Being a part of a team is a very important skill I need to learn, so practice makes perfect right?
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