Sprite is better than Lift

Of course, Lift is better than Sprite, we all know that. But we're not talking about soft drinks here. We're talking about sprites in animation. I drew a little robot for a sprite to eventually animate. Also to hone my artistic skills and experience the wonderous piece of technology that is a Wacom graphics tablet. They are just awesome. To begin my long and arduous journey from a humble doodle on a white board, to a cute little robot named Gizmo.

There he is. Humble Gizmo. He started out as a picture I drew on a whiteboard. He was a little upturned bucket with tiny claw legs and a vestigial arm that served no purpose. This was a good concept drawing. I wanted to make a robot because I like robots. So, from here I moved on to a sketch in Photoshop.

And that's it above. The first, Photoshop draft of Gizmo. His little arm now replaced with a satellite that would spins around and whirr. He now also has a stupid screen on his face where his eye can move. I wasn't too keen on this one, but I'd done it so I ran with it.

​​..

...by which I mean I removed the satellite and replaced it with an exhaust. This is the beginnings of my sprite sheet. These pieces would eventually come together to form the final Gizmo. Only they wouldn't, because Gizmo would undergo some more cosmetic surgery and magazine airbrushing before his grand reveal.

There is Gizmo's final outline. Removed his exhaust, removed his dumb eye screen thing and changed his antenna to make it a bit more tongue-in-cheek. I also re-touched his legs and feet to make them a bit bigger and thicker. At this point, I was still under the impression that Gizmo would be walking, but we will get to that. Now it was time to colour him in.

There is his base colours. Before any shading and detail. I wont bore you with a long list and a bunch of pictures about each meticulous step in shading and detailing and every single thing I did from here to the final product. Instead, I'll just show you the final product.

There he is. In all of his wonderous glory. He is not a walking robot. He hovers now, using his legs as hands. Isn't he cute? I think so. I then cut him up in appropriate pieces, and arranged him into his working and moving parts. He is now ready to animate. Isn't drawing fun? From humble beginnings to a cute little floating robot. I like him, and so should you.