We have introduced new Vector/Flash Section in our Portfolio:
http://www.retrostylegames.com/artwork/vector-flash-animation

Here are some GIFs of hand-drawn frame by frame vector animation:

Additionally here in blog we would like to post a couple examples of Flash and hand-drawn keyframe character animation:

For this example we created in Flash around 20 different animated creatures (of 4 classes), bigger Boss creature with unique animations and vector scenery background.

Flash source is built using common structure, so it’s quicker to inter-change Flash symbols between similar animations.

Here are examples of Flying creatures:

Examples of Attacking, Dying and other cycles:

Random example of Flash animations:

Happy Holidays to everyone, “RetroStyle Games” team wishes you productive and pleasing 2012 year!

We have updated our portfolio with more than 180 recent images of 8 different categories:

Additionally we have changed our gallery engine and now:
- it’s easier to maintain everything from our side
- there is full-screen mode so you can view images at higher resolution with all the details
- there is better SEO and per-image description
- overall usability of our gallery should be improved

We have restructured categories a bit, so now there are:

Game Interfaces – GUI, HUD, Windows, Buttons, Overall UI Style

3D Modeling – Next-Gen Characters, Low-poly Modeling, Texturing

Game Backgrounds – Painterly, Illustrative Stages and Game Style

Concepts – Characters, Environment and Game Style Researches

Icons – 2D and 3D Game Tiles, Chips, Objects, Cursors and more

Vector / Flash Artwork – Icons, Costumes, Game Elements, Backgrounds, Flash Animation

Game Sprites – Pre-Rendered 2D / 3D Elements with Post-Processing or Over-paint

CG Animation – 3D Animation, Video Presentation and Flash or Hand-drawn Animation

Don’t hesitate to contact us in case of possible cooperation!

This fan art was devoted to release of great Mortal Kombat game reboot a bit earlier this year and was ready on the eve of this event. But due to high workload we just got a chance to post it.
Meet Scorpion character from MK’s universe.

Here is mid resolution for blogs:

And quick making of process GIF:

As always bigger resolution without our sign (1920×1200) is available:
http://retrostylegames.com/blog/artwork/mk-scorpion-fanart-1920-resolution.jpg

Please Share/Like the post if you like it!

Some of our team members are big fans of Uncharted series (and Naughty Dog studio). Anticipating the release of UNCHARTED 3: Drake’s Deception one of our great artists decided to draw Drake’s Fan Art in spare time.

Here is mid resolution for blogs:

And bigger resolution without our sign (1920×1200) which can be used as desktop wallpaper:
http://www.retrostylegames.com/blog/artwork/uncharted-drake-desert-fanart-big-resolution.jpg

Don’t forget to Share/Like the post if you like it

We got a time for a seamless textures creation practice (used to love to create these). As result – you can download rusted segmented metal texture for free.

Here are some previews rendered in 3D:

Texture comes in 1600×1015 resolution and have Color, Specular, Displacement, Normal, Occlusion and Bump maps.

Here is scaled down full version of it:

You can download Free Rusted Segmented Metal texture by that link:
http://retrostylegames.com/blog/textures/free-seamless-rusted-metal-texture.rar

Don’t forget to Like and Share post if you find it helpful.

We are pleased to share another fan-art created by our intern artist with additional help from our art-director.
This time it’s Iron Man from Marvel Comics Universe.

Iron Man Fan Art -- Mark Suit in common Desktop resolution:

As always, you can download Original Untouched Iron Man picture without our sign from here:
http://retrostylegames.com/blog/artwork/marvel-iron-man-fan-art-original-untouched.jpg (2332x3000 pixels)

Also you can check pretty long uncut Making of polishing stage of Iron Man.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=dp-fIeRApy0

Please, don’t forget to join our Facebook group or just press Like button.
And be sure to check our Art Outsourcing 2D/3D portfolio here:
http://www.retrostylegames.com/artwork

With a slight delay, but we would like to share a great news with our readers. A couple of months ago our regular art outsourcing client Kristanix Games asked us to help them to create game graphics or rather virtual prototype of their new idea.

Their government has a program which rewards indie developers with money grants, so they decided to jump into competition with their new game.  Deadline was pretty short, so really small part of real game was developed. Basically we just visualized their rough ideas and helped them to prepare illustrative material for judges…

Waiting for results took some time but recently Tor Martin (co-founder of Kristanix) sent a happy mail to us:

Just wanted to let you know that we were one of 5 projects that got funding for Heroes Guild! It’s in Norwegian but here’s the announcement:
http://www.nfi.no/Bransje+%26+tilskudd/Tildelinger+%26+informasjonsarkiv/Tildelinger+2011/Interaktive+produksjoner/Heroes+Guild.92228.cms

We got about US $27,000! We are working on a prototype for it now (currently working on the level editor). After we’ve finished up the prototype, figured out what we want to have in the game etc., we will start with the graphics. We will probably do some small concept testing with the graphics while working on the prototype too, though to find out what exact style fits best, but the main chunks of the graphics we can start on after the prototype is done.

We started up a Facebook page for the game as well:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Heroes-Guild/106617172762686

So congratulations to Kristanix Games and their new Heros Guild development! This time they decided to target more hard-core audience. Be sure to check http://www.kristanix.com/heroesguild/ later on, when they put more information there.

Now, I would like to demonstrate some of the artwork and in-progress images done for Heroes Guild. Remember, that we were under tight deadlines, but the main goal of getting the funds was accomplished

Basically we were asked to produce:
- strategy-like isometric view of heroes town with a couple of special buildings
- dungeon level with more straight isometric view, similar to Diablo hit
- stylized GUI elements
- game title/logo/icon featuring 3 main characters (wizard, archer and swordsman)

The Town

We started with rough buildings concepts (blacksmith, guard tower, horse-stable and wizards tower).

Then we proceed with rough background mock-up and a couple of GUI ideas.

Because of tight deadlines we had no chance to polish town area further, but final image was happily approved by client and should show game idea in full spectrum.

The Dungeon

As always – really rough concept idea. Client wanted straight isometric look similar to most old-school and modern RPG games.

Then we built a 3D scene, populated it with various objects (monsters, skeletons, chests, barrels and more), pre-rendered everything with orthographic camera and heavily edited in post.

The Title

Again, rough idea with 3 main characters (wizard, archer and swordsman) and basic logo searches.

These are two final title illustrations we had a chance to polish just in time for competition final. Different style, different look, still show the main idea.

When competition was already over, we got more free time and came up with 3rd variant of Heroes Guild title which looks much more complete.

Be sure to check art production testimonials on our Contact page:
http://www.retrostylegames.com/index.php?action=support
And our Art Outsourcing 2D/3D portfolio here:
http://www.retrostylegames.com/artwork

RetroStyle Games team is happy to share new fan-art illustration created by one of our great artists.
Meet Lord Voldemort from Harry Potter series :

Inspired by darkest antagonist of the Harry Potter universe and to be released soon “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2″

You can download bigger variant of Lord Voldemort fan art without our sign here:
http://retrostylegames.com/blog/artwork/harry-potter-voldemort-fan-art-high-res.jpg

Not so long ago we were contacted by Jake Birkett, owner of Grey Alien Games and man behind such BigFishGame’s hits like Fairway Solitaire, Unwell Mel and some other great games.

The task sounded simple – he needed some art for his new Easter-themed game which was based on his Holiday Bonus engine.

Probably it’s worth checking the game itself, especially taking into account that it was already released at Grey Alien Games website and soon to be released on most of the casual games portals:
http://www.greyaliengames.com/springbonus/index.php

Original list of assets looked like that:
- Game Logo
- Loading Screen bar/text
- Map Screen dot and bottom panel
- Options screen: Checkbox/mark, slider bar/knob
- Various button sizes
- Various dialog sizes (inc. in-game menu, level complete screen + more)
- 7 game pieces + a golden egg (special piece)
- 9 bonus pieces and 3 special particles
- 3 grid tiles, ice cube, and related particles
- 12 border pieces + special border overlays
- In-game Gui (left side, score area, time area, bonus gauge area, goal area, menu button)
- Mouse cursor

But as with any development – list of final items was slightly updated and reworked during art and game production.
And while originally it looked like relatively simple job it was ended as pretty complex task, especially taking into account really short deadline.

As usually, we started with some rough concepts for the game-field and game’s interface elements.
We tried to fit our first tries with backgrounds created by other artist and spring atmosphere we were feeling, but in final art direction was changed to something more generic, less stylized but still nice and cool looking. Partially GUI was inspired by Season Match.

Originally it was planned to use pre-rendered 3D elements for all the game-field chips, bonuses and probably tiles. Jake wanted something similar in terms of style to his previous Holiday Bonus game.
We like 3D and do it nice, but for consistency and cuter look prefer to use hand-drawn 2D art for casual games we are working on. And while 3D can save some time if you need cute animations (Jake planned to have them) it requires a bit more time to create 3D model itself and balance final visuals with 2D environment.

Because of that and also because of tight deadline we suggested Jake to go with fully hand-drawn graphics and leave misc animations as optional work for later stage.

Pay attention to really cute frog concept
Tiles were based on the idea of melting snow/ice and it was planned to use the same idea for backgrounds originally. They should be changing their state from frozen winter images to warm spring scenery, but in final there was no enough time to implement that idea both in code and art.

Final set of match-3 chips, tiles and bonus icons created by our team.

After Spring Bonus main GUI elements were chosen and polished we proceed to creation of universal constructor for windows, buttons and other interface elements.

Simultaneously we were working on probably most important game’s thing – Logo. From a couple of ideas Jake chosen the one of blue color, which reads and stands out well.

Additionally we created sand clock animation, rainbow power-up indicator animation and couple of other misc animations.

Currently Jake is finishing porting of Spring Bonus to other platforms (such as Windows mobile and iPhone/iPad) and we are helping with some miscellaneous work needed for that.
You can read Jake Birkett’s testimonial about the cooperation with RetroStyle Games team below:

Well I’d like to thank you for a job well done.  Everything you’ve done looks top quality and everyone loves the look and feel of them game.  I believe it’s going to do very well.

Be sure to check other testimonials on our Contact page:
http://www.retrostylegames.com/index.php?action=support
And our Art Outsourcing 2D/3D portfolio here:
http://www.retrostylegames.com/artwork

Hi all, first of all we would like to show CG cinematic we did for “Pirates Mysteries” Hidden Object game:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=FS2DQNB70ig

Now let’s proceed to a bit more detailed “Making of“. We would like to use minimal amount of words and let illustrations speak for themselves.

At the middle of last year Kristanix Games contacted us and proposed to do test job for a couple of tasks one of which was connected with interface creation for pirates-themed HOG (hidden object game).

We were provided with task description, temporal art and some mock ups.

Usually we begin work with big number of rough concepts which can quickly help to define art direction, demonstrate our ides to client and get further approval.

So “Kristanix” had chosen a series of HOG Panel, Dialogs window and Options ideas. We polished them further.

Here you can see more examples of drawn game interface elements done for “Pirate Mysteries” and a couple of miscellaneous projects.

After 2D GUI production we proceed to Mini-games creation. Again, we were provided with detailed instructions for most of the games and even working prototypes.

Incas Gems mini game

Land of Dead mini game

Pirates Map mini game

Sand Clock mini game

Sun Tower mini game

Witch house mini game

On final stages we were asked to produce pre-rendered intro CG Cinematic, game logo, title screen and a couple of misc. elements.

Originally “Kristanix” team wanted to use story-board like intro animation, consisted of cut out 2D elements with simple game-engine animation. We did some concepts and started to discuss possible ways of improving that direction.

Among new ideas were — bringing more life using After Effects animation or creation whole intro in pre-rendered 3D.
After checking “Aurum CG Short” we did awhile ago “Kristanix” decided to give us more freedom doing intro in 3D.

Additionally, we were provided with some 3D sources done by other studio and used in production of hidden object scenes. We used some of them (for example crushed ship base) to build our own 3D models, but most of the stuff was heavily re-done.
Along with CG Animation production we were asked to improve Hidden Object intro level.

When all 3D models were ready we proceed to creation of CG animatic which helped us to feel the tempo, atmosphere and duration of the intro short.

As last touches we produced title screen, game’s logo, icon, cursor and also loop-able clip of Storm Sea.

It was a pleasure to work on that game with “Kristanix Games”. Looking forward to cooperate on new projects with them!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZpbjEA7TeQ

“Pirate Mysteries” hidden object game is available on Kristanix homepage:
http://www.kristanix.com/piratemysteries/ also at Appstore, BigFish Games and couple of other game portals.

Thank you for you interest, don’t forget to share/like this page.
Check out more examples of our Art Production services:
http://www.retrostylegames.com/index.php?action=artwork