Sprite Jam: Magic users. (2nd - 16th August) Over! Trophies!

[Jim Reed]

Hi there sprite jammers!

For this sprite jam you are going to be restricted to these 16 colours:


The competiton will last for two weeks, and voting will last 3 days. Trophies are guaranteed to every participant. The theme is "Magic users".

You can draw any kind of magic user you wish. Everything from wizards, over necromancers to imps is allowed. As long as the creature/person uses magic in some way that you can draw it, please feel free to submit your entry.

Backgrounds and animation are optional. There is no size limit.

Have fun!

EDIT:
loominous pointed out to me that there should be another set of rules for non pixelart people.

So, for them, they can use 5 colours (+shading, anti-aliasing and transparency) with no restrictions to the canvas size.
Offcourse, he better enter then >=)

[Wonkyth]

Ooh, goodie!
Does the said magic user have to be in the act of using magic?

[Jim Reed]

Yes, they do. Fireballs, levitation, summoning, divination, rituals, evocation, etc. take your pick!

[Jimbob]

Oops, forgot to write something.

Fairly standard idea, just thought I'd bust something out as quick as possible. Simon didn't come to mind until the end of it really, but hope you like...

[Dualnames]

Here's my entry
Scarecrow
This is the famous Scarecrow that preserves the Urban myth between the Dark Side of the Moon and the Wizard of Oz

Brain Damage

[Sadistyk]

Simon The Sorcerer, as seen in the 1992 game's box casting a spell...

[Mad]

Did someone say imp!?



...well at least impish  

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

Magic Users?  How about Limey Lizard and his apprentice Lucky Lemming?

[Babar]

I was bored enough to try something weirdly different, but unfortunately not bored enough to complete it properly

As it is:


Yeah...this is Zmo Smrtoff. He waves his harmless sparkly stick to distract you, then shoots you in the face with his magic gun. I don't know why.

[Matti]

He waves his harmless sparkly stick to distract you, then shoots you in the face with his magic gun.

That would be a cool adventure game character  

[Sughly]

Alrighty, my first sprite comp so hopefully I did everything right by the rules  . Left one is using non-pixelart rules with 5 colours, one on right is same but with shading (which I wasn't sure about with rules and whatnot...).

 

[Armageddon]

I love your art style Sughly. I wish I could draw like that...

[Sughly]

I love your art style Sughly. I wish I could draw like that...

Thanks again Armageddon 

[Alun]

Hmm... you know what?  I think I may actually enter this.  The magic word was "imp"... it happens that I'm currently planning an AGS game called "Trevalien and the Imp" which involves as one of the major characters, well, an imp.  (Or at least, a creature who the main character calls an imp.)  Who uses magic.  And I haven't drawn the sprites for him yet.  So hey, there we go.  (I'm assuming it's okay to enter sprites of preexisting or pre-planned characters, as long as the sprites are new, given that the other entries so far include two Simon the Sorcerers (or should that be Simons the Sorcerer?) and a couple of characters who appeared in a game from 2008...)

Other factors that seem to conspire to make this a convenient contest for me to enter include:

• The alternate non-pixel-art rules.  Hooray!  I'd been away from the AGS boards for a long time until recently, but it seemed back when I was on it before that the sprite contests were always geared pretty much exclusively toward pixel art.  Lo-res pixel art, I don't have much experience with, and I find it very difficult.  Non-pixel-art, I can do.  So the alternate rules for non-pixel-art are very welcome.
  
  
• As it happens, the imp character for the game was always intended to be fairly monochromatic anyway.  So the five-color restriction is no problem for him.  (And even leaves me a few colors left over for magical effects.)
  

So... in summary, expect my entry probably shortly before midnight on the 16th.  Because I am a horrible procrastinator.

It is also not entirely impossible that I will forget about it and not manage to complete an entry in time after all.  But hopefully that won't happen.

Heck, if I have time I'll probably try to animate him.  It is not necessarily particularly likely that I will have time.

[Alun]

And here it is; I even got a chance to go the extra mile and animate it after all:



Wasn't originally going to bother with a background, but without a background the conversion to animated .gif left a weird white border around the ball of magic where it had been partially transparent, so I figured I'd toss in a quick background to ameliorate that issue.  Heavy use made of transparency on the magic ball, but hopefully that stays within the rules.  (The original post did say "5 colours (+shading, anti-aliasing and transparency)", after all.)

(For what it's worth, incidentally, though, as I said in my previous post, this is a major character in a game I'm working on, this particular sprite is unlikely to appear in the game, for two reasons.  First, because I'm not sure whether or not he's actually going to be shown doing flashy magic like this in the game.  And second, because he's really small... the game is going to be 1024 x 768 resolution, but even so the imp will probably end up only around sixty pixels high or so.  (Though I guess it's not entirely impossible he'll get some close-ups in cut scenes.)  Ah, well; I guess this was still good practice for drawing and animating him, anyway.)

[loominous]

Another annoyance about to be turned into a feather ball.

[Jim Reed]

Thank you all for participating!
The voting starts now, and you have until the 19th to vote for your favourite sprite.

No categories here, just place one vote and off you go!

[Babar]

Mad's Imp

[Calin Leafshade]

+1 for Mad

[Alun]

A lot of good entries... I was torn between Mad's and ProgZmax's entries, but I think I'm going to give the nod to ProgZmax, since his entry follows the rules better in that, unlike Mad's, it actually shows the characters in the act of using magic.

[Khris]

I'll vote for Mad, too, for game-ready great pixel art.

[Cuiki]

I love Mad's entry too...
But my vote goes to Loominous for an awesome picture altogether. What's more, his sprites look great. I love the expresion on the face of the magic-using creature. Really cool.

[Dualnames]

I'm voting for Mad. Really nice entry.

[Jim Reed]

Jimbob.
[biased vote]
Yes, I can vote, too =)

[Sughly]

I'd like to throw my vote ProgZmax's way as well

[kconan]

Lots of creative stuff in this one...I'll go with Sughly.

[Misj']

ProgZ made me smile the most (great sprite ProgZ!)...but my vote goes to Sughly (after reducing the image to a height to 150px) because of the bunny. Just face it, bunnies are cool.

[Wonkyth]

I'm going Sughly.

[Mad]

I'll go with ProgZmax's entry!

I'd just love to see a sequel made in that style and resolution. It'd probably be a bugger to animate, though!

[Jimbob]

I vote for Ji.. Oh wait.

ProgZmax!
I was torn between Progz and Sughly, but the rabbit couldn't quite sway it for me... it was close though... sooo cute!

[Atelier]

Mad and his imp.

[Matti]

I vote for Prog- no, Sugh- no.. um, Mad I say. Hard decision really.

[tzachs]

Hard to choose...
I'm voting for Sughly, maybe he'll get the double (Blitz & Sprite jam).

[Jim Reed]

1st place: Mad (6 votes) , golden cauldron.
2nd and 3rd place: ProgZmax and Sughly (3 votes each) , silver and bronze cauldrons.
4th and 5th place: loominous and Jimbob (1 vote each) , plastic and EGA cauldrons.
6th to 9th place: Dualnames, Alun, Sadistyk and Babar (no votes) , wooden, straw, shadow and paper cauldrons.

Congrats to all the entrants, and thank you for so many entries.

[Sughly]

Yeah I can happily take a loss to Mad's awesome Imp and tie with ProgZmax's equally awesome entry - very nice! Thanks for all the love! Does that mean I get a hybrid trophy...?

EDIT: Like this perhaps...

[Jim Reed]

No, actually if you are listed as sharing places with someone, you must fight it out....TO THE DEATH! MWAHAHAHAHAHA!

[Wonkyth]

Jim, why does your plastic always look like Bakelite?

[arj0n]

Jim, why does your plastic always look like Bakelite?

Because that's oldschool, retro [and since 2008 real antique] and thus cool?  

Congratz Mad.
Cool entries all of you.

[Sughly]

No, actually if you are listed as sharing places with someone, you must fight it out....TO THE DEATH! MWAHAHAHAHAHA!

I don't want to die  :'( I'll take third. Well done to all again!

[Mad]

Hey, thanks everyone!

I'll try to come up with an equally successful theme for the next one...
So, expect the new jam soon! By which I mean tomorrow...

[Alun]

Yay!  My first trophy!

OK, it's kind of a "thank you for participating" consolation prize after I got no votes, but hey, I'll take it.