It doesn’t get much better than this! Classic, Retro-styled 8-bit graphics, drawn by hand in a brilliantly designed application: check! Full creative license gifted to the designer by the client: check! Animating everything in After Effects: also check! This project, if you can’t tell, was an absolute blast to execute, and I loved every minute of it!
Adobe After Effects is a digital visual effects, motion graphics, and compositing application developed by Adobe Systems and used in the post-production process of film making and television production.
Adobe Illustrator is a vector graphics editor developed and marketed by Adobe Systems.
Aseprite is a pixel-art tool to create 2D animations, sprites, and any kind of graphics for games.
The purpose of Peace Quench was to create 8-bit game screens that would be displayed as two actors were “playing” the game, thus this final product from me has no sound – those sounds were added in post by the receiving company.
One of the most satisfying methods of creating sprites, in my opinion, is to draw them, pixel-by-pixel. Throw in a limited color palette, say, some sort of cross between an original Ninetedo and a muted CGA, and you can really create that old-school, retro feel. Each animation frame is also hand-drawn individually, and using the more limited animation styles as were common in the early to middle days of 8-bit gaming.
You know what’s super obvious? A couple of pixels out of alignment when your whole art is pixels. This means every little bit of every image must be perfect. Unless, of course, it’s not supposed to be, in which case it must be perfectly imperfect.
Interested in 8-bit art or videos?