Festive Figures

Character Design

The set was already designed and the game was in production when I was asked to help out. The characters needed to fit with the existing style. We needed Santa, some game-ending enemies (penguins are pretty evil, right?), a light-saber, a driverless car and an old guy with a telescope that we'll stick on the moon for whatever reason. That should just about do it.

Santa Run & (Fart-Boosted Double Jump) Jump Sequence

Making the vector art for each element was fun and animating them was an added experience. I made each animation state for each character then made an animated GIF so I could really hone the movements before they were to be put into a sprite sheet.

I modeled Santa's running motion on the actual movements of a running human to give it a realistic feel. Initially I animated him without any external reference but it just looked like Santa was recovering from knee surgery. Not a good motion.

Santa's Death Sequence

The death sequence was a nice touch requested by the game developer. I made two versions. One with a head and one without (for when it gets lightsabered off by an angry penguin).

There were a few more sprite sheets for each of the other characters but instead of boring you with all of the individual sprite sheets, let's jump to some animations!

Bringing Characters to Life

Game on!