Extreme Makeovers! | peter_john | Earthbound

[peter_john]

Extreme Makeovers! | peter_john | Earthbound
http://www.gameartisans.org/contests/competitions/uploaded_thubnails/33-game-concept-art-1105-1182180836-thumb.gif

peter_john has entered the competition!

[peter_john]

I titled my entry Earthbound but I'm going to focus on Ness. If I have time I might do the rest of the team or incorporate them in the final image, but Ness is my official character.

[peter_john]

Time to start this ball rolling! Here's some brainstorming sketches I've been doing to begin:

These are similar to the original Ness from Earthbound/Mother 2. I already know this is going to be tough for me since I have a lot of respect and admiration for the design of the original characters by Shigesato Itoi.
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1081/642649933_c91c4741fc_o.jpg
And yes, eating a hamburger from the trash actually happens in the game :).

Here I started getting away from the original Ness and trying some things, like making him slightly older (when a sequel game might happen). I was also playing around with some supporting characters from Earthbound, nothing too invested.
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1130/642650707_851a973e3d_o.jpg

The sketch here may be something I go ahead with. In Earthbound the characters have to travel back in time (via phase distorter) to fight the final boss. Their human bodies can't survive the trip, so they have their minds transported to robots. I was thinking a sequel game might involve more time travel or journeying to worlds beyond human limits, so a portable phase distorter/robot avatar would be essential. When Ness or somebody else traveled like so their mind would pilot the robot body during the trip. Maybe the robot would wear a Ness shaped backpack during the trip too, still thinking about this.
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1100/642651455_ae54533de5_o.jpg

Here are some other Ness roughs, not so great but it's good to get them out of my system. There's also some Starmen sketches (the starmen are a group of high powered alien robots that worked for the enemy in Earthbound).
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1152/642652229_c6c9b2fd9e_o.jpg

I'm not totally sure where to go from here. The sketches that I've liked so far don't really feel like redesigns yet. I'm not sure how to tackle this style wise yet either. I'm thinking cartoony enough to be as fun as the originals but a little grittier would be ok. Maybe making Ness older is a bad idea, I'm still up in the air about this. Anyway, I'm open to feedback on this so far. If you've played the game then awesome! If not feel free to ask me any questions about it. I'll post some more reference artwork soon too. For now you can check out these:
http://starmen.net/mother2/images/official/
http://starmen.net/mother2/images/game/
Thanks!

[mookster]

Awesome. Earthbound is the first RPG I can remember playing from beginning to end, and Im glad someone decided to do this.
Being an earthbound fan I cant think of one bad thing about any of your sketches. Love trash burger Ness:D As far as style direction, I like what you did on the 3rd image with him. I don't see the Ness shaped backpack you mentioned though, do they just swap and when Robot is in control Ness is on back?
Looking forward to more.

[ThatDon]

gezz, talk about a art dump! anyways stick with the slightly older, more grown up thing, it seems to be the popular way to go! :)

[peter_john]

mookster - I'm glad you're an Earthbound fan! The switching robot/backpack idea is sort of in pieces here and there. I'll redraft something more cohesive to show you guys.

ThatDon - haha, thanks man. I'll give the older version a shot for a bit.

[brian_h]

It might be interesting to go a bit Iron Giant on this. An current animated style with a really edgy look to it. The later sketches seem to be moving in that direction. I'm diggin em'.

B

[Frozan]

yes bottom left of the last image is the best i think. good expression and man just feels like its him

[peter_john]

whoah, sorry for the scant updates here. Been busy getting some things ready for Comic Con in a week. Here's some more sketches though!
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1260/822937025_fda24f511b_o.jpg

The Ness on the left here is close to what I'm going to shoot for:
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1302/822937887_465028d5ea_o.jpg

and these...
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1048/823813658_5fe29a1d5b_o.jpg

Expect some color images soon plus the modeling sheets. The final image should be mayhem.

[mellowsmoothe]

nice thumbs. good variety. i like the guy on the second to the last page...the one with the 3 eyes...j/k. anyway yeah the guy on that page is modern but maleable so he is my choice for a new paperboy.

[peter_john]

another sketch, trying to keep in mind the appeal of the original character designs.
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1416/832138709_a5b1ca2a5a_o.jpg

[peter_john]

Week extension or no I think I'm going to have to bow out of this one. I'm leaving for Comic Con tomorrow morning at 6am so packing and other things are taking priority for now... good luck to everybody else with their entries though! We'll see what happens with next month's competition :].

[Rain]

Such a shame you are bowing out. You had some really good sketches going on here.