Here’s one activity I have put aside for a while whilst working on Dungeon Scroller: the splash screen for the game.

I’m a huge fan of the Butterscotch Shenanigans game studio, and love the art associated with their Games.  You can recognise a Butterscotch Shenanigan icon app miles away, and their game pages on the store always look slick thanks to the art.  So, I decided to try and produce a similar quality splash screen for Dungeon Scroller.

I’m ok at drawing and know my way around Gimp, but I’m nowhere near good enough to produce something of the Butterscotch calibre. However, as long as I manage to produce something relatively attractive & sufficiently recognisable, I’ll be happy!

Starting Work on the Splash Screen

So far, I have followed the same process I used for the Hodge Podge logo – draw on paper, push to Inkscape and colour in gimp.

I tried some placeholder colouring in Inkscape, but didn’t end up using this in Gimp at all. This gives a better idea of what the screen will look like.

Working on the sky and walls.

I used a lot of strokes with a relatively big brush to get the effect I wanted – working darks then brights, then dark then brights etc.

 

Working on the Monsters

I found using the InkScape overlay and drawing over didn’t really work.  So, I went completely freestyle and opened a new gimp project to work on individual monsters.

To get the right look and feel, I drew the general area in the primary colour and worked on shadows / highlights gradually.  Inspired by BScotch splash screens, I then used different colour reflections (blue to the left, red to the right) to accentuate the borders.

Using layers, I am able to copy & paste the same section of the monster’s body over and over, and form a giant caterpillar!  Nice little trick to build massive monsters quickly.

I have to say that I am quite happy with the final result!!!  I also drew a worm quickly using the same technique, and pushed the monsters to the main screen.

Voila!  Good results for a few hours work.  Logging off now, but there’s more work to be done to complete this piece of game art!!  Keep an eye out for my next blog post.

What do you think of the splash screen so far?  How do you create your images and splash screens?  Leave me a comment below and let me know.