Pixel Digest

Nov 14

Study: Marvel Super Heroes

Spider-Man

Marvel Super Heroes (1995)

Developer(s): Capcom

Artist(s): ARAHI JUF, RUMI♥YAMAGUCHI, and T·SHIRAHAMA

Frames can be found here and here

Nov 9

Study: Lunar Knights

Taurus Fire

Lunar Knights (2006)

Developer(s): Kojima Productions

Artist(s): Akira Kanke, Hitomi Terada, Ikuya Nakamura, Kenichi Higeta, Kenji Yokoyama, Toru Kawakami, and Yoshihiro Hobo

Frames can be found here.

Jun 7

Study: Breath of Fire IV

Egg Gang

Breath of Fire IV (2000)

Developer(s): Capcom

Artist(s): If someone wants to translate them for me, that’d be great.

Special thanks to Barubary for the sprite rips!

May 12

This is okay, I’ll just EX Cross Counter and-

Oh no.

May 4

Study: Capcom vs. SNK 2

God Rugal

Capcom vs. SNK 2: Mark of the Millennium 2001 (2001)

Developer(s): Capcom

Artist(s): A-KO, akA maniA, CHIMORIN SHOGUN, G. Kamina, HIDEYA TAKADA, HIRANODAICHI, IKUSAN Z, JUN IKAWA, KANA, MASATSUGU SATO, NARA, RINBOKU, RVT1000R(RC51), TOMOHIKO OHSUMI, toshi@loveyuko, YO-HE-, Yamancha, YOSHIHIKO, and ZZAK

Frame sheet can be found here and here.

May 1

Study: Marvel vs. Capcom 2

Hayato

Marvel vs. Capcom 2: New Age of Heroes (2000)

Developer(s): Capcom

Artist(s): A IWASAKI, AKEMI KURIHARA, AKIZUKI MICHIRU, BALL BOY, F, HIDEYA TAKADA, HIRANO DAICHI, HIRO, HIROKI SHIBAKI, IGARASHI, IMAMURA, IZUMI NODA, KAERU, KIMO KIMO, MAKOTO ISHII, MASATSUGU SATO, MINOBE HIROAKI, MIWA SAKAGUCHI, MIZUHO, MIZUPYON, NISHIMURA MASARU, RIN BOKU, TAGIRIN, TOMOHIKO OHSUMI, Y YAMAMOTO, YANO, and YOSHIHIKO AKITA

Frame sheets can be found here and here.

Apr 22

Development: Street Fighter III

From it’s polished frames to smooth animation, Street Fighter III is widely regarded as one of the best looking games to use pixel art. But just how much effort went into creating these beautiful characters?

Based on a variety of media and books, we’ve seen a plethora of Street Fighter III’s hand drawn frames, often strung together showcasing various animations. Rather than pixels on a screen, it seems the artists chose to use traditional drawings as their starting point.

From there, it’s assumed these images were digitized and the line art drawn over with pixels. We can see examples of this process in Hugo’s leftover prototype from Street Fighter III: New Generation, as well as other Capcom titles such as Street Fighter Alpha 2, JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Heritage for the Future, and Marvel vs. Capcom 2.

Once these crude outlines were drawn and colours added, the final step would be to flesh out each frame with more detail and a tremendous amount of cleanup, culminating in the final image that you see in-game.

As a final note, the team behind this masterpiece is actually much smaller than you might assume, crediting 21 “object artists” in it’s first iteration. Just like Metal Slug, the raw talent of each artist is on full display! And if you find Capcom’s art interesting, I’d highly recommend checking out the recently released anatomy guide that was used by these teams around the time of Street Fighter Alpha and on.