Tools of the trade: going old school

opt2not

New member
A couple years ago I was at a game studio that worked with Kensuke Tanabe, the producer of the Metroid Prime series, and former script writer of my 2 favorite Zelda games: Link's Awakening and A Link to the Past. He was the main reason those games had such great story-lines and narrative. I had the opportunity to meet him and chat for a little bit about games, sci-fi movies, books. Extremely nice guy, very down-to-earth, approachable, and his English was pretty good too! I mentioned how I still play the old games, (and that those Zelda games he worked on were my favorite) and that I've been doing pixel art for a while. Before my contract ended and I left that studio, Tanabe-san sent me a Nintendo graph pad that I could prototype my sprites!

iiVAoVU.jpg


Recently I was at a local game store and noticed they had a few notepads that were console themed. I didn't like how the NES one looked, it was kinda bulky, but the SNES one was nice and light, so I picked it up:
xWPF1ya.jpg


I plan on doing my pre-production work for my NESMaker game sprites and design notes on these, like they did BITD! Time to break out the colored pencils and markers. :cool:
 

JakeSpencer

New member
Very cool story. Sounds like a plan! And thanks for sharing your story with us. Looking forward to the art that comes out of the oldskool process.
 

DocWaluigean

New member
It would be really respectful of you if you could upload those sheets online for us NES enthusiastic to able to make sprites and maybe modified for our suited needs.

[Mostly the one with the graph. It was pain in the BUTT to make the graph that's suited my needs.]
 

JakeSpencer

New member
If this is helpful, it is really easy to print graph paper from Microsoft Excel. Simply adjust all rows and columns to the spacing you want, then highlight the entire area (the little button in the upper-left of the x/y axes), and select the Borders and Shading tool. Select a border you want (faint line, solid line, dashed line). Then print page 1. Make as many copies as you like! You can paste the Nintendo logo in the footer if you really want it to look authentic.
 

DocWaluigean

New member
I can't afford Microsoft Excel. ono

And the graph size keeps confusing me on a lot of things, when I want the ALMOST perfected design templates like this links below:

https://www.google.com/search?biw=1536&bih=722&tbm=isch&sa=1&ei=Uqa-WuLtK4eWzwK_m4_ADw&q=Nintendo+NES+game+concept&oq=Nintendo+NES+game+concept&gs_l=psy-ab.3...1124.3121.0.3185.15.10.4.1.1.0.115.711.8j1.9.0....0...1c.1.64.psy-ab..2.4.159...0i8i30k1j0i24k1.0.-2MJYYXYz8E#imgrc=OIq5YlCCwtkSsM:

https://www.google.com/search?q=Nintendo+NES+game+concept&tbm=isch&tbs=rimg:CTczbQfsUl81Ijh_1vFFR20RkZl0rtqVYYHKUOKBRiDRcy4IvHNHxKyDryNlJu50QLnXoX-Gt-hcHqXfx3aZoD95zEyoSCX-8UVHbRGRmESepidoSdXcqKhIJXSu2pVhgcpQRhdZp_1l_1X-MMqEgk4oFGINFzLghHptq4iYOGNOyoSCS8c0fErIOvIEbaI867l84nQKhIJ2Um7nRAudegRA6VO7Jq_1yEgqEglf4a36FwepdxG8fBRJStRHpCoSCfHdpmgP3nMTEYW8D56qw4o7&tbo=u&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjYt_LC-ZTaAhVM2FMKHWbCClAQ9C96BAgAEBs&biw=1536&bih=722&dpr=1.25


[Man, looking at it again makes me smile even harder. I want those templates so hard, and the one opt2not has.]
 

JakeSpencer

New member
There's spreadsheet software for free in Google (it's called Google Sheets) that is remarkably comparable to Microsoft Excel. But it sounds like you have your mind made up to use scanned images for graph paper so best of luck.
 

opt2not

New member
DocWaluigean said:
It would be really respectful of you if you could upload those sheets online for us NES enthusiastic to able to make sprites and maybe modified for our suited needs.

[Mostly the one with the graph. It was pain in the BUTT to make the graph that's suited my needs.]
Hi, I appreciate your interest but I'm sorry, I'm not very comfortable doing this. It was a gift to me from Tanabe-san, and I feel it would be kinda disrespectful to him and Nintendo to go bootlegging this around the internet.
But as JakeSpencer has mentioned, you can easily create your own, or just buy graph paper from your local stationary store. The squares on these pages are standard sized so it's not like you're missing out on anything other than a few Nintendo and Mario logos.
 

DocWaluigean

New member
One part of my say it's not making sense from how can it be disrespectful since it only shows big appreciations for the graphs that's used by the fans, like it's just a graph paper, not a video game that cost money. While other part of me say it's understandable in Japanese cultures, like what if I was a Japanese and react to this? So I understand sadly...

At least I should be happy for a reply for this. But the one where JakeSpencer mentioned: I am a kind of perfectionist OCD-styles where I go crazy over not making the correct designs of how the graphs and the size should be. I tried making a graph paper on certain parts, and it sadly looks too small for me to have fun in any kind, like it feels more suited to be used in Krita, but I wanted to draw it in real life! So, yeah... It stinks being perfectionist.
 

Mihoshi20

Member
I needed an easy way for me to design background layouts, so I just made my own.
It's not much, but it gets the job done.

NES BG Datasheet Template_f72reduced.png
 

DocWaluigean

New member
DocWaluigean said:
One part of my say it's not making sense from how can it be disrespectful since it only shows big appreciations for the graphs that's used by the fans, like it's just a graph paper, not a video game that cost money. While other part of me say it's understandable in Japanese cultures, like what if I was a Japanese and react to this? So I understand sadly...

At least I should be happy for a reply for this. But the one where JakeSpencer mentioned: I am a kind of perfectionist OCD-styles where I go crazy over not making the correct designs of how the graphs and the size should be. I tried making a graph paper on certain parts, and it sadly looks too small for me to have fun in any kind, like it feels more suited to be used in Krita, but I wanted to draw it in real life! So, yeah... It stinks being perfectionist.

Here's my sheet I made about 12/27/16. It's really unfinished, as I am trying to make a "more autism-friendly" graph for people who struggles a LOT, but it's very similar to Nintendo Entertainment System graph sheets.

I am highly not recommend to use it because it's still unfinished to design, and the design would need more works to make it printer-friendly. But if you want to, go ahead, go ahead. Expect some printing errors of perfection design.
 

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Mihoshi20

Member
Just recently I'd finished a companion to my background planner. This one for designing the individual sprite and BG tiles.

NES Sprite Datasheet Template_e.png
 

Mihoshi20

Member
Thanks. Looked like the internet ate my BG planner sheet so i had to fix that post so both should be back on display now.
 
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