The DemoBots need graphics for cutscenes, too. Yes, they become a joke as the game progresses, but they're a natural enemy for a robot maid.

The way her telescopic arms work has always been fudged in-game and in art, so I'm wondering if I should animate Pinafore cleaning the family portrait with this sprite-chain arm.

First, I hand-draw it and ink it with a felt-tip pen. Then I scan it, making an HD image. Then I save it as a 16-color BMP, then clean it up and crop it. Then I add color and transparency effects.

For games, I shrink the HD version for the game's window.

As the first major cutscene, I have to show the scale without going crazy with drawing too much.

As such, these two DemoBots up front do a bit of acting, and we never see them again.

Screenshots for Belgrad: Curse of the Castle

Plan B for this sequence.

Now with real-time cleaning action, and a stretching sprite for the arm.

I just scanned in some artwork. I do a lot of hand-drawing for reference, but there is a bit of a gap between the hand-drawn stuff and the pixel art.

Again, I hand-draw with my left, and do pixels with my right.

Well, this might give you an idea of the kind of scope my cutscenes will go.

I probably should hire voice actors, but I think I'd rather do what I can without money first.

Testing out a tentacle...

Still doing cinematics.

It still requires a lot of drawing of new assets, and I just put in that Mode 7 effect for later cutscenes.