Faris' Wizard 6 years in the making. Ugh.

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So ever wanted to see, not that you ever did, how the main antagonist of Faris Adventure's changed through the years of development, with a touch of art style history? At least in regards to his 'true' form? If so take a gander at the li'l "(Continue)" down below~

First off, we go to a horrible year... 2010.

Boy was this thing ugly. At this point, I wasn't actually spriting. I was just messing around with MS Paint. I never made a sprite. I made some primitive and simple pixel art like the above, in fact that one to the right was my first ever real attempt at shading as I recall (but I could be totally wrong.)

At this time I was just going to use free resources, but I always had an idea for a bad guy alien thing. Faris Adventure was -nothing- like it is now. It was one of two games, one an homage to Wizardry, and the other mechanically a Prince of Persia rip off. The two were combined, with the Wizardry styled dungeon exploration with the story of the Prince of Persia rip off mostly still in tack. A young boy courting a princess named Jessica, gets thrown into a magical dungeon tower by a  wizard after he stole something and blah blah blah. I wasn't using original resources, as stated and the wizard character, who was a regular human with a regular boring wizardish name, probably with apostrophes or hyphens or some junk, was no different. So this was -not- the wizard. This was just playful doodle in MS Paint.

The design is cheap and I never conveyed what I wanted to make it look like. It -should- be best described as human with an elephant shaped skull, but with a fly like proboscis. Only I had no idea what a fly proboscis looked like, and assumed it was like how it's portrayed in some old cartoons. Remove the ears of this fly elephant man hybrid, giving it segmented forward facing eyes, though retain facial/brow  muscles for expressiveness. Mottle the skin a bit, make it green and I couldn't decide if I wanted a hard conical head, or a saggy fleshy head that might be more akin to a deflated squid.

Eventually I thought to myself "I could sprite my own game look, right?" and this led to me trying old early computer graphic limitation inspired, but not followed, attempts and then the 'nes style' as some people called it, before settling into the modern current look of the game, which was made quite by accident. During that period of changes, I decided to use this general concept of the above images, and turn that into Faris' antagonistic "the Wizard." I eventually was going to have to sprite it to look like the rest of the game's damnable sprites.

Enter this ugly son of a bitch, probably early 2012. At least I want to say early '12. I have nothing on my laptop or computer to indicate that the original file was -created- in 2012, but I have a comparison image of this with one other image (the following) that was made in February 12th of that year, and I do recall they were made rather close to each other. It is possible this image could have been made in December of 2011, but I sincerely doubt it. The modern Faris Style was made around October of 2011, that was when I first really started spriting, and I doubt I tackled the Wizard so early, as his character still didn't quite exist.

Regardless, this is the first real version of the Faris Adventure Wizard in his 'true form.' There were so me minor changes here and there, but ultimately it's the same over all design. Slightly changed the clothing by way of colour, and giving it a vertical seem of sorts, and gave it a weird shoulder cape on it's left shoulder, plus some gloves. There's that strange boa thing, which would disappear very shortly and remain gone for four years.

This is when the Wizard's story started to come together. A not-so-human life form, but very different from the current concept. I actually am quite amused about the body of this one, because as you saw above, there's another entry in 2012 that is very different, yet come 2013 the Wizard sprite reverts back to using the body made here, with some minor edits to colours and stuff, with a whole new head.

This Wizard didn't really have much of a concept outside of "Not of this world," but as to what that meant? I wasn't really sure. It was a stage of "mechanics first" and all the li'l explanations and plot holes didn't matter. Figure it out later. Iron out those details. It was an excuse plot after all, with just changes in vocabulary. Knight vs evil wizard? Arabian inspired prince vs alien. Same thing, right?

But then February 12th came. And I know I said the above -could- have been from December, but I am strongly inclined to think the above image was January, or February. So a month or just a week later, I didn't like it. The face. That head. The colours. Didn't care for it. Plus it was a bit big. Taller than everything else I was making. God, it's funny how that was a worry once, when now I'm thinking things are too small.

Speaking of too small, look at that body! It's the same general idea for the body, though again I changed the top's design, but it's the same colours. Lost the gloves though, along with that weird boa thing. Oh and gained a massively huge head, with Cthulu inspired tentacles. Oh and fire balls. I don't know why. At the time the Wizard was an alien demonic thing that used magic. It's weird how it's changed back and forth over the nature of magic and origin, even without changing graphics. At one point this guy wasn't using magic, he was using technology in his gloves to produce magic by proxy. Then it was that he figured out how to simulate magic spells, despite his kind not being able to tap into it, but it was still magic. Then it was artificial. Then it was authentic. No, wait, synthetic. No- bah, it was a confusing time.

I -loved- this when I first made it. But I did have reservations about the head. The head was huge, but a smaller head seemed silly, he'd be too small. Clearly I should resprite it, I thought, but I was so tired from making it, it exhausted me, that I just wouldn't try for a long time. I knew it would be resprited, but I kept making other things, and fixing those, and just didn't want to touch the Wizard again. I don't recall why I gave it tentacles to be honest, but I think it was born out of my desire to not use the fly face, because it was so silly and ugly looking. But it -had- to have a non-human facial feature. I liked HP Lovecraft. He was popular but hadn't taken over the general internet yet. Screw it, I'll use tentacles. Oi, how I wish I was more original now, but I'm too set in my ways to change this late in the game. But I wasn't to set that, despite reservations on how difficult it would be, I wouldn't try again. I just didn't expect how I'd try again.

February 15th, wow a lot seems to happen around February/March with this guy... Anyway, February 15th, I was going over things and I recall really liking the first '12 Wizard's body, but at the same time hating it's face. Likewise the 2nd of the '12 Wizards had a great head, but a terrible body. It took a damn year for me to figure out to just take the parts I like and combine them. A darkened cape thingie, though it still lost the other shoulder's boa, and there might've been an edit to a pixel here or there too (like the cape receiving a 'back' under the arm,) but ultimately this is a recycled sprite, and I was (and still am) cool with that. But I would eventually decide to resprite it. Why? Too big. The window resolutions I was using for the game, combined with the GUI/HUD elements caused part of it to become cut off, and so it needed to be a few pixels smaller.  And a noticeable amount thinner for the thing I was doing. I tried just shrinking it, and fixing the few stray pixels and stuff, but that didn't work. Still, I let it sit for years, always thinking I would change the GUI/HUD, and not the sprite. The longest rendition of the Wizard to date is this guy right there.

Three years and one day later, February 16th 2016, I decided to resprite it. I wanted the Wizard to be a bit, well, different. Smoother, less bestial and more mature? I don't know if that makes sense. I also wasn't sure if I liked the colouring. The green is different, the cape is different, the gloves are different, and it's not that noticeable but the red and gold of the suit are different as well. Plus, look! The weird boa thing is back! Oooh I missed it. I remember now that I thought it was silly and ugly, so I got rid of it, but then I kept wondering "Should I bring it back?" And I never did because, well, it would've looked horrible in the last rendition, so I never did. But respriting? I could add it again! So I did- oh how I missed you boa (And how badly I want to remove you again today-!!!)

I wanted this Wizard to have a gun. I don't recall the exact specific reasoning, other than wanting a gun. I think at first it might've been a remote control of some sort instead, but failing to be able to do that, I decided on gun and tricked my memory into thinking it was always a gun. I added some blobby pustule things to the head as well, to make it look less wrinkly and roughly dried up, and much more gooy and more bacterial. That probably makes no sense. I also have two versions of this, actually, one with a different set of eyes. I kept the original eyes here in this post, but I tried to make them look segmented again, though retaining that glowy look of the last few cephalopodian incarnations. This is when the Wizard -really- became more technological, though the magic aspect had been diluted and removed in the previous incarnation's version, this is the version that defined aspects as they appear in game.

There's just one problem. He's too small now.

I changed the program I'm using to make the game, since I'm a terrible programmer with a math problem, so it's easier to use said makers. The default resolution is bigger, and in general the maker is better, and I didn't feel like shrinking the window size. This made me start doubling up on the sprites, magnifying them 2x instead. I actually normally wouldn't care for this, as a default size, but I'm really enjoying it here. Plus I don't need to resprite -everything- to be bigger than it was. 500+ sprites alone, plus the backgrounds + aniamtions + etc etc etc.

But this did cause me to notice some things DID need to be resprited. Including the Wizard's human form, made back in 2012-13, judging on my earliest version (themselves copies, actually.) It was too small, and the colouration was a bit... off, compared to other things. So I resprited him. Just one problem: I made him too big.

The sprite itself -is- shorter than the above, but he's hunched over. Therefore he's taller if he stood straight. The 'true form' is meant to dwarf the human, not the other way around. I'll have to resprite, which I'm currently in the process of.

However the previous version isn't going anywhere, in fact this and the later of the 2012 versions -are- being used in the game, though not as originally intended. The later 2012 version will be edited, and this version will serve a new purpose during a story segment as told by 'the Creature' (who was a recent addition I decided on Christmas day 2015, I made the Creature on Christmas after receiving a Secret Santa gift from my favorite Yoshi in the world, P.Yoshi, who gave the Wizard a more, well, Wizardly look.)

The new Wizard... He's coming out much more muscular. Which I'm fine with. You can see him in the end above. Oh what the hell, I'll put the unfinished version here too.

Compared to the previous versions, he's flat out enormous. Big, big torso, scrawny li'l arms, big head - I'm loving that. The boa thing is there, though it's problematic. Purple gloves-  I love the purple gloves now. Glowing segmented eyes and that strange pair of nostrils I added in the previous version I forgot about till now, all return. Gun is a bit small looking, but I might fix that.

Anyway, who knows, maybe I'll resprite him 12 more times.

P.S.
Haven written this I feel horribly pretentious and would delete it, but I told someone I was gonna post this, so now I have to. Cause they'll bother me if I don't.

Fuck you Clarice.
Fuck you for bothering me in a hypothetical future that no longer exists in this quantum time line.
Fuck you indeed.