Angry Birds: HELL

I feel the new "Angry Birds: Space" isn't pushing the brand as far as it could go... I have an alternative that I think will really be a hit with the kids.

Really, when you think about it, what is the final destination for a bunch of suicidal birds with anger-management problems?

Poor birds,
~ Mark

Abunantly 8-Bit!

Sometimes I get bored. When I get bored I like to imagine a world where 8-bit video gaming rules supreme. Not because I think it's a superior form of gaming (which it might just be)... But because it's so easy to create!

Either way, I thought I'd experiment a little in old school side-scrolling action and give myself a little day-break from working on Son'Uva. I basically took the character "Yellow Sonic" from my Abundant Life comics and made him into a gaming sprite... with very intangible pixelated graphics. He's running across a Lowell rooftop... The background looks more Atari than anything else, but that was a little last-minute addition to give the idea some perspective.

Don't be expecting any Abundant Life games (not anytime soon at least), but I just thought this would be fun to do. Click the below image to view...


Bite me!
~ Mark

Sonuva part XXXXV

Alas, many moons have passed since my last true update... And odds are many more may pass as well. In case anybody is really all that interested, I recently got myself a new apartment and I've been rather busy cleaning it up to move into... Yeah, the last tenants were filthy... they also had a very odd obsession with "Finding Nemo", I keep finding Nemo stickers in odd places.

Anyway, I finished up Gazael's second special attack... She throws her halo, it slices, it dices... but I guess this demo doesn't show the slicing/dicing aspect of it... It just shows her throwing it. It's pretty cool nonetheless. Almost finished! Standing block, crouching block, throw and finisher to go... Next week I plan to get cracking on this game a little more intently and get back to regular updates... But we'll see.

Here's the latest animation...

http://www.6amcomics.com/sonuva/gazael/updateV

And yeah, here's a fun lil' pic... Nothing all that new though, you've seen others like it...


Movin' on up,
~ Mark


Sonuva by Mark Marianelli is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

Something Quick...

I'm going to be leaving for a few days to visit my bro down in Texas with ma'lady... Sadly I have nothing new to show you before I depart... So I dug and dug through as many old files as I could on my macBook and discovered this little gem... Go on, click it...



You might recognize the guy in the lower left (mainly because it's yours truly). I used this little ditty to create my personal portfolio site. What you didn't know was that I created that as an older concept for the 6amcomics website... I ended up going in another direction and these lil' guys were ultimately lost in the archives of my cluttered macBook Pro... But thanks to my laziness, they may now see the light of day!

If you haven't figured it out, these are cartoon representations of the Six AM Boys, i.e. Dan, Kevin and myself. I went with certain themes for each of us based off of our various passions in life... I love movies, hence I got a Star Wars, Rocky and Bad Boys II... Dan got Zelda, God of War and Half-Life, cause he loves him some video games... Kevin's got a thing for superheros, so he got Green Lantern, Deadpool, and The Comedian.

Anyway, that's what I got for ya, sorry I couldn't bust out something awesome for the 4th... Maybe something belated, yes?

TODAY! WE CELEBRATE! OUR INDEPENDENCE DAY!
~ Mark

Sonuva part XXXXIV

Sonuva part 44... Commence.

This update isn't all that exciting... But it definitely doesn't suck either.

... Or maybe that's just my opinion.

Anyway, I've finished about 75% of Gazael's animations... The major animation that came out of tonight however is her movement animation... Some characters walk, others float... This is one of the floaty ones. I'm a fan of these... because they're easy to animate. This is very similar to the way Azriel walks, only the wings actually flap for Gazael rather than flicker. I hope to finish all her animations in addition to the remaining two animations for Jack (I keep putting that guy off...).

Click the link below to view Gazael's updated animations...

http://www.6amcomics.com/sonuva/gazael/updateIV

You'll also notice some of the movements have been tweaked a little to make them appear more fluid... But you'll only notice that if you have a habit of paying extra close attention to the other recent animations...

I dozed off a little while writing this... I need sleep.

Hope I didn't write something dirty,
~ Mark



Sonuva by Mark Marianelli is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

Sonuva part XXXXIII

Gazael... She's pretty darn cool. I've finished up her two jumping attacks... Her first being similar in nature to her basic standing attack where she summons a giant glowing fist from her hand and (in theory) devastates her opponent... The other jumping attack is a flying kick, much like Sadis-Jyn's jumping attack... Can you tell how creative I am tonight? ... I literally had to download the Rocky IV soundtrack tonight to get motivated enough to work on this... If you're a dude, you know the songs I'm talkin' bout... I'm talkin' about "Training Montage" baby! Oh man, if there was snow outside right now, I'd be SO running in it.

You know the routine:

http://www.6amcomics.com/sonuva/gazael/updateIII/

Seriously, how awesome were the 80's?

Not that I remember them that well,
~ Mark



Sonuva by Mark Marianelli is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

Sonuva part XXXXII

I finished up a few more animations for Gazael... There's only a few animations remaining and then a finisher... She now has a crouching animation complete with two crouched attacks... I'm hoping to have all of her basic fighting animations finished before the weekend, then I can take some time this weekend and develop a finisher for her... Which I'm a little lost on at the moment. I may need a reason to get angry this weekend so I can get in the right frame of mind... What would agitate me the most... I don't like carrots. I suppose I could eat a bag of baby carrots and be annoyed at how horrible they taste... Or I could dwell on the fact that I actually just wrote the words "I suppose I could eat a bag of baby..." That's more unsettling than aggravating though... Which could work I guess? ... Nah.

Honestly, I'm so tired right now that I don't really know what the heck I'm talking about at this point... Something about babies.

Check out Gazael's updated animations here:

http://www.6amcomics.com/sonuva/gazael/updateII

Gettin' there,
~ Mark



Sonuva by Mark Marianelli is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

Sonuva part XXXXI

I didn't really have any time tonight to work on Gazael (or Legacy for that matter), so I figured I'd create a hidden character by color swapping Azriel. Basically just the same concept as Nark.

The fighter's name is "Maith"... My good friend Edgell came up with this character and unfortunately I wasn't able to incorporate him into the game as a regular fighter... He also looks nothing like the guy Edge concepted, which I'm pretty disappointed about, it was a sick design... Sadly, none of the other fighters when color swapped carried Maith's appearance well enough to do him justice. I may still create Maith as a stand-alone fighter if time permits and give this guy a new name later on, but for now, he's pretty cool I think.

Feel free to check out his stance animation here:

http://www.6amcomics.com/sonuva/maith

I probably won't get to anymore work on this game until Thursday, so tomorrow I'll most likely be posting more Abundant Life comic panels... Which may or may not make you excited... Not my problem... winky face.

Emoticons for the blind,
~ Mark



Sonuva by Mark Marianelli is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

Sonuva part XXXX

Wow, there's seriously 40 posts on my blog devoted to this game... unbelievable. There will probably be over a hundred by the time this game is actually finished... Lucky you!

So I've had a little bit of time tonight to devote to Gazael. I have her jumping animation finished as well as one of her special attacks... You'll notice after watching the updated animation that Gazael has a lot of animations in common with Azriel... not copied, just similar. If you haven't guessed it, she's a fighter of supernatural origins... It seems any time I decide to give a character wings, they turn out the coolest. Thus, I'm very happy with how this character is coming along...

Gazael's special attack is nothing all that original... in fact, I'm pretty sure the Mortal Kombat series used about three or so variations of it for some of its more memorable characters... And there's no shame in that... Basically she jumps in the air, disappears in a cross-shaped blaze, then reappears at the bottom of the screen and uppercuts the opponent. Credits roll.

You can view her updated animations here:
http://www.6amcomics.com/sonuva/gazael/update

Not a ton else to report... I've been putting together some character bios to use for cutscene's and intros... Nothing to really report on there though...

Go to bed, foo!
~ Mark




Sonuva by Mark Marianelli is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

Sonuva part XXXIX

So I've decided on the final character in the Son'Uva roster... There may be more, but they won't be anything more than color swaps and re-skins for the time being. What I needed was one more female character for the sake of variety. There were a couple of fighters in the lineup which I was narrowing down... You might remember a few of them from previous posts. It turned out they were a little bit too complicated to create quickly... Speed is a factor at this point in the game, I'm getting tired of animating fighters.

... Not to mention my girl wanted to be in the game. I aim to please, Rach. I was a little cautious about placing a female character in this game (yeah, Son'Uva's a female, but she's not really all that human), mainly because I don't want anything about Son'Uva to come off as misogynistic... But then I thought about the first time I played Mortal Kombat... I have to admit, I felt a little disturbed the first time I performed a Fatality on Sonya Blade... However, next time I played she beat me, blew a kiss, and disintegrated my ninja carcass... Oh, all bets were off after that. In the end, just take games like this with a grain of salt and pretend all characters have signed a release form...

... Or just always play as this character and win. Simple.

Anyway, the new character is named "Gazael" (You're not going to understand the name). I've been working on a background for her, but it needs some fine tuning; Her story will tie in with Azriel and Legacy... And her attacks bear a striking similarity to both. A lot of her moves are going to be inside jokes with me and the wonderful lady they're based off of (like that awesome shoulder pad she's sporting), but I'm hoping that'll prove interesting enough in the long run to make her character memorable. I think she's a cool addition to the game... Not to mention green is a color I haven't incorporated into any of the fighters at this point... I leave no colors behind!! The green is also a bit of a nod to Sonya.

I've finished up her basic stance as well as her two basic standing attacks... You can view them at the following link:

http://www.6amcomics.com/sonuva/gazael/

So there you have it. With that, I'm off to bed.

You're welcome, Rach:)
~ Mark



Sonuva by Mark Marianelli is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

Sonuva part XXXVIII

So my frustration with the state of the NBA has forced me to create Archfiend's finisher... I like to imagine the "finishee" is Kobe Bryant. What a turd... But yeah, this finisher is pretty violent (as they all are), so if that sort of thing is too disturbing for you... Or if there's a child in the room whom you don't want viewing blood n' gore, then I would advise against clicking the link blow... despite how awesome it is.

http://www.6amcomics.com/sonuva/demon/finisher/

In any case, Archfiend is finished!! Below you can view his final moveset animations, now complete with two finishers. His second finisher is a projectile, he basically creates a flame with his rocket feet and swings his weapon into the flame, creating a fiery wave at his opponent. I think it's pretty cool... Besides, everybody needs a projectile... Duh.

You can view Archfiend's final moveset here:

http://www.6amcomics.com/sonuva/demon/updateVI

Aight, I'm off to go be peeved over a stupid game... Soooo... Night!

FLA,
~ Mark



Sonuva by Mark Marianelli is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

Sonuva part XXXVI

I wasn't able to get a ton of animation finished today, I fell asleep after work... I beg your forgiveness... But I am not empty handed! I managed to get Archfiend's first special attack finished... It doesn't look very complicated, but you'd be amazed how much work goes into rotating a 2D character 360°... It kinda' sucks. But hey, I'm not one to complain... At least not about this, especially seeing as this game was my idea in the first place. So yeah. You can check out the animation below:

http://www.6amcomics.com/sonuva/demon/updateV

Anyway, not much else to comment on... The Edgell has finished up some preliminary sketch work on a new stage taking place in Boston. It looks pretty sweet thus far... But more on that as it develops...

Hey, and just for kicks, here's a promotional picture of the fighters thus far...


Aight. Get out of here!

Scram!
~ Mark



Sonuva by Mark Marianelli is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

Sonuva part XXXV

I'm gonna go with "Archfiend", well played, The Keith, I knew you'd come through...

So yeah, once Demon, now Archfiend... which apparently means the same thing, just sounds cooler. Anyway, I'm almost finished with his animations, I just need to animate 2 Special attacks and then his finisher... Then about 100 animations of him getting finished off via opponents and stages... Sigh... The life of a... animator? illustrator? artist? Not sure what you wanna call me... I'll go with whatever so long as it's not mean... I'm very sensitive.

I was able to finish his air attacks, duck attacks and throw. I'm happy with them, though I have to admit, there was a lot of regurgitation going on with this animation... You may pick up on it... But hopefully you won't. We're coming up on the finish line with these characters, so I'm rushing like a crazy man to get them finished and move onto more fun things... Like MAKING the game. There's a couple of options left for the last character... Then I may consider some color-swapped secret characters just for kicks...

But this is all probably boring to you... Please enjoy the animations for Archfiend:

http://www.6amcomics.com/sonuva/demon/updateIV/

Aight... Feedback is always appreciated... so long as it's more compliments than critiques... playful winky face.

Yay for me,
~ Mark


Sonuva by Mark Marianelli is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

Sonuva part XXXIV

Had some time today to work on... Seriously, I need a freaking name for this guy. In any case, his animations now include: Ducking, Falling, Dead, Blocking, Ducking while Blocking, moving forward and backward (typically I'd call it "walking", but he doesn't really walk so much as he just glides), and getting hit. I'm very satisfied with that. You should be as well. So what's left for the ol' Demon-Man? Two crouching attacks, one more aerial attack, two special attacks and a finishing move... Yeah, cake... Sigh.

In addition to finishing up some animation work, DG2P, AKA Transit 161, AKA my go-to guy for all things audio, has offered to do some sound FX for the game... Which means this game is going to have some KILLER sounds... When it comes to something audible, Daniel does not disappoint. Ya'heard?

So yeah, you can view the new animations at the following link:

http://www.6amcomics.com/sonuva/demon/updateIII

Hope y'all dig it... And don't mind his name, kids; if he were really a demon, he wouldn't need rockets on his feet... Of course, that doesn't explain why the demons in "DOOM" needed cybernetic implants...

IDDQD,
~ Mark


Sonuva by Mark Marianelli is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

Sonuva part XXXIII

So this will be a meaty blog full of delicious content... Which I know you're all aching for. And when you ache, Marky delivers...

For starters, pending name Demon's animations are coming along quite nicely... I now have his jump animation as well as one areal attack animation finished... okay, maybe that doesn't quite qualify as "coming along nicely", but it does qualify as coming along... Whatever, it's all in the eye of the beholder. So behold already! His jumping attack makes use of those dandy lil' rocket jets on his feet, he leaps into the air and releases a quick burst of fire from the souls of his flying boots. No, this doesn't light the opponent on fire, but it does pack a wallop... which means nothing until I actually get around to programming the game... Anyway, you can check out his updated animations here:

http://www.6amcomics.com/sonuva/demon/updateII

In addition to Demon's animations, I took some time tonight and worked on the blood/block effects... As with most fighting games, the hit effects and animations are pretty important, you don't generally pay attention to them, but they make all the difference in the world... And who doesn't remember the fountains of blood which poured down like rains from heaven every time you uppercutted your opponent? ... or GOT uppercutted for that matter...

So the following animation demo will display the blood/hit effects to date... Do your best to ignore the crude sound effects, they were last minute... And I promise, this game will have decent sound effects when it's finished. You may also notice there's a song playing in the background... This is a lil' tune provided by the one and only, Dan "DG2P" Gillespie titled "Maccchhhhiiiiinnnnnneeeeeeee" ... Oh yeah, it's just as awesome and epic as the name... Dan was gracious enough to let me borrow his music off an upcoming album he's putting together under the name of "Transit 161"... I suggest you hunt it down when he finishes it, cause it's proving to be pretty sick...

Check out the animation here (and be warned, it's violent):

http://www.6amcomics.com/sonuva/demo

I love it when an animation comes together,
~ Mark


Sonuva by Mark Marianelli is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

Sonuva part XXXII

Was able to get some work done today on the new Son'Uva character... who shall be going under the production name of "Demon"... until I can get a decent name for it... I'm sure "The Keith" will come through... He actually came up with a name which I'm considering... To be honest, I'd have no problem naming this guy "Demon"... but really, as much as I enjoy paying homage to the original Mortal Kombat, having a green fighter named "Reptile" was pretty lame... Even though he ended up being one of the coolest characters in MK2 (in my opinion)... Speaking of which, has anyone reading this ever managed to fight him in MK1? He was freaking hard. It's sad they made his character so crappy later on in the series...

Anyway, I don't have a ton of animations finished on this guy, but I have finished his first two basic attacks. You'll notice they have some similarities to Hunter's attacks... This is mainly because Hunter has some of the simplest attacks in the game (in terms of animation), so it'll go by a little quicker... Demon's actually proving to be an easy character to create, only a few colors and his feet don't require a separate movie clip like the others... Though I won't get into the details of that. You probably don't care... You probably just want to see some animations and move on to your other blogs... Which saddens me, I want you to be a one-blog kinda' person... Is it so much to ask for some Monogamy in these sinful days?!?!

Ahem...

Anyway, click the link below to see the animation for insert name here:

http://www.6amcomics.com/sonuva/demon/update/

Look to la luna,
~ Mark


Sonuva by Mark Marianelli is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

Sonuva part XXXII

I finished up one more stage... If anyone is familiar with the original "Abundant Life" comic I did back in the day, they may recognize this stage... Otherwise, it's just a cool stage featuring a bunch of sinister looking generators powered by hanging upside-down men... You may also recognize it from the sketches I posted a few months ago... Either way, there's a good chance you've seen this.

Go on... Click the image below and witness the Abundant Life goodness...


So now, to date, 4 stages. I'm so proud of myself...



Anyway, I am... How do you say... Sleepy. I go now.

I said I go now!!
~ Mark


Sonuva by Mark Marianelli is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

Sonuva part XXXI

I'd like to have a total of 10 characters for Son'Uva... SO... Here's a ninth!

I don't have a name for this fighter yet, so he's just going under the working title of "demon" until I can figure out something worth while... I may need to confer with "The Keith" on this one, he has an uncanny ability for applying names to fiction... I fear for his children...

If anybody follows this blog, then you may remember some illustrations I did back in December for my brother involving clowns and high-tech demon suits... This character is straight out of those drawings... And no, I won't be making a clown character... yet. I'm hoping he'll end up being pretty unique in comparison to the others... but in all honestly, I haven't the foggiest of what his moves will be. If you'd like to view his basic stance animation, click the image to the left.

I'm currently deciding between two other characters to be the tenth fighter... more on that when I feel like being decisive. Till' then...

enjoy... ENJOY!!
~ Mark


Sonuva by Mark Marianelli is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

Sonuva part 30

So I didn't use roman numerals for this post... I'm afraid of the websites which my blog may become associated with... Figure it out.

Anyway, I've finished another stage on Sonuva! This may look familiar to you for a couple of reasons... Either you saw the sketches I made for it, or you saw one of my older works on this blog. Or maybe you have no clue what I'm talking about... Regardless, this stage displays my prized "DNA Tree" which I have become quite fond of. In the background there's a bunch of old Dino-Bones... well, I'm referring to them as Dino bones, but who knows what they belonged to, not my problem, point is, they look awesome.

This stage is slightly visible in the last arena I worked on... The floating isle in the background, if you zoom in on it enough, you can see the dna tree. Click on the image below to view the new stage and witness the DNA goodness!


Here's all three stages to date:



Edible Genetics for me, please,
~ Mark



Sonuva by Mark Marianelli is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.