I’ve been given the okay by Chubberdy to go ahead and try my hand at spriting the old Mechanic! Right now there’s no guarantee it’ll make it into the final game (and if it doesn’t, I can just release it as a custom skin instead), but here’s what I’ve got so far!
Chubberdy mentioned having trouble getting animations to look good at higher weight stages, so I decided to start at the maximum size so that I have a better idea of what size/shape I’m aiming for with the other sizes. The idea here is that the stored energy is much more heavily focused on Mechanic’s belly for whatever reason (probably the difference in anatomy between the two species) and he ends up basically having to push it along the ground, causing the lump of fat to shift inwards and upwards.
This gif switches between one of the standing frames and one of the “”“running”“” frames so that you can see the difference in shape. I’m not sure if it’s too much distortion or not, I think it looks good but obviously I don’t have a good frame of reference for what’s realistic here, so I’m open to feedback and/or suggestions.
Also, no markings on the suit yet since it’s a WIP sprite. When I finish the final version, it’ll be updated to match the Spacethumper 2 palette and have the lines and the belt and everything.