Owlboy art how to#
Owlboy art full#

The sort of human-owl hybrids are a simple enough design that most people will be able to grasp, but some of the designs for the sky pirates enter what can be best described as 'abstract.' Sadly, some of the animal motifs don't translate 100%, but this is a minor distraction to what is otherwise an immaculate and magnificent tapestry of sprite art mastery. If any fault had to nit-picked at about the art, it is that some character designs can borderline on bizarre or 'unconventional' and be difficult to comprehend.

Owlboy art full#

There is not any reliance on large portraits or bust-ups to emphasise character expressions everything is done in simple wide shots and it all works thanks to the animators giving every character a full range of motion that fits their personality. For a story revolving around a mute protagonist, the team figured out how the most efficient palettes work in conjunction with character animation and body language.

Owlboy art how to#

The art department at D-Pad Studios really know how to bring a scene together using colour and composition to elicit the right mood and atmosphere. There are so much unique art and the assets that do get repeated or recycled are done in a very tasteful or natural way that only the trained eye would notice.

All that hard work and time that the artists agonised over truly makes Owlboy one of, if not the most, impressive looking two-dimensional pixel art action adventure. It is no wonder why the designers took 10 years to make this. Expect to explore various picturesque dungeons that are beautifully illustrated, full of unique set-pieces and gimmicks to make them memorable. Classic 2D Zelda or Metroid titles come to mind when trying to compare the size and scope of the adventure seen here.

That is not the case here because the world of Owlboy is every bit as massive as the adventure games it is inspired by. With this high level of ambition in the assets, it would be easy to assume that the game would be pretty small, too, because of the vast art pipe-line required to generate the graphics. Owlboy's visuals have the level of detail that go beyond what SNK put into its arcade games in the '90s. Actually, 'stunning' is underselling the craftsmanship - this is master class tier genius proficiency of pixel art media. From the very moment Owlboy starts up, it is evident why the team took almost 10 years to make it.