Monster Monster!

In this note, I'd like to compile some monster graphics I've designed in a variety of environments.
They're listed roughly in chronological order of when they were released.

When I was in high school, many of my friends were making original RPGs inspired by Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy, so I sometimes provided designs for their games.
(I no longer have the data from that time.)

256Colors (2010-2014)

The oldest remaining work is from when I was developing Flash games for mobile phones.

Designed for a mobile RPG (circa 2010).
The original pixel art has (probably) been lost.

I found a scan of a rough sketch from that time. I usually draw something like this beforehand.
I scribbled the rough sketches messily, and then threw them away immediately after drawing the pixel art, so there aren't many rough sketches left.

MonoColorSprite (2023-2024)

There wasn't any particular purpose for this, but I tried to create an action game-style character design.

Monochrome sprites (16x16px) designed for action games.

The theme is inspired by popular monsters such as mandrakes, harpies, and lizardmen.

Japanese-style/Asian monsters (yokai)

The purpose is unknown, but I designed it with the assumption that I would be making an Asian-themed game.

The theme of the drawings is Japanese yokai, or Asian monsters from China and India that have taken root in Buddhism, etc.

The environment is MSX SCREEN 2 (8px/2colors) format.
Just before this, I had been working on the GFX for the Yokai Mansion, so I think I wanted to draw a monster with this style.

ColorSprite

I'll explain a bit further below.

The color sprite function introduced in the MSX2 requires an operation called bitwise OR, so it's a bit difficult in that it can't be completed with art design alone.

Theoretically, if you stack four sheets, you can achieve any color you want, but if you want to use a third color by stacking two sheets at low cost, the MSX2's initial palette doesn't allow for free combinations, so you'll need to adjust the palette.

So, here's an example of a design that takes into account easy-to-use combinations for the third color, such as dark blue when two dark colors are combined, or yellow highlights for a red-green system.

The monsters illustrated below were drawn using the same palette.

This palette allows you to create color-changing characters, which are common in retro RPGs (you should be able to create around three color variations in red, blue, green, or gray).

To coincide with the 2023-2024 New Year's holiday, I held a character drawing challenge where I asked for submissions of topics.

Designing a palette was too much trouble, so I simply reused the palette above (as mentioned earlier, there was a fair amount of freedom, which allowed me to draw a variety of characters).

There were no size specifications, so if I had room in the design, I would draw three different patterns: 16x16px, 16x32px, and 32x32px.

Requests Received on the Day（2023-2024）

Fairy
Carbuncle
Cait Sith
Suzuki Dogezaemon *This is a fictional name inspired by complaints about the use of a one-eyed monster from a certain RPG.
Slime
Lizardman
Worm
Cookie Monster *This one also had issues with the famous one, so we adapted it with wordplay.
Mimic
Gnoll
Orc
Maid/Shrine Maiden (BONUS)
Centaur
Griffin

I'd like to try this challenge again someday.

XeGrader　2024

This is the latest monster design.

Naito's latest work
I designed a boss for XeGrader.
It's a "crab" boss for the lava stage.
I submitted this publicly on Twitter, so the log is still available.

Let's make a game with MSXBASIC（BOOK）2025

I actually provided images for this book as well, for the shooting chapter and the RPG chapter.

The green dragon in the upper left was used in the RPG chapter, but I also drew several alternatives. The format is SCREEN2 (8 dots, 2 colors), 48x48px.

There is an additional note about the shooting chapter here.

I can design characters in this environment, so if you have any projects, please invite me.