Behind the scenes at Art Central

Certainly the most famous artist associated with Odyssey was Derek Riggs, renowned cover artist for the heavy metal band Iron Maiden. Above, witness his awesome cover painting. Click on it down-load an extra-large, high resolution version, in PICT format: looks great on a monitor with capablities for Millions of colors.

Next up we've got some of Jim McNally's work, to give you an idea of how the character portraits in Odyssey were created. Jim drew all of the portraits, and always started out with a pencil sketch. This was then scanned in and painted in Photoshop. Above, see first the pencil sketch (notice how large it starts out) and then the portrait that resulted (which was, sadly, unused in Odyssey). Below there are some more examples, for your viewing pleasure. Notice how Sara went through several versions, first from a side view, then as a sly seductress, and then finally as the version used in the game.

[old man's face]

The Old Man

[roderick's face]

Roderick, Proud Elban

[sara's face]

Sara

Ira Harmon created almost all of the small character animations used in the game. Ira too started out with pencil and paper, working out the three roughly frames of animation for each character using trace-over techniques. After heavy inking (to retain the image's outline) the characters were scanned in and painted in Photoshop, still at their extra large size. Finally the graphics were shrunk down to the 32 pixel by 32 pixel characters you see in the game, using special techniques to retain as much of the image detail as possible. Quite a lot of work for something so small, true, but we think the quality shows through in the end. Above you see one of the large frames for The Hopper and the three small frames that resulted on the right. And below are some more examples of the finished product.

[eye-monster sketch]

Monster from the Id and The Spamalope

Finally, here are some of Ira's pencil drawings, before they're painted. Can you identify the characters they turned into? Special free Odyssey T-Shirt to the first person to do so.

Entire Contents Copyright 1995/96 Richard Rouse.
Odyssey: The Legend of Nemesis is a Trademark of Richard Rouse.

Problems with this page should be addressed to odyssey@paranoidproductions.com