Castlevania: The Adventure papercraft diorama
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On Nemesis, I think Level 3 would be the easy answer. The reason I'd lean towards Level 4 would be because there's way more going on in that level. The level with the Moais is pretty plain...but, that's just me.
For Battletoads, I actually have a couple ideas. There's the 2nd Level where you're flying and shooting with that really cool layered background. And, the level where you're in the swamp. (sorry, I forget which one that is) The boss fight would be what I'd be leaning towards there.
Gargoyle's Quest I'd go for the Tower Monster. This is just me but, that may be my favorite side scrolling action level EVER. You're seriously under leveled (just one jump power up and two HP), the music is amazing, and the boss here is a nail biter because you have to fly, basically, blind to hit it. Not sure where in the level I'd do but, I'm sure you have a few ideas.
Jon
Psygnosis8
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This is the first time I've browsed this thread but that is amazing! If it weren't for all the copyright nastiness, I'd say you should reproduce those and sell them. They're awesome.
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Holy crap, these are amazing!
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Thanks everyone!
@K-2: No, Takara's SNK Gameboy ports aren't super spectacular or anything, but, as long as you don't expect too much, they're fun to mess around with.
@fluxcore: Yep, parallax was what I was thinking too.
@Jon: I agree that Nemesis Stage 4 is more visually interesting, but I love those Moai statues! Stage 3 may be relatively plain, but stone effigies that vomit cheerios will not be denied!
I believe the swamp is level 4 in GB Battletoads, and the boss creature is Wurm, but yeah, it's pretty cool looking--all the levels are, that's what makes it hard to choose (Rare was definitely in top form, and the difficulty, while still brutal, is more reasonable than the NES original). I personally like level 5 where you're in that maze desperately trying to outrun that giant Brain Ball, although I don't know that it would make a very compelling diorama.
I'm not sure what location exactly I'd do in the Big Tower Monster either; I'll have to play it again and have a look and do some screen grabs. Ideally, I'd like to get as many of the background elements and the enemies (Gloom Eye, Dreadwing, and those exploding mushrooms) in there as I could without it getting too cluttered. The boss is cool too, but the four eyes are set in the corners, so, you'd have to do multiple screens to get them all, although I suppose you could just focus on one. I agree that the beginning difficulty for Gargoyle's Quest is kind of insane--Firebrand is way too fragile in the early parts.
I was looking through some more of my old Gameboy games over the weekend and was thinking a 3-D WWF Superstars ring would be cool as would some of the locales from Super Mario Land 2: The 6 Golden Coins (I'm leaning towards the final Mario Zone level wtih LEGO style bricks and giant Bullet Bills).
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Well, instead of making another diorama, I was in toy mode, so, I made doll accessories this weekend, specifically glasses and sandals for my Spin Master Liv: School's Out Sophie doll. Which is exactly what you all wanted to see, right?
@K-2: No, Takara's SNK Gameboy ports aren't super spectacular or anything, but, as long as you don't expect too much, they're fun to mess around with.
@fluxcore: Yep, parallax was what I was thinking too.
@Jon: I agree that Nemesis Stage 4 is more visually interesting, but I love those Moai statues! Stage 3 may be relatively plain, but stone effigies that vomit cheerios will not be denied!
I believe the swamp is level 4 in GB Battletoads, and the boss creature is Wurm, but yeah, it's pretty cool looking--all the levels are, that's what makes it hard to choose (Rare was definitely in top form, and the difficulty, while still brutal, is more reasonable than the NES original). I personally like level 5 where you're in that maze desperately trying to outrun that giant Brain Ball, although I don't know that it would make a very compelling diorama.
I'm not sure what location exactly I'd do in the Big Tower Monster either; I'll have to play it again and have a look and do some screen grabs. Ideally, I'd like to get as many of the background elements and the enemies (Gloom Eye, Dreadwing, and those exploding mushrooms) in there as I could without it getting too cluttered. The boss is cool too, but the four eyes are set in the corners, so, you'd have to do multiple screens to get them all, although I suppose you could just focus on one. I agree that the beginning difficulty for Gargoyle's Quest is kind of insane--Firebrand is way too fragile in the early parts.
I was looking through some more of my old Gameboy games over the weekend and was thinking a 3-D WWF Superstars ring would be cool as would some of the locales from Super Mario Land 2: The 6 Golden Coins (I'm leaning towards the final Mario Zone level wtih LEGO style bricks and giant Bullet Bills).
--------------------
Well, instead of making another diorama, I was in toy mode, so, I made doll accessories this weekend, specifically glasses and sandals for my Spin Master Liv: School's Out Sophie doll. Which is exactly what you all wanted to see, right?
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Psygnosis8
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So quick question: why only game boy games for the dioramas?
whisper2053
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Psygnosis8
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whisper2053
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Well, instead of making another diorama, I was in toy mode, so, I made doll accessories this weekend, specifically glasses and sandals for my Spin Master Liv: School's Out Sophie doll. Which is exactly what you all wanted to see, right?
Needs a pic of some feet under 80s Pioneer equipment. XD
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@SNKorSWM: Sadly, I don't have my 80s Pioneer equipment anymore, my Waifu made me hock it at the pawn shop so that I could afford the hamster fur negligee she so badly wanted.
Anyhoo, I decided to do Nemesis' stage 3 Moai level next; it took a while to get a shot with several of them on-screen without any parts of their heads cut off:
And here's the sheet I put together this morning:
I fudged things a little bit by sticking a faded-out SNES Gradius III stage 3 stone background in there, because, as Jon said, it is a rather plain-looking stage. I made the front/back of the Moai heads by editing the side view sprites, and likewise the top/bottom view of the Proteus 911 (which, for some reason, is what the Vic Viper is called in this game). I'll probably get cracking on this tonight; I don't imagine it will be too hard to put together, but only time will tell.
Anyhoo, I decided to do Nemesis' stage 3 Moai level next; it took a while to get a shot with several of them on-screen without any parts of their heads cut off:
And here's the sheet I put together this morning:
I fudged things a little bit by sticking a faded-out SNES Gradius III stage 3 stone background in there, because, as Jon said, it is a rather plain-looking stage. I made the front/back of the Moai heads by editing the side view sprites, and likewise the top/bottom view of the Proteus 911 (which, for some reason, is what the Vic Viper is called in this game). I'll probably get cracking on this tonight; I don't imagine it will be too hard to put together, but only time will tell.
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Yeah, I'm surprised that stage is kinda bland. Gameboy is definitely capable of some amazing stuff, both via graphics and sound. One of the most amazing looking games I've ever played on that system is a game called Chikyuu Kaihou Gun: ZAS or, just ZAS for short. It's a vertical shmup with layered backgrounds. Yes, you heard that right.
What you did to the background does look amazing, BTW. Also, +1 on remembering that the ship in Nemesis is the Proteus 911.
Jon
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@Jon: Well, Nemesis was an earlier Gameboy game, so, I suppose Konami's programmers were still learning the ropes.
I actually have played ZAS; I first learned about it from a web page that had an article about obscure shmups for the original Gameboy. I think I may still have some screen captures of the bosses saved on my hard drive somewhere. I can't think of any names offhand, but I think that there are some other shmups on the original Gameboy that had multi-plane scrolling/parallax too.
Unfortunately, my efforts to spruce up the stage 3 Nemesis background went for nought, as the subtle stone pattern didn't print out well at all.
-------------------------------
Here's a brief look at the construction process for this piece:
This is a shot of all the components that I made on the first day of work, the base, two of the Moai heads and the Proteus 911 starship. The Moai are a bit too blocky for my tastes, but I didn't want to spend a lot of time designing, and assembling, more complex geometry for them, so, it'll have to do.
Here's a closer look at the tiny Proteus 911 (a.k.a., Vic Viper). Rather than a flat 2-Dimensional sprite, as I did with the previous Christopher Belmont and Mega Man figures in their respective dioramas, I decided to make the starship 3-Dimensional (actually, it's more of a 2.5D affair, but close enough).
Here's a test shot on the background. The faded SNES rock graphics didn't print out well at all, so that was a wasted effort on my part (maybe I should have made them a bit darker, but I didn't want that design element too noticeable, as they technically don't belong there in the first place). I kind of like the idea of the ship flying out of the diorama, towards the viewer, but, for the sake of accuracy, I went with the expected side view in the final version.
Here's the finished product (I didn't have time to shoot/edit a pivoting animation this morning, and my camera's batteries were getting low anyway):
Materials:
Cardboard, game graphics printed out on white paper, white lined notebook paper, white glue, newsprint, tissue paper, permanent marker, a brown paper grocery bag, and a wire twist tie (mount for floating elements only).
Dimensions:
9.1 cm (3.6") x 8.2 cm (3.2") [widest point x highest point]
Time:
Two days: June 10 and 12, 2014.
I actually have played ZAS; I first learned about it from a web page that had an article about obscure shmups for the original Gameboy. I think I may still have some screen captures of the bosses saved on my hard drive somewhere. I can't think of any names offhand, but I think that there are some other shmups on the original Gameboy that had multi-plane scrolling/parallax too.
Unfortunately, my efforts to spruce up the stage 3 Nemesis background went for nought, as the subtle stone pattern didn't print out well at all.
-------------------------------
Here's a brief look at the construction process for this piece:
This is a shot of all the components that I made on the first day of work, the base, two of the Moai heads and the Proteus 911 starship. The Moai are a bit too blocky for my tastes, but I didn't want to spend a lot of time designing, and assembling, more complex geometry for them, so, it'll have to do.
Here's a closer look at the tiny Proteus 911 (a.k.a., Vic Viper). Rather than a flat 2-Dimensional sprite, as I did with the previous Christopher Belmont and Mega Man figures in their respective dioramas, I decided to make the starship 3-Dimensional (actually, it's more of a 2.5D affair, but close enough).
Here's a test shot on the background. The faded SNES rock graphics didn't print out well at all, so that was a wasted effort on my part (maybe I should have made them a bit darker, but I didn't want that design element too noticeable, as they technically don't belong there in the first place). I kind of like the idea of the ship flying out of the diorama, towards the viewer, but, for the sake of accuracy, I went with the expected side view in the final version.
Here's the finished product (I didn't have time to shoot/edit a pivoting animation this morning, and my camera's batteries were getting low anyway):
Materials:
Cardboard, game graphics printed out on white paper, white lined notebook paper, white glue, newsprint, tissue paper, permanent marker, a brown paper grocery bag, and a wire twist tie (mount for floating elements only).
Dimensions:
9.1 cm (3.6") x 8.2 cm (3.2") [widest point x highest point]
Time:
Two days: June 10 and 12, 2014.
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Rushifell (Lucifer) maybe, but I don't think King Breager's entire body would fit in one screenshot, which would probably look awkward. I suppose one could make a "deluxe" multi-screen type-affair for huge bosses like that though (like a NDS maybe?) I still need to have a look at Gargoyle's Quest's sprite/level assets again, but I keep getting sidetracked. I've been taking lots of Super Mario Land 2: The 6 Golden Coins screenshots lately, so, that's what I'm leaning towards doing next. I've also been thinking of doing something from Sunsoft's Trip World (it's a super cutesy platformer that never came out in the US with great graphics, and the main character is Yacopu, that little rabbit mirror match dude from Galaxy Fight!)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trip_World
http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/tripworld/tripworld.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trip_World
http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/tripworld/tripworld.htm
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I decided on the first level of Operation C for my next project. I also considered level 3 (jungle) and level 5 (technological with facehuggers in tanks).
Here's the sheet I put together. The blue is just there to help me with layout, it was still printed out in black and white.
Here are the two sniper towers/platforms. The legs are set between colored pencils so that they'll dry more-or-less straight (warpage is a always a problem with wet glue and cardboard/paper):
Here's the front walkway, the two sniper towers, and a couple of the rotted steel frame columns. I had originally planned to cut out all the little spaces in those columns (which is why I edited out all the interior shadows from the game graphics, because mine would have had real ones), but it became immediately clear to me that it would take literally hours to do that, and they would likely be so fragile that they'd tear apart in my hands, so, I've settled for solid constructs for the time being. That said, I'm thinking about making some new ones, from scratch, out of latticed thin strips of paper/cardboard, but, that'd probably be pretty labor-intensive too, so, I don't know if I'll do it or not.
Here they are mocked up on the background (nothing is permanently attached yet):
I'll probably work on the crane head/hook next and then mess around with the rotted steel columns some more before assembling the base/background and then doing the figures.
I'm probably going to have fudge some things, because the forced perspective in the game won't really work in 3-dimensions, at least not without looking weird. For example, the bridge's surface is angled upwards in the screenshot (I made mine level, like it would be if you were really there), and the water horizon (i.e., the background) would never be all the way up to the top of the skyline in real life. I may be wrong, but I believe the lower legs/struts of the background structures are supposed to be reflections in the water, although it's difficult to tell for sure with gray-scale graphics. It could just be foggy/misty down there too, which is probably the approach I'm going to take to conceal the lower struts/legs (I plan on putting a low screen/hedge layer down in front, between them and the bridge).
Here's the sheet I put together. The blue is just there to help me with layout, it was still printed out in black and white.
Here are the two sniper towers/platforms. The legs are set between colored pencils so that they'll dry more-or-less straight (warpage is a always a problem with wet glue and cardboard/paper):
Here's the front walkway, the two sniper towers, and a couple of the rotted steel frame columns. I had originally planned to cut out all the little spaces in those columns (which is why I edited out all the interior shadows from the game graphics, because mine would have had real ones), but it became immediately clear to me that it would take literally hours to do that, and they would likely be so fragile that they'd tear apart in my hands, so, I've settled for solid constructs for the time being. That said, I'm thinking about making some new ones, from scratch, out of latticed thin strips of paper/cardboard, but, that'd probably be pretty labor-intensive too, so, I don't know if I'll do it or not.
Here they are mocked up on the background (nothing is permanently attached yet):
I'll probably work on the crane head/hook next and then mess around with the rotted steel columns some more before assembling the base/background and then doing the figures.
I'm probably going to have fudge some things, because the forced perspective in the game won't really work in 3-dimensions, at least not without looking weird. For example, the bridge's surface is angled upwards in the screenshot (I made mine level, like it would be if you were really there), and the water horizon (i.e., the background) would never be all the way up to the top of the skyline in real life. I may be wrong, but I believe the lower legs/struts of the background structures are supposed to be reflections in the water, although it's difficult to tell for sure with gray-scale graphics. It could just be foggy/misty down there too, which is probably the approach I'm going to take to conceal the lower struts/legs (I plan on putting a low screen/hedge layer down in front, between them and the bridge).
Last edited:
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Materials:
Cardboard, game graphics printed out on white paper, white lined notebook paper, white glue, newsprint, two cotton balls, and permanent marker.
Dimensions:
8.5 cm (3.3") x 7.7 cm (3.0") [widest point x highest point]
Time:
Six days: June 17 - 22, 2014.
What the hell is going on here?!
If I were to do Rushifell (Lucifer), he'd be in the pose when he's charging up his fireballs. I love how he's pointing on both of his hands when he does this...like a pseudo-disco/entrance pose. The other thing I was thinking, (may be a little complicated) his hands flash when he's charging. Would it be possible to rig some small LED bulbs to flash like that? That would be amazing.
Trip World is a really good game. So expensive, though. Not sure where you'd do in this one. I love that music in Level 3 at the beginning/near the end...amazing.
Jon