2D Tuesday? Nah… I’d rather go on a bender

Note from Alissa: Hey Howdy Hey Tappers….well it’s still Thanksgiving in Springfield.  While we play the waiting game with EA and see if they actually release Christmas today…or another day…enjoy this 2D how-to from Wookiee!  As soon as we have any news on an update we’ll pass it right along to you!

Hey there Addicts!  This week it’s my turn for a little 2D creativity and this one was inspired by comments from the readers.  Bunny showed y’all a bit of her uber nerdness in a beautiful display of her 2Ds.  At the end, she asked what the readers would like to see.  Quite a few folks mentioned Futurama stuff and with that in mind, off I went to find an image of MY favorite character.

I love Bender Bending Rodriguez so much and his penchant for all manner of immoral shenanigans.  I think of him as a cross between Bart and Homer if they didn’t have a conscience.

For this design, I decided to do things a skoshi different and try a program my buddy Shelfcleaner recommended.  The site is http://superpixeltime.com/ and is super easy to use.  You basically upload the image you like and then can pixellate it to your heart’s content.  Here’s the Bender image pixellated at 2, 3, and 4 respectively.

Usually I zoom in on an image in my viewer or just wing it, but I think this program would be very useful to any budding 2D artisans out there.

Since Bender is basically just grey, black and white, I decided to go one step further in difficulty for me and make a giant Bender in my B Town.  Rather than my usual 4x4ish block, I went for double the size.  Oy vey.

Picking your starting point is critical and unlike some of the pros out there, I usually pick the dumbest place to start lol.  For this one, I started with his right arm using snapdragons.

With the arm more or less how I wanted it, I then started firming up the body.  I left all the XP in the pics to show two points.  One: It’s better to have the decorations you need in advance and Two: This may very well be XP farming at it’s finest and most creative.

Bender’s head outline came next.  Just a quick note that the snapdragons can be a bear to use.  My best advice is to keep plugging away and if it’s just not working, move one or take a break.

With the head shaped out, I was off to the left arm.

With my basic outline complete, it was time to hash out some of the details.  For some reason, Bender’s mouth seemed like it needed to be done so he could start wisecracking at me.  I used the white premium fences for this but for freemium players, you could use propane tanks or those weird ice sculptures.

I decided to keep knocking out the face of Bender.  To ensure I got his eyes just right, I used trash cans to outline the eyes first.  I then used the snapdragons inside that outline while figuring out how his eyes should look.

The mouth and eyes were probably the most complex details other than the outline.  Now all I had to do was fill in Bender using more trash cans and hours than I care to remember.

Isn’t it cool that you can skip over 3 hrs of my life in two pictures?

To add a little extra, I decided to throw some lettering into Bender’s right hand.  I initially was going to do the sign from the image but wanted to be at least a little creative.

Having ditched the sign idea, I decided to tweak Bender’s left arm too and make him look like he is sort of tipping his hatless hand at the viewer.  The fist was a bear to figure out.

And voila!  Bender is completed.  Why did I add a bow tie to him.  Well, because I felt like it and of course because bow ties are cool.  Maybe Bender is a Dr. Who or Steve Urkel fan?

Sorry for the image quality of some of this and that there aren’t more step by step shots.  I got a little carried away making this one and forgot to take some screenshots.  Others were destroyed when I discovered I couldn’t spell the word Addicts and my photo merger obviously didn’t like the alcoholic gambler.  I like this 2D but in my secret heart of hearts want to continue tweaking it.  Let me know if you have any suggestions and I just might incorporate them into the design.

TTFN… Wookiee out!