Preview!

Go ahead, guess the theme!
It's not that hard.

Dug in and firing away!

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HardAtWork

Dungeon Wars!

Whenever I create a new character in a role playing game and I’m asked to “choose my race”, I always wonder what stats “real life races” would have if they were gamified (gamified?). So being my productive self, I created a generic character customisation screen and distributed points to several attributes often used in RPG games. I distributed the points as I believe races are often stereotypically depicted in (Western) media. So bear in mind that this is a gross overgeneralization of races and their strengths and weaknesses.

I’m also planning on making the next steps of character creation for this fictional game: available classes, final stats (attack, defence, magic attack, ...), weapons, special traits, etc.

Enjoy the graphic, entirely made in MS Paint of course!

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Spread the wars

HardAtWork

Preview

Working on something new involving these guys.


Ninja wars coming up!


















After doing the Epic wizard duel, I started experimenting with these guys.
I'm well aware of their alarming lack of "stickness", but trust me, it's allowed.

This is a big project, so it'll take a while!


Spread the wars.

HardAtWork

Preview



Gatling like a sir!



As you may or may not know, making Paint Stick Wars is hard work. (yes it is)

It takes hours of pixel by pixel drawing to complete a scene, not to mention the complex thought process involved in orchestrating a well balanced battle! (Seriously, someone should give me a medal for this!)

You should also to take into account the limitations of MS Paint when making a stick war scene.

For example:

• You can’t properly cut out segments as you would in Photoshop or Illustrator.
• You can’t freely rotate segments as you would in Photoshop or Illustrator.
• Basically you can’t do a whole shitload of things you would like to be able to do.
• Also, you can't really use too much diagonal lines, it creates too much jagged edges and is just confusing.



After some experimenting (in MS Paint!), I started noticing I had developed some tips and tricks to make my life easier. (Just compare one of my earlier works (War 2.0) with one of my latest (Loading bay breach) and you’ll see what I mean.)

Anyway I’ve decided (really just now, typing this text which had no apparent purpose af first) to create a tutorial for Paint Stick Wars in MS Paint!

Isn’t that great news?

Weren’t you waiting for just that?!



Now, put your pants back on and sit back down!

Seriously, sit down...

I’m currently still working on two other PSW’s: a 3D Western scene (preview) and a 2D Zombie underground apocalypse style scene, so the tutorial will have to wait for a few weeks.



Until then, watch out for the next Paint Stick War!

Spread the wars.

HardAtWork

Zombie apocalypse!

*narrator voice on*

Locked up for decades and long forgotten, a super race of highly aggressive and dexterous zombies has finally broken out of its prison.

A cold war army experiment gone wrong, the zombies, who were supposed to turn out like super soldiers, were deemed far too dangerous and uncontrollable by command. Having spent millions on the research project which would lead to these events, command was reluctant to destroy the product of its endeavours. It was decided the zombies were to be locked away so that future researchers could continue the project.

The precautions taken to prevent these creatures from ever emerging however, were thought of too fast and too poorly. The cover-up needed to be fast, cheap and discrete.

They were wrong. Wrong to think a few rusty iron bars would hold these terrible creatures.

The base where the project had been buried did have a contingency plan. In case of a breakout, the zombies would have to be held back long enough to place and activate explosive devices which would eradicate the creatures permanently.

This contingency plan, however elegant in its simplicity, turned out to be not so simple in execution.

To create a vertical barrier, several plateaus were constructed between the holding cell and the exit. This way, the zombies would have to jump from one plateau to another. The zombies, however turned out to be far more dexterous and powerful than the researches could have imagined. The base guards soon found themselves overrun...

*narrator voice off*

Zombie apocalypse imminent!

These zombies are pissed off and hungry! Look at the zombie standing in the hole! Scary shit. These things move like “I am legend” –zombies, jumping and climbing their way to freedom and a protein rich meal! You can see them fighting over one of the base guards. And as if their superhuman strength and dexterity aren’t enough, they hurl acid too! These guys never stood a chance.

But what’s that? It looks like some future warriors (from the future) are being teleported in to stop the zombies from breaking out! Equipped with state of the art weaponry and jet boots, they might just be able to turn the tide! The breakout obviously had disastrous consequences if some future government is sending soldiers back in time...

If the zombies are able to defeat the future soldiers, they still have to deal with stick Rambo. And he’s packing a minigun!

Ninja’s guarding an exit is always a good idea. Don’t ask me where they come from, they do seem a bit out of place. But you can never have enough ninja’s around!

Hopefully this colourful bunch is enough to stave off the apocalypse!

Spread the wars.

HardAtWork

Alien invasion!

Constantly pushing the limits of the concept “Paint Stick Wars”, I decided to up the realism this time.

Perhaps a bit too much, but that’s for you to decide. The one point perspective came out really nice, but it sure was a lot of work! So much so, that I decided to never ever do it again! So bask in its gloryness while you can, because this is a onetime deal. I would have liked to have added more detail to this scene, but frankly, I just got tired of it. (This is a reoccurring problem.)

In an attempt to make the scene more ominous and apocalyptic, I made the sky orange... then after throwing up three times, I quickly changed it back to blue. The rundown buildings, crack in the street and nature reclaiming the cityscape should give you a clue as to the state of the world in this scene. Also the “War of the worlds”-style robot (which honestly looks like a weird water tower) and smaller robots firing lasers might tip you off. The robots are spherical for several reasons: It’s a universally perfect form, projectiles tend to ricochet off and it’s easy to draw in 3D.

I also added more dead bodies this time, which has been a point of critique and rightly so.

Enjoy the 3D-ness!

Ooh the humanity!

This scene is a left vs. right kind of thing. It doesn’t need much explaining I think. The left side is obviously human controlled. I made sure to mix up the races, because in my paranoid mind, I was beginning to feel like a closet racist.

In the lower left corner, taking cover behind a car wreck are some sticks fighting for their lives. One guy is down, but he’s not quite dead yet. He’s all like “Tell my boy… *cough* daddy won’t be home… for his birthday… *groan* and that he’s sorry… *cough*”. Unfortunately, his buddies can’t hear his dying words, because they are too busy getting hit and firing at invading alien robots.

Notice the 9mm rounds are not really getting through the robot’s armor. You need AK shells for that shit!

A little further back some sticks are installing a belt fed grenade launcher. This thing could be a game changer, if they get it firing in time! (The stick behind the launcher is getting a bit impatient!)

In the middle there’s a soldier in a downright bad situation. He’s down on the ground (probably in shock, unable to move) while a massive laser beam is disintegrating the street right between his legs! Imagine the heat coming of that thing! Poor guy’s nuts are probably fried already! His buddy is trying to save him, but I don’t think they’ll make it.

Behind them there’s a more successful duo. Having taken out one invader already, they are reloading the AT-weapon for another go. Look at that: ebony and ivory working together to save the world…

Taking cover behind some debris, a stick is radioing for much needed backup. To be honest, these guys really need it, they’re heavily outgunned!

Some of the sticks have taken cover in the buildings. You can see the sniper sure is taking his sweet time… (he’s not getting lasered upon!). In the same building, an AT-guy just fired his weapon at the big robot. It looks like it’s going to be a direct hit, but I’ve got a feeling the main attack weapon of an invading alien army is able to withstand an RPG. So he’s basically setting himself up for being massively retaliated upon.

Some sticks are stuck behind enemy lines… The robots advanced so fast, they didn’t get a chance to retreat. They’re basically fucked.

But wait, what’s that? Over on the horizon… The cavalry! And not a moment too soon. Hopefully they’ll be in time to save some sticks!

I’ll give this battle to the humans, but the war I’ll give to the aliens.

Face it, if we’re invaded, we’re screwed.

Spread the wars.

HardAtWork

The Siege

I might have pushed it a bit too far this time, but here it is: the result of playing too much AOE II, combined with watching too many 90’s action adventure movies starring Sean Connery, Kevin Costner, Richard Gere and Mel Gibson.

This truly is a Paint Stick War in every sense of the word. I got a little carried away with the depth of the scene tho, resulting in two empty strips of land. But hey it’s still perfectly realistic…

It’s basically a base assault, or rather a castle siege (hence the title “The Siege”, not to be confused with a totally non-related movie)

The scene is really detailed, so you might want to zoom in from time to time (CTRL + scroll). 

Technically this one doesn’t differ much from Gang vs. cops, except that it has much more depth in it, so there’s a lot more going on.

I like the result but after I did the awesome catapult, I just got bored and decided not to draw 50 more sticks.

Enjoy!

The fields will run red today...

Starting from the left, you see the southern tower. The towers both have small catapults on them for delivering long range mayhem. What’s that you say? Where are the ropes and pulley systems for the catapults?! They’re inside the tower, deal with it. The southern tower is also damaged as you can see. (realism +1)

The ramparts are manned by stick archers firing flaming arrows. You can see one of them trying to light his arrow.

Some stick archers are running up the stairs to join in on the killing. It must be fun up there with a complete lack of returning fire, just like shooting ducks in a barrel!

Down on the battlefield I used my extensive movie knowledge to incorporate some classic sword fighting moves! Let’s go over them, starting from the top.

There’s the epic face-to-face power struggle. You need both hands for this shit, so the stick men wisely threw down their shields. You can actually hear the steel grinding. (no you can't)

Next we have some stick guys charging on the defenders, nothing special really.

The epic sword-in-the-air-die-move! This guy is dying and he’s not afraid to show it, probably yelling something in his crazy native tongue.

My personal favorite: the stab-‘n-stick. When stabbing an opponent, there is no cooler way to draw back your sword then by holding the victim down with your bloodstained boot and just pulling back your blade. This badass move is usually executed by the “bad guy”.

The head slicer. Only highly skilled stick knights can execute this awesome move. It takes years of training, excellent timing and the strength of a bear to decapitate the opponent’s head in one swing. Lots of blood!

A standard sword thrust catches one of the attackers off guard. Drop your guard just once and before you can say “What is this I don’t even…” your guts are on the floor!

The berserker I just had to draw, wielding two swords, no armor, this ego tripping maniac is ready to kick some ass! Standing safely behind his fellow knights…

In the middle some attackers are dealing with the constant barrage of fiery arrows, each one in their own special way.

When attempting to take a stronghold, some things are just vital for success. There’s the low tech, yet effective, siege ladder. It can make or break the siege as we saw in numerous movies. Once the attackers are able to take control of the ramparts and the gate, the battle is lost, and the looting and raping begins.

The siege ram and catapult took me right back to Age of Empires II. You can see the siege ram is covered by animal skin (yeah, that’s what that is). The arrows don’t really do any damage, but the tower mounted catapult does. It just missed by a few feet, only to annihilate some poor bystander… (these guys are hardcore! Just standing by while their brother-in-arms dies a horrible death…)

The catapult, now there’s a work to be proud of! Doesn’t it look mind numbingly awesome? The guards, the stick turning the wheel thingy, the “watcher” ready to light the projectiles, the poor stick loading the 50 pound projectiles. They’re trying to take out the southern tower by the way.

There’s also a king… whatever.

Can you spot them?

There’s a stick smoking somewhere…

There’s a spy somewhere…

Well that’s it! My money’s on the defenders for this one.

The defending knights will fall or retreat after doing some damage. The archers will probably wipe out the attacking knights, while the towers take out the siege engines.

Perhaps the spy can even take out the king. He might have a blowgun or something, who knows…

Spread the wars.

HardAtWork

Vietnam jungle warfare

A battle, or rather gunfight, based on numerous Vietnam movies. 

I put “a lot” more effort in the scenery in this one. There’s actually a background, and yes, color! The foliage was quite labor intensive, but it really adds reality to the scene (as far as reality goes in MS Paint). This is quite a zoomed in scene, so I thought it would be cool to give the stickmen more body… by which I mean backpacks! I hope you can make out the two different sides by the telltale M16 and AK47. The supposed Vietnam army’s appearance isn’t really true to reality. I know they look more like a Chinese army, but hey what do you want? It’s just a stick war.

On the western side you can see a stick guy radioing for backup. Which arrives instantly… (of course) in the form of a Vietnam war icon: the Huey. At the time I had no internet access, so please excuse any mistakes I may have made in the model. Also I’m well aware that the top rotor doesn’t seem to do anything. In MS paint sometimes you have to compromise. It was either a Huey flying level, which I really didn’t like or this. Notice the M60 raining down suppressive fire? Classic. The stick guys in the Huey even have headsets!

Down in the jungle there’s a sniper lying hidden, firing at the other side. The sniper misses his target (weird huh?) and his buddy jumps up from behind the cover to take out the target. Dumb move stick… He’s setting himself up to receive a cloud of 7.62x39mm shells! The tree catches some too tho.

Over on the right side there’s a stick guy taking cover, trying to see what all the fuss is about (the jungle’s dense you know…).

To counter the incoming Huey, I gave the eastern side an RPG guy. Chances of him taking out the Huey aren’t that great, but hey, it’s something right! I couldn’t go and give him a stinger or something like that now could I?

I also dropped the spray can tool for smoke and muzzle flash, I like it much better this way.

The “Contact” I just had to add for extra awesomeness! (Also: Predator I – CONTACT!!!)

I think the west has got this one covered with the Huey and all…

Feel free to comment or make suggestions!


HardAtWork

War 2.0

This was one of my first stick war drawings. A classic 2D scene, mostly black & white with some special effects. The things I struggled most with were the fire and smoke. I don’t really like how they turned out. The mechanized army is somewhat based on units from Total Annihilation (1997). You may recognize the Thud (artillery) and … (infantry). If you are too young to remember TA (can’t believe I’m saying this), you probably do know Supreme Commander. SupCom wasn’t really a sequel to TA but it was created by the same guy (Chris Taylor) and had very similar features.

War 2.0

The battle itself doesn’t need much explaining I think. It’s basically just a base assault. 

The wall/ gate is being hammered by the high powered laser fired by the main mech.

A gunner atop the wall is firing at the first infantry mech.

An armored vehicle is being dispatched from the base to try and take out the main mech, which is shielded of course.

Some defenders are trying to keep themselves from being fried. (Why they are in front of the armored vehicle, I still don’t know…)

The artillery in the back is firing at the base, obviously. Which will result in… Total Annihilation!

There is also a gunship taking of from the base. The battle was too unbalanced, so I added it later. Not really pleased with the result tho…

Also I added some air defense to the main mech. I completely forgot the air defense and couldn’t stand it being destroyed by a mere gunship! 

I’d put my money on the mechanized army for this one!

Let me know what you think!

HardAtWork