For anyone who is interested, here's a pic of our custom level editor: The code was done in C/C++ using GLUT and GLUI because I'm a sucker for punishment.
Thank you for NOT going the anime way! That weak-ass wannabe "Disney of the 50's" crap has been so played out already! As others had previously stated, I thought those were real photos at first and had no clue until you provided the close up of the one guy, that they were simply hand drawn!
Yep - they were hand-drawn with a tablet in photoshop. I did use various photos/models etc as light and color references. Of course, one reason they look like photos is that they've been reduced in size - on the iphone, no one can see your lazy brush strokes I'm really, really looking forward to applying these techniques to my next game (fantasy platformer using the same 2.5d engine). Art is hard though. Ultimately I'd prefer to pay a professional artist to do all that stuff so I can focus on other things - currently I'm doing everything except the music...
Wait, you're making a fantasy platformer in 2.5d? Ok, now you have me all excited for your next game already & you probably haven't even started on it You should probably even consider making an RPG based game, we don't quite have enough decent ones, so you'd make a killing off a really polished RPG (and for that, I would suggest finding someone for the arts so you could just focus on the game, and maybe then you can incorporate that anime type style I presented you with earlier in this thread ).
Quick update on our blog with info about the story and characters, and some more digital paintings of characters: http://www.hackdirt.com/?p=143 The game has been in the app store queue now for almost two weeks, so it should be approved soon. Both a free version and $2.99 full version will be available. Sweet!
Out Now iTunes : http://itunes.apple.com/nz/app/smashed-full/id337022585?mt=8 TA Thread : http://forums.toucharcade.com/showthread.php?p=632431
