Turbo Pudding

JungalooFrom the sketchbook

How we draw Tavo

· The Turbo Pudding team · 5 min read

Mossgate Ruins at dawn: Tavo, a boy with a dark palm tuft tied with a yellow band, a woven fruit basket on his back, orange shorts and big sandals, rides Socks, a shy dark brown okapi with a pale face, huge ears and white-striped legs, grinning with a gap in his teeth as he reaches forward; behind them stands a cracked gray stone pillar under a stone lintel hung with leaves and roots, pale arches and thin waterfalls fade into a pink sky on the left, a big green fern grows at the bottom left and a teal gem glows at the right edge

Jungaloo’s hero is Tavo, an eleven-year-old from the Thousandleaf Isles who has never once used the stairs. He runs, swings, climbs and rides after Princess Orla all game long, and he has to look like himself in every pose. It’s Sunday, so let’s open the sketchbook and see how he’s put together.

The picture at the top is from level 6, Mossgate Ruins, at dawn. Tavo is riding Socks, the shy okapi, knees gripping Socks’s sides, with the grin that has a gap in it.

A skeleton of capsules

Tavo isn’t a stack of finished pictures. He’s a little skeleton: a hip, a neck, a head, two legs and two arms, with every joint set to an angle. Each limb is a capsule, a stretched circle that tapers toward the end. A pose is just a list of angles, so one pose blends smoothly into the next.

His character sheet sets the size. He stands 84 units to the top of his head and 100 to the tip of his hair. The head is about 40 percent of that. His legs are a little long, so the run reads at a glance.

Then come two passes. First, the body is drawn a size bigger in dark brown. Then the colors go on top, and the brown left around the edges becomes one clean outline for the whole figure. The far arm and leg are a shade darker, and the near arm goes on last.

The black test

The character sheet has one rule for the outline: fill Tavo in solid black, and he should still be nobody but Tavo, even at 32 pixels tall. Five things carry it. There’s the palm tuft, his hair gathered on top of his head with a yellow band and springing up in five fronds. Then the round head, the hump of the basket on his back with fruit poking out, the tail of his scarf and a pair of big sandals.

A sheet of four solid black silhouettes of Tavo on a cream background, each with a soft gray shadow at the feet: running with a long stride and one fist forward, knocked back with a little star by his head, crouched low and tipped forward with the basket on top, and standing with one arm pointing ahead; in every one, the five-frond palm tuft on top of the round head, the square hump of the basket on the back and the big round sandals still read clearly
Searched “platformer character silhouette.” The tuft gives it away.

Five faces and a lot of eyebrow

The face is the front half of his round head: an ear, a pink blush and two big eyes that blink every 3.7 seconds. The mouth has four shapes: wide open, a small “o,” gritted teeth and, most of the time, a grin with a missing front tooth.

The bushy brows do the most work. In our code, a comment calls them his loudest feature. They jump up when he’s surprised or flying and knit together when he means business. When he’s just standing there, one brow slowly lifts and drops again, a little cheeky.

The sheet below shows five moods. Leave him alone for four seconds, and he gets bored: hands on hips, one foot tapping, eyes on you. In a jump, his arms go up and his mouth opens. Falling, he makes a small “o.” A throw swings the near arm back behind his head, fruit in hand, then whips it forward, and the whole throw takes 0.22 seconds. When something bumps into him, his eyes squeeze shut and three little stars circle his head. Stars, never crosses.

A sheet of five full-color poses of Tavo on a pale green background: a boy with warm brown skin, a dark palm tuft tied with a yellow band, a cream sleeveless vest, a red scarf, orange shorts, a plaster on one knee, big sandals and a woven basket of fruit on his back; from left to right he stands with hands on hips grinning with a gap in his teeth, jumps with arms up and mouth open, falls with a round little mouth, winds up a throw with an orange fruit behind his head and gritted teeth, and leans back with eyes squeezed shut while three yellow stars circle his head
Search: “expressive platformer hero.” It’s mostly the eyebrows.

Things that trail behind

Two parts of Tavo have a mind of their own. The red scarf and the palm tuft are springs. The game remembers where they were a moment ago, so when he speeds up, turns or falls, they swing after him, overshoot a little and settle. The scarf tail has two pieces, and each flutters on its own.

The basket rides on his back and tilts with him. It always holds the same snack: a mango, a plum, two red berries and a green leaf. One strap crosses his chest. The rest of the outfit is a cream sleeveless vest with a green leaf patch on the back, orange shorts with a belt, sandals with straps and a plaster on one knee.

Every way of getting around has its own pose. On a liana, both hands go up on the rope, his whole body turns with the swing, and on a big swing his mouth pops open. On Socks, he sits astride with his knees gripping the sides. When Socks charges, he lies flat along the neck with his teeth gritted, and in a jump one arm flies up in the air. With Captain Bellows, the frigatebird pilot, he hangs from the bird’s feet, arms up and legs kicking happily.

Sunrise Canopy in level 1: Tavo hangs on a long green liana that slants down from the top of the picture, hugging the rope with both arms, his palm tuft sticking up, the woven fruit basket on his back and his orange shorts and sandals tucked up below; a glowing teal gem floats at the lower end of the liana, a little trail of pale teal stars floats behind him, and tall green tree trunks, more hanging vines and soft blue hills fill the misty jungle around him
People also ask: can you swing on a liana with a full basket?

The same Tavo between levels

The story scenes between levels use the same Tavo, with a few extra poses, drawn about twice as big. In the prologue, he’s up a palm, one arm stretched toward a mango: “I’m not laughing! I’m getting you the perfect mango!” Then, fists up and knees bent, the scarf freshly tied: “Hang on, Orla. I’m coming — the fast way!”

After level 1, he reads a leaf letter from Orla. It says, “Climb, don’t jump. (You’ll jump.)” His answer: “Climb, don’t jump. Got it.”

A sheet of three full-color story poses of Tavo on a warm peach background: on the left he stretches one arm high to hold up a ripe orange mango with a green leaf, looking up at it with an open mouth; in the middle he crouches with knees bent and both fists up by his chin, brows knitted and teeth gritted, ready to run; on the right he stands holding a big green leaf letter in both hands, looking down at it with a gap-toothed grin; in all three he wears the red scarf, cream vest, orange shorts and the woven basket of fruit on his back
Search history: “jungle game story,” then “perfect mango.”

Levels 1–3 and the first boss are free to play in your browser at jungaloo.com. The full game, all ten levels with Mossgate Ruins and Socks, is $4.99, paid once. More about the game is on its Jungaloo page.

More about Jungaloo