Creator Interviews: Scruffy Dragon Production’s Buyog

Volzzilla has managed to talk to Buyog who agreed to a short interview. He is a very talented spriter and coder and bears partial responsibility for some of the greatest Mugen characters available! A lot of insight was provided and it is greatly appreciated. Volzzilla's questions are in bold, the answers are un-bolded. Volzzilla wrote it up and passed it to me. My comments in this post are in green. Volzzilla's questions are in black and bolded. Buyog responses are in black and unbolded. Volzzilla has the ability to ask really great questions and I appreciate Buyog's illuminating and candid responses. I thoroughly enjoy playing with any creator Buyog has had a hand in creating. The characters below have been released or are in development. All art in this post is from Buyog's website except the Scruffy Dragon logo (that came ScruffyDragon.com).

1) How did you first learn about MUGEN and how long ago was that?

Well, I actually first got started with the old SFR engine that G.M.Spectre used to use for his M Fighter series of games. From there I found MUGEN, back in 2001 or so I think.

2) When did you decide to get into the character creation side and why? What side of creation do you focus on most?

After only a few weeks of playing with the old DOS MUGEN engine and reading through the docs, I started tinkering with sprite edits and pretty basic character stuff. I even tried making a few characters that never went anywhere (a Super Metroid version of Samus Aran, for one), but I learned a lot in the process. Nowadays, I'm probably mostly a coder, but I like sprite editing too for its Zen.

3) When you are just focusing on having fun and playing, what characters do you tend to use the most and why?

I don't just say this because they're my teammates, but I *love* Wucash and Loganir's stuff. There's just so much packed into one of their creations, and it's all so tightly packaged, they're a ton of fun to play with (and play against, for that matter).

4) What comic character not already made or in the process of being made do you wish was MUGENized?

I can think of several that would be great. The new Blue Beetle (Jaime Reyes) would be fun, as would Batman Beyond for much of the same reasons. (editor’s note: This was recently started; Batman Beyond WIP Thread ) On the Marvel side, I'd love to see a Machine Man character done with the Nextwave sensibility. That would be hilarious.

5) Can you please tell me about what current WIP you are most looking forward to other than your own?

Hmm, that's really a tough one. Zvitor's Hawkman looks like it'll be epic, he's really attempting to up his game with that one. Verz's new Captain America (Bucky) is shaping up to be very interesting, too. There are several others I could name, but those two off the top of my head are very promising.

6) How did you get involved with Scruffy Dragon Productions?

Long story. Short version is, I pitched the DC vs. Marvel idea at a few MUGEN boards and got some others interested (Magus and SethZankuten are the earliest partners that are still around). McCready, Loganir, Wucash, Verz and the rest all came along at one point or another as time went on.

7) Please tell the readers about all of your releases. Of those, which one are you most proud of and why?

I still love my first character, Lobo. He's just a blast to play. Almost all of my other works have been collaborations: Ice with Smogon, Marrow with Ryu Win, Guido with McCready, Hal Jordan and Lex Luthor with Enzo (and the SD community at large), Hulk with BobStarsky, Bizarro with Kal-Elvis, Sinestro with Larramones, Elektra with XFields and Daraku. I'm pretty proud of all of my MUGEN "children", although I certainly feel some have been more successful than others. Sprite-wise, I'm pretty proud of the improvements I made to G.M. Spectre's original Ice sprites. Code-wise, I think Lex is some of my best programming work.

8) On your website, you have numerous promising WIP’s that you discuss when you can. Of these, you mention your current 'baby' among those as Parasite? May I ask about any progress you would like to share, and if there are any plans involving him and Scruffyversary?

Like I said on my site, Parasite's become the "purple elephant in the room." For better or worse, I can't talk about my MUGEN work without him coming up eventually. Not that I'm embarrassed about him or anything -- although he's taken a lot longer to advance than any of my others; he's just much harder to get "right." I've felt for a long while now that I shouldn't have publicly announced him at all until he was much further along... but like the DCvsMarvel project itself, the scope of my plans for Parasite keep growing, and that makes it hard to pin down. Currently I'm planning for him to have somewhere between 30 and 50 different power sets when I release him; right now he's got about 50 finished moves (specials and hypers), and most power sets will have 2 moves total, so you can kind of gauge his progress that way I guess.

9) At the Scruffy Dragon Forum, you recently made a comment about "expect an update coming...soonish" regarding Savage Hulk. Any other tidbits you would like to share regarding that?

A lot of the new work for Hulk has been done already, but still some kinks to shake out of his AI. And BobStarsky is still working on a few animations that I'd like to add. Looking at hopefully sometime in March, I think.

10) Again, on your main website, you mention possibly kicking out new beta releases for Sinestro and Elektra, please tell the audience more as I'm sure that would be something highly anticipated.

Well, as I've said on my blog, Sinestro has a few new moves I've put in, but he's still missing a lot of basic stuff, so that one's definitely still in the "maybe" column. With Elektra, though, I've found myself an enthusiastic partner in Daraku, so she's got a lot of new stuff coming down the pipe: more and better intros and winposes, several more finished moves, and the all-important get-hit sprites to make her feel more like a "real" release.

11) Sounds awesome. Please tell the readers more about all the things to expect in this New Elektra beta, starting with the intros and winposes, and then giving as much detail about new moves as you would care to tease the audience about.

All I'll say about intros/outros is to expect to see other characters you may be familiar with. Move-wise, she'll have 3 or possibly 4 specials, and I'm thinking probably 2 hypers (including a revamped version of Curse of the Hand). Plus, as much of the DCvsMarvel goodies (like superjump, hitsparks, push blocking, etc) that I can stuff in before the release.

12) And when can we expect this beta release of her?

My original goal for myself was Valentine's Day, which obviously we've missed already, but she should be ready to go now in the next 2-3 days.

13) Okay, totally anticipating her more now and cannot wait until then! Of your remaining WIPs, Bizarro, Mandarin, and Invisible Woman, who do you see getting the bulk of attention when things slow down for you from the things you are currently focused on?

This will most likely be the Mandarin. Angelic Charon is making a great Invisible Woman, so I'm not as anxious about that my own anymore. And Kal-Elvis is busy with his day job these days, so Bizarro progress is slow. McCready got me off to a great start with Mandarin, sprites and move ideas. And with all of the Iron Man movie buzz the last year or so, including the sequel coming out next year, I feel like there's definite momentum there.

14) Any tips you would like to share that may help other creators, plus what keeps you motivated to continue your work?

For me, it's good to be a bit schizophrenic. That is, I do sprite work, I do code work, all while keeping an eye on forum moderation and team leadership. Plus I maintain a web coding blog and have "real life" pursuits away from the PC too. It keeps me from ever getting bored or burned out on any one project, but the side effect is, of course, that it takes me a lot longer to get anything done. That said, there has been a lot going on in my pipeline these past couple of years, and we're starting to see the payoff from that now. 2009 should be a very fruitful year.

Thank you so much for your time. I know I speak for everyone when I say you gave us a lot of information to crank the anticipation level even higher for everything you are working on. Be sure to check out Buyog's Lair: Buyog2099's MUGEN Creations and Scruffydragon.com Forum the next few days as those will be the first places the new Elektra Beta will be released.