The Gore Guys - What Gives?

[Enjay]

I've been meaning to ask about these guys for ages:



Specifically, where do they come from, what's their story - and I mostly don't mean their in-game story. I mean, how were they made, and why do they look so different to the other humanoid sprites in the game?

They look as if they may be photos of models like the other sprites are but they are far less cleaned up and spritey-looking. They are very "noisy" and a quite different style to almost every other graphic in the game. Also, there are other stylistic differences; their clothes, for example, show lots of folds and creases in a way that the clothes on other sprites do not.

To me, they have always been meant to loo like former marines, but, honestly, looking at them, that could be entirely wrong. I guess my main reason for thinking that is that the other unfortunate tortured guys definitely look like marines.

But they have been cleaned up and match the other sprites.

So, what gives? Anyone know?

[InsanityBringer]

the twitching hanging guy is called a "Bloody, twitching G.I.Joe" in the script id used to generate the game's states, but it's uncertain if it's referring to the dude as a soldier or if its hinting at its origins as a plastic toy. I checked the lumpy scripts present in Romero's art dump, but all that has to say is "Hanging, twiching guy - 3 frames" for the twitching guy, the rest are "Various body parts hanging" The shininess of it looks like it could be plastic, but they'd have to been edited quite a bit to be that bloody, and if it really was a GI Joe toy, are there any shirtless ones? And did they do a lot of editing to hide the otherwise visible joints?

Another theory suggests that the hanging dude with both legs together is taken from one of the photos of Mussolini's hanging corpse, since the pants shape is almost entirely on mark, but it's too different to be sure.

[Matt]

I always thought those guys looked startlingly realistic compared to everything else (especially when compared to the downright cartoony D2 gore pieces).

[Enjay]

Interesting, thanks Insanity Bringer. G.I. Joe could indeed indicate that a doll was used as the model but the term is also just used as a generic "soldier name" so it could just be that too.

The Mussolini angle is interesting. I've looked at those photo's and I can see where people are coming from with that. It could well be the picture was used at least as "artistic inspiration" if not directly traced over or something. There is something about the folds and the way the clothing is hanging on all of these sprites/textures that looks more realistic than most Doom clothing. As Matt says, startlingly realistic.

[NantoCodd]

I've heard about the "Doom is just like Hong Kong 97 because they used photo of dead bodies too!" myth, but quick Google search shows that Mussolini corpse is different compared to the hanging bodies' clothes.

I'm not surprised if they are digitized sprites of G.I Joe figures, and the way their 'suit/jacket' not drapped down by gravity could mean it's because fabrics used for figurine's clothing is less flexible than real clothes... or, it could be a crew of id Software laying on the floor and photographed.

My theory: they are leftovers from early development of Doom when it still have no real art direction

[Enjay]

but quick Google search shows that Mussolini corpse is different compared to the hanging bodies' clothes.

True, but as IB said, it's the legs/pants that are pretty close, not the rest of the body. However, after more googling, the way that legs look in a body hanging this way are all pretty similar in appearance. A combination of basic anatomy and physics I guess.

I'm not surprised if they are digitized sprites of G.I Joe figures, and the way their 'suit/jacket' not drapped down by gravity could mean it's because fabrics used for figurine's clothing is less flexible than real clothes... or, it could be a crew of id Software laying on the floor and photographed

I too suspect id people lying on the floor as a likely source.

[NeuralStunner]

I believe they're from photos of actual G.I. Joe dolls action figures. (If you look at the visible chest on the sprites, there's a definite plastic look to them.) As often happens, I remember reading this somewhere (reputable), but I don't recall where.

One could always get in touch with Kevin Cloud and ask.

[InsanityBringer]

interestingly there was a magazine article that Ling once posted scans of (I'm trying to find it here...) where Jay Wilbur was talking about the game's gore and he described some of the specific details, including specifically talking about things like "GIs" in tortured poses, which makes the thing a little more confusing tbh

[NantoCodd]

@InsanityBringer This article?
https://www.doomworld.com/forum/topic/9 ... -software/
Yeah, Jay specifically described them as 'GIs'

[Death Egg]

I thought one of them was based on a real corpse from WW2, but I could be misremembering.

EDIT: Nvm its already mentioned