Status of Loyalist Baseframes

[zookeeper]

The only thing which seems off to me in the low-hanging sword is the fact that the blade should be parallel to the camera, not perpendicular to it. I'd imagine that you sort of need to have it perpendicular in the base frame (because it wouldn't be very visible otherwise), so maybe he needs to hold it down and forward instead (so that the sword and his our left leg make a cross, approximately, like the current General and Grand Marshal hold theirs except mirrored).

[Sleepwalker]

I think the problem is that it is pointing straight down the ground. I mean that it is flat against our point of view. To hold it comfortably he would have to point it towards us a bit, which would mean some foreshortening I think. That might be tricky with pixel art... But I gave it a shot. Right now it looks good to me, but I knew beforehand it is supposed to be foreshortened.

zookeeper, you beat me to it

[JAP]

I have a feeling the HI line could benefit from two things.
1: more team colour
2:more differentiation
The easiest way to achieve this seems to be to paint the shields differently.
Perhaps something like this?
Any comments or other ideas?

[thespaceinvader]

I'd personally probably pop for a complete renovation of the sprites. There's enough iffy about them to make it worthwhile. The helm eye slits should be kept, but the rest is probably up for alteration.

Have to say, the lieutenant's helm kinda makes me think of Shredder... The rest's great, but I'd be inclined to keep the open face for the leadership line.

[Sleepwalker]

I'd be inclined to agree... Though I'd just point out that Atz recently made a bob anim for heavy infantry.

Shredder lol. Someone should frankenstein a shredder unit from it with orc and drake parts. But yeah seems good removing the mouthpiece... Or making a small redesign.

Here's a suggestion for pikeman(yoink, sorry TSI). Pretty much everything is a little different except for the boots.

[thespaceinvader]

New pikeman looks good, but his crotch looks a bit odd, like the gusset of his trousers is hanging round his knees - that needs tightening up, or more clearly to be made a war skirt type thing. Probably, what he needs is a good codpiece, actually...

Been kicking around some HI ideas, I have to say I like the idea of some of the roman heavy gladiator armour - tall fins and rims and sculpted muscle. These guys should definitely be beefy.

[artisticdude]

I'd be inclined to keep the open face for the leadership line.

Like so?

[thespaceinvader]

Looks pretty good to me.

[Jetrel]

Yeah, for some reason I was making certain assumptions by which I couldn't get an open face to look good, hence the face-guard. You nailed it, though.

[Atz]

New lieutenant and pikeman look good to me, though I agree that the crotch on the pikeman looks strange.

I'd be inclined to agree... Though I'd just point out that Atz recently made a bob anim for heavy infantry.

Speaking of which, I don't think that animation has actually been committed, unless it is in trunk. It may not matter if the HI is just going to be redone anyway.

[Sleepwalker]

OK the pikeman no longer has a very vulnerable weak spot.

Up next comes a shot at halberdier... I made it resemble Lordbob's portrait a bit more while also keeping part of the old TC and gold color style. I don't think I can improve this one any more, so if you think you can feel free to edit...

[thespaceinvader]

Yum. The only slight issue I have is with the weapon head which looks a little like it sinks in rather than being flat and coming to a sharp edge. I'd also prefer to see the top edge have a smooth curve.

But yeah, that's spanking.I may steal some of the parts to mock up a HI.

[Atz]

I actually already started working on a new HI in a similar style... here's what I've got so far:

HI_WIP_comparison.png (3.84 KiB) Viewed 6618 times

I can see I'm going to need to increase the shiny.

I'm sure there are a bunch of problems, since 1. it's still a work in progress and 2. I'll freely admit I'm not the greatest pixel artist in the history of Wesnoth. But I think it's looking reasonable so far. Is everyone happy for me to continue in this general direction?

[thespaceinvader]

No, don't increase the shiny - the HI can stand to be darker and blacker than the rest. I'd go for a palette more closely matching the original.

[Atz]

Well, I was thinking it might make more sense to have the HI with the same shiny steel armour as the rest of the faction, because I never really understood why HI wouldn't use the same materials as the other Loyalist units in full plate. But it's easy enough to switch it to the black iron look, if that's considered a feature of the HI. I suppose it does make them more visually distinct. Is it supposed to be painted that way to be intimidating or something?