Valk's Art Dump

[em3]

Judging from his pose and the way his left arm is bent, I don't think that said arm should hide behind the thigh armor... Not sure, though.

[Valkier]

Gave spriting another shot.

[A-Red]

That looks a lot better than the first one. The armor needs a lot more contrast. The lighting should come from the direction he's facing (assuming you sprite him in the traditional direction, which you have). And as a matter of convenience and readability, it's probably best to have the head of the axe at the other end of the shaft, just so it doesn't get mixed up visually with his armor.

[Cloud]

Totally agreed with A-Red, espeically on the contrast. You might get away with the axe head on that side if you add a dark outline around it (perhaps even use two types of metal colour, look at some of the mainline sprites for some great metal shades).

Don't be afraid to emphasise key points - Head, hands, etc. The head looks fine, if a touch narrow, but the hands are fairly small, which makes it very difficult to read them.

[Valkier]

Thanks for the reply guys. I really don't seem to enjoy spriting as much as I had hoped, but I'm hoping that's just because I'm doing it wrong. I'll remember the advice for if/when I give it another go in the future.

[artisticdude]

An important thing if you're aiming to create sprites in the mainline style is that the head, hands, and feet are all larger than is technically anatomically correct. Your sprite has great anatomy, but since you have to exaggerate key points (like Cloud pointed out), these specific body parts are larger than others on the average Wesnoth sprite.

I really hope you decide to try some more spritework. You have an eye for cool stuff, and it would be awesome if you were able to create a sprite and a portrait for the same unit without relying on someone else for one or the other (then I could only sit back and envy you ).

[Valkier]

Took a quick break from portraits and made this.

[thespaceinvader]

I'll take a closer look later, but the first thing that strikes me is that eh feels kinda blurry - I think it's down to lines that are more than one pixel thick. Possibly also anti-aliasing, but I'm not sure.

[A-Red]

I think the blur problem is due to a lack of strong internal outlines, i.e. where different pieces of the sprite border each other--where plates of armor overlap or armor touches cloth, etc. Most things are the same color, and it's hard to tell what's in front of what. The portions of the sprite that touch transparency are, for the most part, well outlined.

[Zerovirus]

But you can see improvement. A lot of it. You have sprite-like proportions now (even if his pose makes him look like he's doing a curtsy) and one can tell that you have a definite vision in mind, unlike your first few which were probably intentionally generic.

As for proportions, the arms are a bit too long. Lengthen the legs or shorten the arms- it's your call. Also, restating the requirement for hard-edged pencils. If nothing else, at least do what Rhyging does and outline them in hardedge, erasing everything outside your outlines. Kinda like how you do portraits actually- draw, shade, then outline. Kinda backwards but meh.

[Valkier]

Well I did make two positions for him, one of which did not incur the wrath of the naughty tool. From the sounds of it, this may be what you are talking about anyhow.

[A-Red]

As Zero said, you progress in leaps and bounds every time you post a sprite. He's leaning pretty far forward this time*...on the other hand, the immense weight of that axe might actually counter it

(edit: this is true of the previous pose too, but in that case it looked intentional)

[thespaceinvader]

The only anatomical issue I spot is that his left/our right leg is bent back slightly, which looks a little uncomfortable. Otherwise it's looking a lot better, to the point where you can start looking at mroe advanced spriting techniques.

http://www.natomic.com/hosted/marks/mpat/ that should be a good place to start

[Valkier]

So I've been diligently working on my studies in college these past few semesters. Got a little tired of doing character concepts and portraits, so I decided to dabble a bit in environmental studies. Also, my goal was to loosen up a bit and not make things as rigid as I usually do. The idea was to ditch the goal of absolute realism and just let it be a little more gestural and flowing. While I certainly have room for improvement, I think I'm getting a better feel for it all.

[Valkier]

Not that I didn't get to one or two figures in the mean time. Gotta keep my skills sharp for you guys, after all. Summer is indeed coming, and I need to be able to finish up where I left off with the campaign portraits, as well as finish up the undead line.