Swamp Dwarves

[Turuk]

Great! You already know the problem. Fix.

Ah, words. Funny things, they never seem to translate well.

For your shirtless dwarf and then the giant elder, you still have on glaring issue with proportion and size. Start constructing your sprites net to an open file of a mainline sprite so that you have the visual comparison at hand.

[Lord Ork]

I wrote a post yesterday, but it seems I have a special ability to forget to send.

I said that the problem of powder is not only the difficult task to protect the gun, but also the bag where the gunners carry it, and the places where they store it. Also they have to fabric it, or import from other dwarves.

Obviously, you don't need to think about all these details, but I think that discurring a little about them can help find their appropriate weapons and clothes, and thus, give the faction more flavour than simply "dwarves than move and defend well on swamps".

I also said that the gun's explosions seems and sound like powder to me, although the spark that starts them could be magical.

[thespaceinvader]

Let's not start that again... suffice it to say, thundersticks probably wouldn't work well with water.

Thinking of a more imaginative weapon would probably be good.

Blowpipes or catapults both spring to mind. I've suggested them every time someone's done a 'swamp X' faction, and noone's listened. BUt they're about the only things which fit the tech level and would be reasonably swamp-proof.

[Lord Ork]

Blowpipes sound great. Catapults look more strange to me. How do they carry them from one place to another? On frogs?

[thespaceinvader]

My bad - i meant slingshot.

[Turuk]

How do they carry them from one place to another? On frogs?

But of course, those are the same frogs that the dwarves use to get around, didn't you see the Frog Rider sprite?

A major benefit of using blowpipes and slingshots is that they should be relatively easy to draw on the sprites.

[woodmouse]

Okay, here's a try of Slinger.
It's the Gunner with a sling instead of a gun.

[Bad_Dog]

I am among the people who think swamp dwarves should have 9 heads, and breathe fire.

(only 6 heads visible tho)

This should find a home in the menu system somewhere, similar to the singing skeleton. It's just too precious to lose.

[melinath]

Background:

Hmm, okay. But if they use runes... Doesn't that mean they're "magical"?

Big if. IF it is the case (again, noone knows), then yes, they are magical in their operation. This does not, however, mean they get the magical special, any more than the Paladin's sword, ghosts' various arcane attacks, and Necromancer's plague staff do.

According to SecretLore and Dwarves, the dwarves use "black powder" in their thundersticks. If this is incorrect & no one knows how they work, perhaps change it?

The slinger looks... well... the purple thing - I'm not entirely clear what that is. I think you said it's a hood, but it doesn't really look like a hood... And also, it's huge. Perhaps part of the reason it looks so big is that I can't see any face - the hood is floating on top of a large amount of very dark color with some unclear light color beneath it.

[woodmouse]

Umm, I did make it smaller, you know...
And here's the "fixed" Healer. He now doesn't lean backwards, if people think it looks better that way.

[woodmouse]

And here's a new try for the Elder. Now Dwarf-sized and not that huge gigantic giant.

Is it good?

[Turuk]

Sort of, you still have the issue where you go from one extreme to the other. He is no longer a giant, but now he's very small compared to a normal sprite, even for a dwarf.

[woodmouse]

I thought it's at least almost the size of a normal Dwarf. He's an Elder, so he's extra old. He has probably "shortened" during the years.

[thespaceinvader]

Did you actually COMPARE it to the height of the dwarf sprites?

[melinath]

Here's a comparison of the swamp dwarf elder and the normal dwarf thunderer:

dwarf_comparison.png (3.25 KiB) Viewed 2380 times

As you can see, when the top of the elder's head is even with the thunderer's, his feet don't quite reach the thunderer's. So really, the sprites are almost the same height. However, the elder has his legs stretched out. The thunderer has his legs bent pretty far.

Result: Elder has an upper body the height of a normal dwarf's, but his legs are much shorter. In addition, the legs and arms are waaaaay skinnier than on a normal dwarf, and the feet and hands are positively tiny. Also, his right shoulder is at the same height as his ear, and his left arm is oddly shaped (he has no lower arm).