artisticdude's Art

[Mefisto]

I'm not terribly fond of the idea of adding another palette shade unless I absolutely have to, but you definitely have something there... it might also be possible to alter the shades of the existing palette to transition more smoothly into each other.

I can see at least three shades that can be removed without pain: the bright yellowish from hands and two darkest cold green from cape. Possibly one darker brown from the skirt or whatever it is called and maybe one or two lighter tones from the dagger (and replace them with colder tint which is used on hair).

I'm glad we agree on boots and possible static normal and dynamic aggressive pose.

EDIT: I forgot to add the picture initially. Well, I can discard the shades I added and replace them with more similar shades of green (what I did in my previous modifications). The less monochromatic ramp we will achieve the better.

I just noticed when reading this thread that the rogue is up for a redesign anyway (which AFAIK no one has started yet), so it might be worth continuing this discussion in either the Art Contributions forum or the Art Development forum.

Good idea. I'll probably won't be able to contribute anything next week but later I should have more time to take part in discussion and maybe pixelling.

[homunculus]

Combed the hair a bit, attempted to give it a specular highlight arch and flatten the hair shading at the side of the head.

A less combed look might have been your intention, though, but I would still suggest to try to hint the highlight arch a little bit at least, and vary the overall shading along length, right now you seem to try to stress the tubular shapes above all else.

Also, I felt her right leg could be considerably more chubby.

[artisticdude]

Some practice with the female rogue's hair. Jetrel has already edited and finalized the old hair, but I thought I'd try doing my own version as well, just to practice. And although Jet's edit is still far superior to my efforts, I think this new version is a big step up for me in my hair-creating skills, compared to my previous attempt.

(Also, just for the record, I did this edit on top of the last version of the image I posted in this thread, without referencing Jetrel's edit.)

[uncleshelby]

Wow, I like the new hair. This new baseframe is really cool, I can't wait for it to be commited

Off-topic: You're name looks good in green.

[artisticdude]

Just to clarify, this is the finalized baseframe here (as edited by Jetrel):



I just did another edit here to prove to myself that I can draw long hair without it looking like tentacles. Although I look at my edit in my previous post and can't help but think southern belle... She's got some poof happening up there.

[homunculus]

For some time I have been noticing that something strange has been going on with highlights in several good sprites.
Perhaps it is that the highlights have too smooth transition to darker shades, and with the limited space the transition pixels therefore make the highlights larger than necessary.
Like in Jetrel's version, the hair highlight on the lower right is much sharper and I like it more than the hair highlight on the upper right that seems to bleed a bit into the surroundings (within bounds of extremely non-shiny hair, though).

[artisticdude]

For some time I have been noticing that something strange has been going on with highlights in several good sprites.
Perhaps it is that the highlights have too smooth transition to darker shades, and with the limited space the transition pixels therefore make the highlights larger than necessary.
Like in Jetrel's version, the hair highlight on the lower right is much sharper and I like it more than the hair highlight on the upper right that seems to bleed a bit into the surroundings (within bounds of extremely non-shiny hair, though).

Part of that is due to the fact that areas that are highlighted will be affected by more light than other areas, so even the areas that would normally be in shadow don't need to utilize the darkest colors in the palette (because light will bounce off neighboring hair strings and illuminate even the strands that are in shadow). It is also due to the limitations of rendering hair at such a minuscule scale (rendering hair in pixel art is difficult at almost any scale, but it naturally gets progressively harder as the scale decreases). Another consideration is that when drawing hair in pixel art, it can be very hard to have it read as hair while retaining a three-dimensional look. It's ultimately about balancing the rendering of the hair strands with the appearance of three-dimensionality. What I'm figuring out is that if you render the hair as a three-dimensional solid shape first and add the necessary details/textures to make it read as hair later on, you get a better product than if you try to draw the texture and then shade the entire hair mass as individual strands (a mistake I made with my "squid hair" earlier).

There's also been a gradual trend in more recent sprites towards making the sprites brighter in order to help them stand out from the background better. This means that you may see "larger" highlights, because the colors that make up the palettes generally have higher luminosity values than do those in the palettes of older sprites. In some cases the palettes also have higher contrast, which adds to the effect.

[homunculus]

[...]There's also been a gradual trend in more recent sprites towards making the sprites brighter in order to help them stand out from the background better. This means that you may see "larger" highlights, because the colors that make up the palettes generally have higher luminosity values than do those in the palettes of older sprites. In some cases the palettes also have higher contrast, which adds to the effect.

In my mind shiny objects have smaller and sharper highlights and the shading of the hair (in this case) looks either diffuse or blurry, but I admit I have not tried how such sprites look in game.
If it is a conscious decision as you wrote, I guess that clarifies it for me.

[artisticdude]

WIP. Don't ask.

lolwut.png (5.86 KiB) Viewed 3347 times

Originated from here. I can't seem to get the left arm or either of the hands to save me, and Google images is refusing to cooperate in my search for reference material. Made using the same restricted palette as my aquatic palette from earlier in this thread.

[battlestar]

Do you take any commissions? I have some ideas that may be interesting, and it would be a great help (the art are prepared for a campaign).

Thanks!

[homunculus]

lol, a challenge : )
i would bring the elbows backward, and the right arm shoulder should appear to stick out in that position, along with the stretch of the right major pectoral.
also, the posture should be slightly hunched in that position, and therefore the massive abs should form a round belly maybe.
i am not pro at anatomy, the terminology came from internet : )

[artisticdude]

Do you take any commissions? I have some ideas that may be interesting, and it would be a great help (the art are prepared for a campaign).

Thanks!

Depends on the project. I can't take anything too involved right now, but I could probably whip up a few baseframes or such, if you'd like.

lol, a challenge : )
i would bring the elbows backward, and the right arm shoulder should appear to stick out in that position, along with the stretch of the right major pectoral.
also, the posture should be slightly hunched in that position, and therefore the massive abs should form a round belly maybe.
i am not pro at anatomy, the terminology came from internet : )

Those are some really good suggestions, thanks! I will play around with that and see what results I can get.

[battlestar]

Thank you

Here are some that you can choose from, and doing a few of them would be a great help.

The following few might be particularly interesting (and important to the project):
-A chained necromancer on a low altar (in a cave, with his arms pulled upwards to cave ceiling in chains and feet tied to the altar in cuffs)
-A thorn-covered land tile (don't need to worry about edges, in this case)
-homunculus just did this one-->A giant man-sized fish sticking straight up from the ground (as in half burrowed in dry land), with sharp teeth.

Other choices:
-a leprechaun,
-a lever with 4 legs,
-a bridge with water flowing on top of it and enough space under it for passage,
-an acid-eroded big rock.

I realize many of these sound strange, it's because they're meant for a scenario imitating "Alice in wonderland", might fit your title of "Other Oddities" well

Again, much appreciated for whichever sprites you decide to draw.

[artisticdude]

-A chained necromancer on a low altar (in a cave, with his arms pulled upwards to cave ceiling in chains and feet tied to the altar in cuffs)

Something like this?

Obviously not finished yet, just a quick sketch to make sure I'm going in the right direction.

[battlestar]

Thanks again for your help!

It's definitely in the right direction, and so far looks pretty good. I only have some suggestions in terms of details (and maybe some of these you probably were going to do anyways):
1) Have the chains move away from center of the body in an "X" kind of shape as if the victim was bound under tension.
2) Have him look quite exhausted with a pale skin, and more rag-like clothing.
3) Longer chains to make it look like he's dangled from a high ceiling

Thanks,