Rogue Wizard revisions - lvl 2 concepts

[Kraus]

Hullo!

Night time is, especially for me, artistic time. Pixel art is something I haven't done ever, and your usual pencil artist, who doddles once a month, is me. I have basic knowledge of Photoshop (though I use Corel Paint Shop Pro myself), and ~6 hours in a train does funny things to you. I just had to try out this Frankenstein thing everyone keeps talking about as soon as I got home, and my girlfriend to bed.

Rogue wizards sprites have been out of date for a long time, and them being used in one of my favorite campaings (fate of a princess) got me trying franking other sprites to make a new sprite for them. Remember,they're my first sprites. And I hope this goes to the right forum..

Maybe the tunic of the most recent attempt could be made team colour instead of the set metallic? Oh, and perhaps the sword is simply too big for him...

[Hulavuta]

I like the heads.

[Fog]

Huh? I don't. They are small compared to mainline's proportion. It needs a larger head and more contrast, but overall it's a very nice start!

[Hulavuta]

I know they're too small. I'm saying they're cool.

[Kraus]

The heads are from the franken pack, actually. They're just slightly modified.

After a good night's sleep I recognize a lot of things amiss there. And about the heads - when doing the first versions the heads from the frank pack felt just humongous. It was fairly problematic adjusting to the idea of that kind of anatomy being correct. I do recognize it's the mainline standard, however.

I'll see if I'll get something done later today.

And thanks for the comments.

ps. Too bad I have to work with a mouse... Doing sprites and constant tweaking without a drawing board gets a bit frustrating.

[SFault]

ps. Too bad I have to work with a mouse... Doing sprites and constant tweaking without a drawing board gets a bit frustrating.

I do draw a lot by hand, but when I tried a drawing board I found it very confusing and haven't use one ever since. I think drawing sprites pixel by pixel is much easier with a mouse.

The sprites look overall ok. The new on looks good, the others have uncomfortable stance.

[Kraus]

Alright, I worked a bit on the new frankie. I'm just skimming through ideas. Do tell if something strikes your fancy more than the others, and why. I think I could try out a simple casting animation, strike animation and defense animation once I get the standing sprite to some form sufficient.

I made the head larger, as instructed, and I figured he was also too tall - compared to other level 1 mages (mage and dark adept), he stood half a head taller than the rest. The grey cloak was also a bit monotonous, I figured, and imitated the colours of the dark adept's robes. He's got a bit of contrast now, I think.

Anyways, the first one is the tall one, and from there I took the liberty to try out different things.

Comment is welcome, and I'd love to hear if campaign writers and era developers would be interested in seeing this sprite in use, after it's done. I mean, the previous one is surely outdated...

And, do people usually use frankensteined units, or do the units used generally have to be original, or scratch built? I'm not quite sure if I'm actually doing art of my own when I'm using frankenstein shadings and parts - art is always imitating, sure, but I'd like to hear what's the general era/campaign developer concensus.

[Fog]

Nicely done!
My favorites are 2.2 and 2.4.
For some crit, most people would not find it comfortable to rotate their arm like that. The sprite would look much less akward if his sword arm was in a different position. The scarf you made on the last one has very good shape, but is lacking contrast; look at the adepts scarf for a reference.

[Kraus]

I finished the animations in a hurry, and tried it ingame. It's works sufficiently, even though it's not too beautiful.

The animations are sure flawed, but I'm not really sure if I'm going to commit much effort and time to them before I actually know, at least to some extent, what I'm doing. The sprite isn't exactly the easiest one to animate, with robes and lots of moving obejcts...

I think I might turn my attention to shadow mage at some point. We'll see.

Oh, and I heared (and confirmed) there is already someone working on the remakes of these, ones with better quality and original art, so I guess I'll just do these for fun and practice when I've got the time.

[Dixie]

Nicely done!
My favorites are 2.2 and 2.4.
For some crit, most people would not find it comfortable to rotate their arm like that. The sprite would look much less akward if his sword arm was in a different position. The scarf you made on the last one has very good shape, but is lacking contrast; look at the adepts scarf for a reference.

Same. Also, I suppose it's okay since you tried them in game, but last time I used the francken pack, the TC was messed up (or maybe the colour values were changed since a past version from which the franckenpack is made) and it didn't work in game: everything appeared pink instead of team colored. If you want the complete palette for TC' it can be found in the games folders, or I attached it in some other guy's thread (Atemthelightning's one, I think).

[Kraus]

Nicely done!
My favorites are 2.2 and 2.4.
For some crit, most people would not find it comfortable to rotate their arm like that. The sprite would look much less akward if his sword arm was in a different position. The scarf you made on the last one has very good shape, but is lacking contrast; look at the adepts scarf for a reference.

Same. Also, I suppose it's okay since you tried them in game, but last time I used the francken pack, the TC was messed up (or maybe the colour values were changed since a past version from which the franckenpack is made) and it didn't work in game: everything appeared pink instead of team colored. If you want the complete palette for TC' it can be found in the games folders, or I attached it in some other guy's thread (Atemthelightning's one, I think).

Oh, I tried the team colour - and at least the feet showed red instead of pink (if I figured it right) - and the rest of the TCs I painted myself. So, at least with those colours it works fine.

There is a problem with the shadow of idle sprite, where there is a thin grey line at the edge of the shadow. Other than that, please try it ingame and critisize. I don't know what I'll be able to do, but hearing what's off is always good.

Oh, and no, there is no defend animation as it is. I might conjure something up sometime.

[Kraus]

Hi!

Back to the drawing board. I started with a concept of lvl 2; Shadow Mage. That's the idea, basically. This is just a concept, not a finished model. Criticism and suggestions are welcome.

It would be cool to actually animate the icy fire he's conjuring from his hand, but we'll see if I have the skills to do that, even with tutorials - if I find any.

[Fog]

Nice! I really like the costuming on this guy. He needs some highlights, though. For the "Icy Fire", I believe that Rhyging had posted his amazing method. Although I don't know how to do any of the things he describes, you might want to search for it.

[Kraus]

Nice! I really like the costuming on this guy. He needs some highlights, though. For the "Icy Fire", I believe that Rhyging had posted his amazing method. Although I don't know how to do any of the things he describes, you might want to search for it.

That was the one I was thinking about myself. The tutorial looked fairly simple, but I'll have to find where I can manage masks, .gifs and stuff in Corel Paint Shop Pro XI. That's what I'm using.

Yeah, highlights, definitely, and hopely something more original - the model is basically built on a frankenstein frame, of which there are some lines, pauldrons and the head left. If I could draw it from scratch, even if using the original as a reference, it would be nice - if not, I'll have (once again) lots of problems animating attacks, and I could not (once again) call it original. The lvl 1 Rogue Mage uses various frankenstein parts.

And I'll, hopefully, return to the lvl 1 animations sometime. They were my very first attempt at animating, and I think it's evident.

Krausedit\\ Oh, and in the meanwhile, I realized I didn't paint the icre (icy/fire) on a separate layer... It was late last night! I had 4 cups of coffee!

[thespaceinvader]

The magic effect should be separated from the unit and overlaid as a halo.