Reepurr's Sprite Art

[Reepurr]

Hi, I've been playing Wesnoth for years but have only recently been learning to make my own stuff for this great game.

This sprite is going to be in my era:



Critiques will be much appreciated.

[Leid]

The shield seems flat, and the human seems a little bit fat, but good shading.

[Telaron]

His outlines are all black. Not good. The outlines should be a dark color, but not black. Try looking at the mainline sprites and you'll see what I mean. Other than that, the shadow his sword is creating is rather thin and not very noticeable. Try making it thicker.

[Pandarsenic]

Flat shield, fat human, sword's shadow. I agree with all of those.

Also the sword kinda looks like a paddle. Give it more of an edge instead of a round tip.

[Reepurr]

I've tried to fix the Militiaman (that's his name) up a little...

@ Leid: I think I fixed the fatness, but do you have any ideas on how I could make the shield better?

@ Telaron: Oops, I forgot. I've done it now...

@ Pandarsenic: Tried to make the sword better.



I also found two more units digging around: the Crossbowman and the Captain; they both have huge issues, but I don't know how to solve them.

The Captain looks like he stuffed his torso into a cuboid and doesn't look at all like he's holding a banner/glaive thingy, and the Crossbowman has a really bizarre crossbow. (Also neither one has shadow/lighter lines because I like to get the shape right first)



[offtopic] Can you put images on without going through imageshack? [/offtopic]
EDIT: Never mind, found it.

[Sapient]

There is definitely some odd shading going on with his torso (it looks like a sphere or pillow), and if I am not mistaken, that is the same shading you applied to the sword.

Technically I don't think this is an example of "pillow shading" but it is flawed approach nonetheless. Objects which are not spherical should not be shaded that way.

Good job fixing the outlines, though.

[SFault]

Think the source of light. The swordman's shadow makes it look like the light comes from straight above him, the helmet says up front and the breastplate from up-right. Also note that object cast shadows on other surfaces too. Eg. captain's shield casts a shadow over his torso. (Beware of overdoing these kind of shadows).

The latter units have no neck and their outlines are pure black(0,0,0).

[Reepurr]

Okay, a (fairly) small update for the sprites...

Militiaman: slightly less sphere-y (I hope) body. The shadow is now mainline purple.\



Captain/Crossbowman: I'm pretty sure on outlines now, so they're shaded. Shadows too! I've also tried to put a shadow behind the shield on the Captain.

EDIT: Wrong image...Here's the one which has a shadow behind the shield.



Also, two new swords! Which of the 3 do you like best?

[Reepurr]

Urgh...Nobody's posted!

In the meantime, I've been doing some light work on my units.

The Crossbowman has a darker armour, so that it doesn't look white.

A darker breastplate.

Crossbowman.png (4.28 KiB) Viewed 3751 times

The Captain has a better shadow on his shield, and a neck.

Now with a neck!

Captain.png (4.52 KiB) Viewed 3751 times

I've also started on a new unit, the Hunter, but it's really bad.

[Telaron]

Just a note for the future. Try not to double post.

Ok, I've got like five seconds, so...

About the Captain: The arm on our left seems a bit too long at the moment. Try cutting it a pixel or two shorter.

Also, I like the first sword better. Though you may want to make his glove a bit smaller. It seems rather large at the moment.

[Gambit]

Just a note for the future. Try not to double post.

This was actually fine because:

1. It was several hours later.
2. He was adding new art.
3. He was over his attachment limit in the previous post.

Just a note for the future. Try not to backseat moderate unless you understand, not just the letter of the rules, but also [acronym=The forums (and therefore their rules) exist to promote the creation and improvement of content for the game.]the spirit of them[/acronym].

The hunter is kind of flat and off center. I'm not sure how the real artists center their things, but I try to add a background layer of
data/core/images/terrain/alpha.png
Then a layer of
images/misc/ellipse-1.png
And then my sprite on top of that.

[Telaron]

True.

(Though, you could also add several units onto one attachments if you needed to.)

[Reepurr]

I'd like to introduce you to a big tough guy...the Olgian Trooper!

Now with armour, armour and more armour!

Trooper.png (4.17 KiB) Viewed 3711 times

Also, I made a simple unit tree for the units I've already drawn. (There's also a Squire->Knight of Order and Warlock->Great Wizard line, but I haven't done either...)

unittree.png (13.8 KiB) Viewed 3711 times

I hope these aren't too minor things to warrant another post.

EDIT: I'd still like people to say which sword they prefer...

[SFault]

I'd still like people to say which sword they prefer...

New number one, altough it's rather short.

(I think you should polish one unit into a good state and only after that start making new ones.)

Do not make too detailed shadows. Just go with the general shape, like in crossbowman. Also mind the light source and think where the shadow is cast.

The hunter's legs are very jagged. Try anti-aliasing. Also his outlines are pure black again. Perhaps adding a strap to hold the quiver might be nice.

[Reepurr]

@ Gambit: I just tried using your centering method, but on my old 1.7 (I can't download new ones because I need to do it at this early time of the morning, end of discussion) there isn't an ellipse at ~core/images/misc...even though that's where the actual units link to.

@ SFault: As I believe to have said before, I don't lighten the outlines and add shadows until I'm sure on the unit's outline. This is why the Hunter has a pure black outline and also no shadow. Also, although I do know roughly how to do anti-aliasing, doesn't that sort of spoil the point of pixelart? Adding a quiver strap is a good idea though, thanks.

Does anyone know how to shade the Hunter's leather armour by the way? It's not working when I use the Bowman helmet colours.

I updated the Captain, since I'm not working on the Militiaman until I get some more responses on the swords. He now has a more interesting banner (here's hoping).

Ready to lead some cheap 12-gold militiaman rabble!

Captain.png (4.53 KiB) Viewed 3620 times

Also, you can actually look at the Trooper's torso in-game now properly (the game makes things lighter at dawn til dusk, I understand). Anyone know how to properly make chainmail? The Trooper's sleeves/trousers look bad at the moment...

Darker is better, unless you're doing it on the Assassin.

Trooper.png (4.21 KiB) Viewed 3620 times

EDIT: Grumble. I did a 3-frame animation for my Crossbowman, but Imageready was really fussy and weird.

Frame I

Crossbowman.png (4.28 KiB) Viewed 3603 times

Frame II

Crossbowman-Attack.png (4.24 KiB) Viewed 3603 times

Frame III (I'll patch up the shadow soon.)

Crossbowman-Attack2.png (4.21 KiB) Viewed 3603 times

EDIT2: @ Gambit: I use a Mac, so I don't really know what Downloads is on an entirely different OS... I think you mean the Applications folder; I checked that and had no luck...
Inside Wesnoth, I went to Contents/Resources/Data/Core/Images/Misc/ and found nothing called 'ellipse'