Imperial Era Art Project (Workin' on Orcin')

[Temuchin Khan]

Here's revamp on the bestiarius. Little messy, and I don't know how well the cloth texture worked out. Thoughts?

I like it even better than the new Pugnator. Keep up the good work!

[Amorphous]

Urrgh, sorry for the late reply! I've been dealing with some family issues, lack of access to my usual PC, and general busyness, and it completely slipped my mind to update you on the status of the sprites. Sorry if my erratic posting pattern alarmed anyone.

As to shadows or sprites, if anything doesn't conform to mainline it's most likely a matter of being outdated rather than being an intentional choice on our behalf. Not having a talented sprit artist working on the project means that the sprites have stayed unchanged for the last three years or so, and many of them were on the old side even then

Okay then, thanks for the followup on that.

As for the status of the sprites, I'd be fine with you committing the Pugnator, but I've since been editing the Bestiarius, so if you could wait for me to finish it, that'd be great.

I like it even better than the new Pugnator. Keep up the good work!

Those are looking great, Amorphous.

Thanks for the support and encouragement. It's an exciting prospect to see my art actually being used for something.

[Sleepwalker]

The pugnator looks very nice. If I were to suggest anything it would be to move the middle tasset a pixel or 2 to the right - it would give more sense of volume, right now the hip area looks kind of flat. I would brighten up the black area under the armpit a little too. Otherwise good.

[Amorphous]

Thanks for the feedback. I'm assuming that you're talking about the Bestiarius (the Pugnator is the level 1), and I see what you mean on both points, hopefully fixed them now.

Okay, so I've actually got two versions of the Bestiarius right now - one where I removed the armor on the legs, and one where I kept the armor. I made the former because, after reading Unwise Owl's post, I thought that the original version did look slightly overdone for a level 2. I personally don't have any preference between the two, so feel free to use either.

Thoughts?

[UnwiseOwl]

Actually, it'd be great to be able to use both. I think the armoured one there is great for the level three.
If you were to lose the shoulder armour and maybe the banner on the spear on the unarmoured one, hthen that sprite could make a very respectable level two version, perhaps? Certainly an awful lot better than what we have now, even if having them in the same stance would still make differentiating a bit of an issue.

[Amorphous]

Oh, actually I'd been planning to do new sprites for the whole line. The Feral Bestiarius isn't much at this point, but I think he'd look better when finished than an edited baseframe of the level 2. . . .
I dunno, though, it'd certainly be less work to edit the existing stuff.

[UnwiseOwl]

Hey, if you're willing to do distinct ones for the whole line I'm not going to stop you
I'll be more than happy to use whichever you're willing to do, provided that they're an improvement on the current art, and given what I've seen so far that's probably a given.
Anyway, yeah, I think that I prefer the lesser armoured of the two, if I were to pick.

[Temuchin Khan]

Hey, if you're willing to do distinct ones for the whole line I'm not going to stop you
I'll be more than happy to use whichever you're willing to do, provided that they're an improvement on the current art, and given what I've seen so far that's probably a given.
Anyway, yeah, I think that I prefer the lesser armoured of the two, if I were to pick.

I agree. The less armored one is probably closer to what I had in mind when I first had the idea for the Bestiarius.

[Amorphous]

Hey, if you're willing to do distinct ones for the whole line I'm not going to stop you

Hehe, alright then.

And, yeah, I see what you mean about the armored vs. unarmored. The lighter armor is both closer to the original sprite and seems more appropriate given the unit's description.

Anything else or is the Bestiarius good to go?

[Sleepwalker]

I'm assuming that you're talking about the Bestiarius

oh, yup.

I didn't mean you should completely remove the outline between the chest and upper arms, it looks a bit like they are growing into each other now. I was more thinking about how the area is brighter there on the pugnator than on the bestiarius.

I'll chime in on the unarmored one fitting more.

How about a multi headed whip for the feral?

[Amorphous]

Quick update. I think I fixed the issue Sleepwalker was talking about, and also a rough draft for the Bestiarius's spear attack. I've yet to finish the last few frames of the animation, so there's a jump at the end, and it might look a little silly at this point, but I'm just trying to get a feel for the overall motion right now.

How about a multi headed whip for the feral?

I like this idea, though I'm not sure if this is too big a stretch from the original sprite? Also, I can't seem to find any actual pictures of multi headed whips via Google image searches. . . . Oh well, they can't be too different from normal whips, can they?

[UnwiseOwl]

Don't be concerned about departing too far from the original. We're loving what you're doing with there. I'm not an expert an animations, but I think that looks pretty great.
As to multi-headed whips, if you were to image search "Cat o' nine tails" you might get what you're looking for, but given the use of these things in certain bedroom activities you may find that the results are somewhat NSFW...Whips of this nature didn't have sexual connotations in ancient times, though, so I think a multiheaded whip would be very appropriate if you can work out how to convey the idea in sprite form.

[freeforestify]

Heres a sketch for his portrait. Critc is very welcome.

[Speedbrain]

The lower body seems to be facing us, but the upper body is twisted to our right. Not sure if that was your intention.
There's something not quite right about his right arm (our left). Maybe the elbow is too far down, or the upper part of it is too skinny.

Overall it looks pretty good, and way better than anything I could do.

[Amorphous]

Your sketch is looking great, freeforestify! The only issues I see are what Speedbrain already pointed out, and he looks a little skinny and too human right now. You might want to check out Lord Bob's orc portraits, if you haven't already. But I'm no expert when it comes to portrait art, and this is looking really cool.

Don't be concerned about departing too far from the original.

While I do appreciate that you're basically giving me space to do whatever I want artistically, please do point out anything that isn't to your tastes, because I really do value your and Temuchin's opinions, and I do want to make the sprites at least remotely recognizable. But, in this case, I was mainly wondering about the off-chance that you would think this was a big enough change to have to alter the unit description and attack icon, etc. to make it work.

As to multi-headed whips, if you were to image search "Cat o' nine tails" you might get what you're looking for, but given the use of these things in certain bedroom activities you may find that the results are somewhat NSFW

Yeah, in the beginning I was kind of hoping I could avoid doing that type of search. . . .I think I've found what I need, though, so it should be fine.

Also, as a heads up, I'm going to be pretty busy through New Year's, so I might not be able to get much done.