Avian Faction portraits and sprites

[Crow_T]

There is a vertical white line that I assume is representing the female's hair (here we go again ) that needs to be fixed, otherwise I'd say these are coming along rather well.

[Zerovirus]

Hmm, specular highlights are getting a bit prevalent. It's a common syndrome in beginner sprites; I recommend you not use so many 'highlighted points' until you grasp antialiasing enough to really get the specks to work. Right now, the sprite looks like it has a lot of single-speck details which stand out from a black surrounding, creating strange unreadable texture.

[orangebox]

There is a vertical white line that I assume is representing the female's hair (here we go again ) that needs to be fixed, otherwise I'd say these are coming along rather well.

Ah, I've to admit I have no idea how would I start doing the braids. I simple dotted the hair in a way that when I zoomed out, it looks like hair hahaha. It's simply two tones though.

Hmm, specular highlights are getting a bit prevalent. It's a common syndrome in beginner sprites; I recommend you not use so many 'highlighted points' until you grasp antialiasing enough to really get the specks to work. Right now, the sprite looks like it has a lot of single-speck details which stand out from a black surrounding, creating strange unreadable texture.

May I know which part to be exact? If it's the frilly part at the legs, I was trying to do folds in pixels ._.

[Crow_T]

In regard to the highlights, yeah there is a lot of white happening all over, try to use a few white pixels sparingly and try to build some depth, put more contrast in the metals.

[orangebox]

On closer inspection, I don't really find that much whites. It's actually the high contrast that makes it look white, which in fact isn't. That being said, I have no idea how to add in more contrast, because it barely has any huge planes with the same color. The only part with the biggest same color plane would be the shield.

Edit 1:

Also, they seem to be shorter than elves and humans by 2 pixels lol. However taller than dwarves and goblins by 6 pixels. Their faces are small as well in comparison to other sprite models. Any opinions about their size in general?

Edit 2:

Fixed the hair a little, removed quite a lot of whites. There's a Male variation now too.

Edit 2

Kingf2.png (5.8 KiB) Viewed 3472 times

Edit 3:

Should I define a face for them? Literally expand their heads so that it'll fit a face of some sort.

Edit 4:

Added face, had to make the model fatter to fit in the face proportionately lol. An elf to compare height, size and general stylization.

Edit 4

Kingf3.png (8.92 KiB) Viewed 3469 times

[Crow_T]

I made some edits to the lady one, hope it's ok to do so (I think I'm a wannabe spriter)

[orangebox]

No worries have fun with it Might be scrapping the one on the bottom left though, since my aim was to attempt to uniform the style as much as possible to Wesnoth mainline models.

[lipk]

Nothing much to say, just that this is going to be one of my favourite factions if it will be ever finished

[orangebox]

Glad to have earned your support lipk! It's of my 'short-term dream' to complete this too

Calling the female finalized, since I have no idea what else I can fix. Here's the male counterpart with a face. Face covered (m1) or not covered (m2)?

Kingf4.png (8.64 KiB) Viewed 3403 times

Edit 1:
I had a little too much time, so I kinda made an 'avian princess' on the top right corner for fun. (Royalty or non-army personnel usually have bright and colourful wings, those in the army dye it to a plain color for camouflage purposes) Which isn't supposed to be that well-embellished, being a nomadic faction. However, it is only the wings which are 'accurately portrayed' Anyway, back to the main concern at hand, what do you think of the Hummingbird males on the bottom right? (they are basically the scout/archer unit)

Avians.png (12.65 KiB) Viewed 3398 times

Edit 2:
Yup, female counterparts. Not much change, just the hair and a little tweak on the chest area...

Avians.png (13.61 KiB) Viewed 3396 times

Edit 3:
Fixed the pose of the Hummingbirds. Had a feeling that the legs were wrongly positioned. Did a rough skeleton on them and I was right lol. I hope the change was a good one. Added shadows as well.

Avians.png (12.46 KiB) Viewed 3393 times

Edit 4:
Uhh, I have no idea how to animate it, but I worked on a few frames for the attack animation...I'll try googling for some programs to do it.

Hummingbird AttackA.png (6.99 KiB) Viewed 3380 times

[orangebox]

Uhh can't add anymore attachments, forgive me for doubleposting. Here's an animated .gif!

[francophone]

I would have put the hair of the same color as the feathers

[orangebox]

Are you referring to the Avian Princess franco? That was just for fun, the proper princess wouldn't be armored like that

More comments or suggestions would be appreciated however. I am at lost if I am doing it right or not lol

[tom030890]

The base is too static for the attack animation.

The whole body needs to move, including head, legs etc.

Have a look at how the mainline sprites (bowman, elvish archer etc attack)

The stance is also very wide, maybe deliberate.
The base sprites seem pretty good, so worth persisting to get the attack animations right.

[lipk]

I know that I'm selfish and impatient, but if I were you, I'd move on to new units (or new animations to the existing ones) instead of refining these. They're perfect for the 95% of the people out there, and if you're always waiting for the remaining 5% to comment on your work, you'll probably get stuck with these two sprites for eternity.

[Crow_T]

I feel as though the bow should spring forward on the same frame the arm moves back- draw back, hold a frame, release.