Dabbling in sprites

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taptap
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Dabbling in sprites

Post by taptap »

I would be grateful for any advice and comment. It is my first sprite. What I aim for is a decent archer unit with belt quiver, recurve bow and not explicitly showing the bow string.

I am somewhat satisfied with the legs and the belt quiver, areas for which I lifted palettes from mainline sprites. Not so sure about the rest, the bow could be better, but I have trouble working with so few pixels. I am particularly clueless about the head. I don't like it, but I have no clear idea how to improve it. (I have some idea, how I can improve the gambeson with different palette and shading.)
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Huzzah for belt quivers!
Huzzah for belt quivers!
taptap_archer.png (23.55 KiB) Viewed 6937 times
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taptap
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Re: Dabbling in sprites

Post by taptap »

Changed the blues, the gambeson and the left arm.
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taptap_archer_0.2.png
taptap_archer_0.2.png (23.57 KiB) Viewed 6882 times
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SFault
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Re: Dabbling in sprites

Post by SFault »

Looks very nice. Two things though.

1) The lighting changes drastically between the places. The blue jumpsuit has North-East light that is very intensive. The shoes have same direction but less insensitivity. The helmet and underwear have like Camera-East direction for light. I would go with shoes light effect.

2) There are "thick" pixels in the outlines. Not necessary a bad thing but I would make them thinner. I included a sample pic with thinner lines and thicker lines. The wesnoth unit sprites are so small that the thick lines should be avoided in most cases

+) After getting the light coherent you might want to think of the shadows. For example, with the belt quiver.

For first sprite this looks very promising!
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"thick" pixels
"thick" pixels
sample.gif (349 Bytes) Viewed 6829 times
segmentation fault
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taptap
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Re: Dabbling in sprites

Post by taptap »

Thanks sfault. Completely reworked the head, looks much less like a transplanted egg now, I believe. Did some work on the outlines, although the combination of anti-alias + lighting + diagonal vs. straight lines gives me headache. Tried to improve shadows + lighting.

I am still unhappy that the gambeson is mistaken for a jumpsuit, it kind of sticks out as the worst part in my opinion. Does the little trick with not showing but indicating the bow-string work?
Attachments
Head replacement!
Head replacement!
taptap_archer_0.3.png (23.57 KiB) Viewed 6773 times
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Crow_T
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Re: Dabbling in sprites

Post by Crow_T »

I would try a bowstring on there.

Also, concerning the gambeson, you might want to give it a couple of straps across the front, and to do that you may need to move the quiver out of the way a bit. Also, the gambeson lacks readability in form, you might want to considering having it quilted like this https://images.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=htt ... 1_.png&f=1
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taptap
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Re: Dabbling in sprites

Post by taptap »

Made a new gambeson with new palette and and more dramatic lighting, starts to look respectable. I imagined a look like this (http://www.reenactment.de/reenactment_s ... on_rus.jpg) but I can't give it texture without botching the lighting.

Would like to improve the bow without moving it to the vertical or explicitly drawing a bowstring.
Attachments
New gambeson with more dramatic lighting.
New gambeson with more dramatic lighting.
taptap_archer_0.4.png (23.57 KiB) Viewed 6718 times
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Midnight_Carnival
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Re: Dabbling in sprites

Post by Midnight_Carnival »

I think that your sprite, the gamberson, shading and bow all look great.
I'm not sure about the way he's standing or holding his quiver though, might look good as part of an idle animation, but I personally think you might like to consider redrawing the same guy in a different pose(?)
...apparenly we can't go with it or something.
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taptap
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Re: Dabbling in sprites

Post by taptap »

Well, the quiver is supposed to be a belt quiver, attached to the belt not hold in the hand. If this isn't clear from the sprite, that would be bad. Otherwise the overall pose is pretty close to some mainline archers (in my opinion), who also awkwardly present the bow instead of carrying it in a more relaxed way (horizontally with hanging arm would be most natural I suppose, but only Megane's vampire archers have that).

I redrew the bow, and guess this is as far as I can go with this exercise sprite, unless I get some major advice how to improve it further.
Attachments
Now with a recurve bow +1.
Now with a recurve bow +1.
taptap_archer_0.5.png (23.57 KiB) Viewed 6631 times
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Re: Dabbling in sprites

Post by taptap »

A second sprite. A reimagination of the sea state regimenteer from the Era of Four Moons (http://units.wesnoth.org/1.12/Era_of_Fo ... nteer.html). Technical critique urgently required. (The axe blade looks much better in front of in game backgrounds.)
Attachments
New version. With pattern on shirt similar to original and head transplanted to the left + a little on the shoulders. In front of a swampy background.
New version. With pattern on shirt similar to original and head transplanted to the left + a little on the shoulders. In front of a swampy background.
regimenteer_taptap_0.2.png (12.52 KiB) Viewed 6472 times
My reimagination of the sea state regimenteer (Era of Four Moons).
My reimagination of the sea state regimenteer (Era of Four Moons).
regimenteer_taptap.png (4.63 KiB) Viewed 6517 times
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taptap
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Re: Dabbling in sprites

Post by taptap »

An attempt to produce a wolf zombie (by crude recoloring, flipping the whole color scheme to something unhealthy). The former contrasts now unduly stand out, but if it looks like lonely bushels of hair, this would be fine. Also removed the eye for extra-zombiness.
Attachments
taptap_wolf_rc.png
taptap_wolf_rc.png (2.51 KiB) Viewed 6152 times
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Midnight_Carnival
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Re: Dabbling in sprites

Post by Midnight_Carnival »

I think your colour scheme is great but the wolf still looks like a funny coloured wolf and not like a zombie.
Suggestions:
fur missing, dark patches, bones/teeth showing, red eyes, skin hanining down in ragged tatters, exagerated claws/fangs.
...apparenly we can't go with it or something.
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taptap
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Re: Dabbling in sprites

Post by taptap »

North(east)-facing dark adept:
taptap_adept_NE.png
taptap_adept_NE.png (1.38 KiB) Viewed 6012 times
Robe and hood look ok, I think. Not happy with the cloak. I find it hard to handle so large areas.
taptap_adept_NE_0.2.png
taptap_adept_NE_0.2.png (1.4 KiB) Viewed 5976 times
Now with a ragged cloak - as the SE sprite seems to have. A lot better already. It leaves no space for a belt though, and not much to see on the sprite, but the pose is somewhat uninspired in SE view as well.
taptap_adept_NE_03.png
taptap_adept_NE_03.png (1.59 KiB) Viewed 5955 times
Latest iteration: Widened team-coloured thing to make it look less like a shirt. Slight tweaks to arm and foot, shadow added. Probably as far as I get without further input.

I went through a catalogue of monk habits for inspiration, best way to interpret the teamcoloured thing is probably as a ragged sort of cape with a hood worn on top. This leaves no space for a belt, but alas. Imo this matches the original sprite best (magic-2 sprite). I don't think it can be viably interpreted as scarf. Scarves just don't combine well with this kind of monk-like habit. Alternatively, it could be a sort of scapula, but then weirdly the L1 only shows it on the back, while the L2 does so on the front (with dark-green on the back). Enough rambling.
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taptap
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Re: Dabbling in sprites

Post by taptap »

I played a little Salt Wars today, so finished my version of the sea state regimenteer. I can't fathom how people sprite whole factions incl. animations, it takes so long even for a single acceptable sprite.
Attachments
Original regimenteer.
Original regimenteer.
regimenteer.png (2.87 KiB) Viewed 5535 times
Reimagined regimenteer. New with hair and shadow.
Reimagined regimenteer. New with hair and shadow.
regimenteer_taptap_0.4.png (5 KiB) Viewed 5563 times
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GunChleoc
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Re: Dabbling in sprites

Post by GunChleoc »

Definitely a great improvement :)
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taptap
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Re: Dabbling in sprites

Post by taptap »

Another sea state sprite reimagination, substituting a mace for the oversized hammer. It is funny once on a troll, but in fact all impact melee weapons are so oversized they look like padded larp-weapons. I understand the need for exaggeration in sprites, but funny how an almost bardiche sized axe is actually one of the smallest featured in the game in case of the regimenteer sprite. Basically, I am trying to see how small I can draw a still readable details (belt quiver, hinted bow string in the archer, the axe in the regimenteer, here the mace) in exercise sprites. Don't think the mace is particularly brilliant, but ffs don't comment if you do not want to tell me how to improve the sprite.
Attachments
Reimagined loyalist, with some small touch-ups.
Reimagined loyalist, with some small touch-ups.
loyalist_taptap_0.3.png (1.95 KiB) Viewed 5431 times
Reimagined loyalist.
Reimagined loyalist.
loyalist_taptap_0.2.png (1.98 KiB) Viewed 5454 times
Original loyalist.
Original loyalist.
loyalist.png (2.42 KiB) Viewed 5456 times
Last edited by taptap on August 11th, 2016, 1:37 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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