Felix Mage's stuff

[FelixMage]

Thought I would make a thread for the art I made/edited for a campaign I am making.
So far I only made units that would be called Franken units here I believe? But I might make my own in the future once I get the hang of it.

Student unit, one of the two heroes of the campaign, fighter/mage hybrid. Still need a portrait for him, but since I can't draw, that might be a bit of a problem.

Spoiler:

Just a little joke unit.

double_power.png (2.68 KiB) Viewed 5465 times

The axe might look a bit small here, might make it slightly bigger later.

student1.png (2.82 KiB) Viewed 5465 times

student1_animations.zip

Now for the animations, had to put them in a zip file, since you can only have 5 attachments in a post.

(14.74 KiB) Downloaded 341 times

I also made two versions of a background for my campaign. If anyone would look at them and tell me which one they like more, it would be greatly appreciated. Open in new tab to see the full sized version.

Spoiler:

More oil-like version.

Slightly more detailed version.

[GunChleoc]

I prefer the more detailed version, because it's clearer what you're looking at.

[FelixMage]

I prefer the more detailed version, because it's clearer what you're looking at.

Do you think it would be better, if I made it even more detailed?
I am looking for a ratio where it looks both good and detailed.

I made this one too, the most detailed of them all, but I think it is a bit too detailed.

[GunChleoc]

Yep, the 3rd one looks too obviously like a photo.

[FelixMage]

Gonna stick with the one in the middle then, thanks for the input.

[Midnight_Carnival]

for another game I was working on I took a section of a photo and added another layer over it, I then drew in lines for all the outlines and for shadows and highlights. -since the picture was meant to be the same scene over 12 months drew in lines for where leaves would be in spring and summer and where snow would be in winter. Everything was on different layers and I got surpisingly far before... well let's just say that at work I am known for being consistent and dependable, outside work it is better not to rely on me to get things done and projects I set for myself are seldom completed.

anyway, personal history aside, since you are trying to make 1 image not 12 and since you say you can't draw - meaning you haven't practiced because anyone can draw - trying a similar method of creating campaign backgrounds should be a little more rewarding than applying a filter to a photograph. Try it, you might surprise yourself.

[FelixMage]

I have tried practicing drawing, I am just unbelievably crap at it. I am sure that with alot of training, I would eventually be able to draw semi-decently, but I just don't have the drive to pour so much of my time into it.

I will try your suggestion though, thanks.

[FelixMage]

So, while continuing the work on the units for my campaign, I decided that while the attack animation from the staff looks good on the small axe, which I used in the lvl 1 unit that I posted here, for the bigger axe that I use for the level 2 unit it would look quite silly, and unrealistic.
So I decided to go a bit more into it, and actually try redrawing the sprite for an overhead attack, but I found myself struggling to do that since I dont know how to make the hands look the right lenght, like they are bending, or really even colour them properly.

Could somebody give me a bit of an advice? I tried looking at the art section of Create, but I didn't find anything that would help me with this.
Maybe the problem is that I just suck at drawing, and there is no help for me, but I still wanted to atleast try.

Here is the axe without any hands connected to it.

axe overhead.png (2.83 KiB) Viewed 5323 times

First attempt, no colour variation in the arm, made just to make a sense of the lenght of the arm. It seems to me like it is too long.

attempt.png (2.79 KiB) Viewed 5323 times

Attempt at making a colour variation for the arm, the lenght is the same as I simply could not find any lenght where the arm looked good to me. So I instead tried to do the colour variation. A horrendous failure ensued.

attempt2.png (3.33 KiB) Viewed 5323 times

I simply cannot make the heads or tails of working with sprites like this, and most of the tutorials I found were dealing with far larger sprites, and usually far different problems too.
Maybe I am just dumb and missed an obvious tutorial in my searching of the Wesnoth website/forums and the internet, but I just don't know what to do here.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[ForestDragon]

well, you forgot to erase the old hand, making him have 2 hands on the axe-swinging arm, and about color variation, how about copying the color palette of the mage's sleeves?

[FelixMage]

well, you forgot to erase the old hand, making him have 2 hands on the axe-swinging arm, and about color variation, how about copying the color palette of the mage's sleeves?

I know about the old hand, I should have mentioned that I know about it, my bad.
I did copy the color pallete on the sleeves in the second attempt, but I don't know how to apply it in a way that would look right.

[ForestDragon]

i guess it's much easier to just have same anim as for staff, just with an axe, the frame you made is not very necessary in my opinion, and it's not really worth the effort.

[FelixMage]

I wanted to do that at first, but since he is holding it with just one hand it looks a bit silly, and since I plan on giving him an even bigger axe on the max level, I will eventually need to do an animation for that one, since that one is way too big to be used with the staff animation.
Though I might have to find a different way to do it, since drawing it myself might just not be achievable.

[ForestDragon]

hmmmmmm... i am almost out of ideas, well, if you want to look for inspiration, how about taking a look at dwarvish fighter and skeleton lines? you can learn a thing or two.

[GunChleoc]

I think your problem is that the axe is placed too high, hence the arm getting too long.

I did a quick franken by mainly rotating the arm and then lowering the axe to fit.

A bit lower should work.

axe-overhead_turned.png (3.31 KiB) Viewed 5250 times

Note that the axe now has a wrong perspective. You should make the upper arm a bit longer than in this example, so you'll end up with the axe a bit higher.

[Midnight_Carnival]

There is actually something about his stance which doesn't quite work for me.
He seems to be stepping forward yet the axe is raised as if he is yet to strike. To me, just my opinion, the sprite would look good in the opposite (I nearly said "other" illiciting comments such as "which one?" ) hand or with him stepping forward with the other foot.

It is interesting that you chose a mage-looking character with a heavy axe, I am keen to see where this goes. The smaller axe wasn´t bad although you have drawn this one nicely.