WSAS: Milestone Three

[thespaceinvader]

It'll be fun =D

For the future (i'm not aiming to do them for WSAS, but they will be needed eventually) how would you feel about coming up with a sketch for each level 2/3 line (gladiator/enforcer, slasher/warden, warrior/blademaster, flare/flameheart, sky/hurricane, fire/inferno) as the sprites get done? I'd get them coloured... some time... If you won't, I'll probably come up with something myself, but it would be cool if you could do it.

It will be blue on the final cut, but probably a lighter one. And yes, the wings still need adding. The spear will be on his back.

[Girgistian]

For the future (i'm not aiming to do them for WSAS, but they will be needed eventually) how would you feel about coming up with a sketch for each level 2/3 line (gladiator/enforcer, slasher/warden, warrior/blademaster, flare/flameheart, sky/hurricane, fire/inferno) as the sprites get done? I'd get them coloured... some time... If you won't, I'll probably come up with something myself, but it would be cool if you could do it.

But of course! I've been looking to do some mainline stuff whilst working on the vikings, but haven't managed to start anything as it would be a project on it's own. If I've just got to do a few sketches, however (which is fun, without all the tricky shading and other things that I'm starting to have a grudge for), I'm all up for it

although, with each level 2/3, do you mean the level 2 and 3 units would share the same portrait, or that they'd both have their own? I think I could come up with a unique design for every one of them, but would that be too much work for the one that colours them, namely you?

[thespaceinvader]

One for each pair of level 2/3 should be fine. Ideally, eventually, every unit would have a portrait if it could be made unique enough, but we're talking years in the future for that sort of stuff...

[Girgistian]

In a perfect world... I'll post the sketches in Ye Olde Thread when I've made them, among all the others.

[thespaceinvader]

More slight fiddling with the blocking.

[Skrim]

I really like the Clasher portrait. It looks apt, considering it's the toughest, most heavily armed of the Drakes.

However, the one thing I can't get to terms with in regards to the new Drake graphics is how their skin is green. I've always imagined them as grey-skinned, and this cheesy green just seems out of place.

[thespaceinvader]

They vary. The burners, in particular, are greyish.

EDIT: minor update with an extra frame during the jump, and some more fluidity to the arm motions.

[Velensk]

He still apears to be stepping forward with the wrong leg to me. It is a very clumbsy attack where you step forward with one leg and do a wide swing with the opposite arm It limits your reach and gives your foe much more reaction time. I'm also going to repeat what someone else had said about his spear disapearing for the duration of the animation.

[thespaceinvader]

Read the thread. THE SPEAR IS GOING TO BE ON HIS BACK. Stop commenting about the spear, that's going to be about the last thing I add.

I've tried it in real life and, speaking as a martial artist, it doesn't feel clumsy. It feels powerful - the extra power comes from the twist through the hips and body. The front hand comes up to add to this power by providing a reaction force, and guard against opportunistic attacks. Striking with the front hand would appear weaker and less forceful, to my mind, as would stepping through with the other leg.

[Cloud]

The spear will be on his back.

So's not to have to repeat the answer. (EDIT - TSI beat me to it)

Looking good TSI, only critism here is that in the jump his body is quite static. Aside from that looking great

[thespaceinvader]

Scale tester, since I can't make much more progress on the animation till jet wakes up.

For this, I did something I thought I might never do... used the dodge/burn tool. I have something of an aversion to this tool, since I've seen it misused too often. But for this sort of work, it's useful. So how does this look?

[kitty]

Nice! A tool alone is never bad - only the way it is used. And there is a lot of bad digital art featuring the dodge/burn out there Simmilar things can be said concerning the smudge tool...

The lighter parts of the scales (the one with the nearly white highlights) are great, but the highlights in the darker parts are way too saturated and look too artificial because of that.

[thespaceinvader]

I'll tone them down a bit, and refine the technique. Thanks.

EDIT: the drake has skin. There are still some final refinements necessary to linework, and in terms of counter-reflections, which I'll add when I put in the second light source. But for now, I think i can move on to the armour.

[Jozrael]

First, a straight question: the sprite in the animation appears to have claws on both hands (and indeed, swipes with its right), yet earlier you explained that it was only on its left.

As a note: I am no artist. That disclaimer aside:

It appears to me that the fingers wrapped around the spear are facing DIRECTLY towards the viewer. Assuming that the blades are attached to its hand, not its armor, it occurs to me that they should be exactly in parallel to the camera. The razor edges make it clear that we are not seeing them in profile, and there is visual dissonance to me as I try to reconcile these two orientations.

[thespaceinvader]

It does. I was eventually persuaded to change my mind, as I think i recorded earlier in the thread (people need to read these things >.<)

The hand I have just fixed, along with some other minor things, at kitty's suggestion: