Armageddon Drake

[A-Red]

Somebody's gotta do it, so I thought I'd give it a try. How is this?

[Gambit]

It is cool, but I don't think it's different enough. Especially given all the complaints on that topic. I mean if they can't tell Sky from Hurricane they won't be able to tell Inferno from Armageddon.

I think overall it needs a new color, or just more over the top looking armor.

[Zerovirus]

Hmm. This tempts me. This tempts me ever so much.

Maybe I'll take a shot later.

[A-Red]

It is cool, but I don't think it's different enough. Especially given all the complaints on that topic. I mean if they can't tell Sky from Hurricane they won't be able to tell Inferno from Armageddon.

I think overall it needs a new color, or just more over the top looking armor.

All those fangly faces weren't over the top enough? I thought they were pretty over the top...

I've played around with some palettes. Are any of these better? I think I'm leaning toward the first one.

[Jetrel]

The new palettes aren't good, but I agree a change in palette is warranted. The chief problem with the new palettes is that the color ramps you're using are mono-chromatic. They go from bright to dark as you go through the ramp, but they don't change the color. Have it actually cycle through radically different colors as you go through the ramp.


The costume changes are great.

The whole unit, though, should be dramatically bigger. Maybe even 5 or so pixels. It's not human, it's a level 4, you don't need to be too conservative about it.

[thespaceinvader]

Yeah - BIG.

One thing I was considering was using a slightly edited/armoured/shrunken version of Eternal's fire dragon head - just to give you an idea of scale...

[A-Red]

Big. Specifically, 3 bigger in each direction than before, and 4 bigger in each direction than the Inferno. Is that good?

Also, I like this palette. Pretty molten, no?

[Jetrel]

The size now, and costume design are great (good work!), but your palette still kinda sucks.

It doesn't look molten at all, you've got one bright orange color there, and it suddenly drops down to dark, muddy, barely-visible darks.

Major hint: Space the colors in your ramp by ~ 10 luminosity-units, as measured by the L*a*b color space.

If you do more than ~15L, you usually get exactly the problem we're seeing here - the colors don't blend. Here, you've spaced that yellow-orange, with the next orangish-red, by 40L. Ouch.

The other colors are "muddy" because they're too close in L value.


Give the palette a few more attempts.

[A-Red]

Thanks! I may still have to play this by eye, though--Elements doesn't do L*a*b, and apparently the conversion is...complicated...

Your general point is taken, though, and I've evened out the color spacing (mainly according to HSB brightness). I'm glad you approve of the design!

[Issyl]

I would suggest getting GIMP, if your current image editor doesn't suit your needs.

[A-Red]

A couple more tries, with blending in mind.

[Issyl]

I would say the second (drake12) looks excellent.

[A-Red]

Ok, so it sounds like this is ready to go except possibly the colors, which can be changed easily later in the process. Here's a couple more minor tweaks to the base, and blocking for the defense animation.

[Issyl]

I'd say that looks pretty good to me. Great motion; if there's anything wrong with it I'm not skilled enough to tell you what it is.

[thespaceinvader]

Defence looks good. For the rest, I HIGHLY advise you to just clone the existing animations. It will make life MUCH easier.