Zerovirus' sprites for UtBS

[Zerovirus]

Fighter, Shield Fighter, and Twin Fighter. I'm hoping the names are very much WIP.

[King_Elendil]

O_O Whoa.
As always, your work is just stunning - I love all of these so far, but especially the Twin Fighter.

[cretin]

those are some cool units, i like the large shield.

[AtemTheLightning]

OMG. Brilliant.

[Aura]

The Fighter and Twin Fighter look great, but the Shield Fighter not so much. He looks very awkward, and seems to be too squat (or maybe too wide). The shield is also rather excessive.

[thespaceinvader]

I'll have some more detailed comment later on but suffice it to say, these look great but need some tweaks.

[Captain_Wrathbow]

Just wondering, are these going to get animated before they're committed?

[Zerovirus]

No idea.

Did I do the right thing with the Twinmaster? I'm not sure... He might be a bit too metal-gaudy for the desert elves, but I thought of him as a ceremonial battler.

[A-Red]

I'd say too metal-gaudy, yes--mostly just the headgear. Personally, I also feel that the shield fighter has way too much metal on him to be fighting effectively in the desert, but that's nothing to do with the quality of the art.

I'm a bit confused by the L3's torso and arms in relation to his legs and head. He appears to be facing in multiple directions at once.

[AtemTheLightning]

O Mighty Lord Zerovirus, God of Sprite Art, what is thy wish?

[Sleepwalker]

Art-wise, these look great, good job! As long as they don't wear plate and aren't too fully packed with chain mail and what not It should be alright I think. I think the huge shield will probably will have to be toned down a bit though. Make it smaller and perhaps made of wood instead (Or bone or whatever the elves feel appropriate).

Everyone except the Shield fighter all suffer from leaning forward too much like your overlord. One basic rule one can follow is to draw a straight line down from the center of the head and see where it ends up. Generally it should end up close to the middle between the feet when standing normally. Naturally it doesn't have to be like that as long as you counterweight properly with the rest of the body or gear... For example if the twin fighter was wearing a rucksack the way he stands right now would probably be alright.

But it slightly unclear as to the way he's standing... I might be misinterpreting it. I think it might be because his belt sits pretty much horizontal to the viewer while his shoulders and feet are placed at another angle.

[Zerovirus]

O Mighty Lord Zerovirus, God of Sprite Art, what is thy wish?

Okay, seriously. I know you're a fan now and all, but there comes a point where blind, exaggerated worship becomes annoying. If you really don't have anything useful to say, then you could reserve your adoration for newcoming artists who might need it more than I do.

@sleepwalker: Nice tip! I always had trouble with balancing units and making them look not falling-over, as my earlier sprites might have shown. This will help me a lot.

Espreon sent me a cease-and-desist order (or something to that effect) while he refigures out the Quenoth elves' fluff, so I'll go and do some Chaos sprites based on EVILEST's new portraits. And here I was thinking "What am I going to do with Chaos?" when the answer hit me in the face- Sprite EVILEST's portraits. Easy, and I don't have to stress my brain at all

[Jetrel]

Art-wise, these look great, good job! As long as they don't wear plate and aren't too fully packed with chain mail and what not It should be alright I think. I think the huge shield will probably will have to be toned down a bit though. Make it smaller and perhaps made of wood instead (Or bone or whatever the elves feel appropriate).

IMO, that size of shield is fine, as long as it's reserved for an "overpowered L3". Legionaries used shields that big, at times. Yes, it would be incredibly heavy, and would affect the mobility of the unit, but that was considered a reasonable tradeoff to allow an otherwise impossible advance on archers.

Everyone except the Shield fighter all suffer from leaning forward too much like your overlord.

Yes, this is a big problem in virtually all of your art, and it won't be easily solved. I used to have very similar problems - I think it's a perceptual phase all artists have to work through.

It might be helped by doing lots of "fast studies" - studies where you do NOT draw details, but instead scribble out the general pose of a human. Likewise, doing "studies from life", where you look at a real, live person, and attempt to draw them.

When doing studies from life, one of the hardest things to solve is consistently projecting a 3d person onto a 2d canvas. You'll run into very frequent mistakes of drawing different parts of the body from different, inconsistent angles, as the model, and your head, move about subtly during the drawing. This is actually so hard, and so error prone, that I suggest newbies avoid it entirely until they're good at what I suggest starting with. I suggest starting with drawing from photographs, since they solve that problem for you.

What you should do is attempt to draw what you see without any tracing, and then after you are done, compare your drawing to the photo to see where you have erred. This might involve actually overlaying your work in photoshop, or busting out the ruler.

I'm serious - this is that big of a deal. You have to recalibrate your instinctual sense of "what looks right", because almost all people are born with bad instincts about this.

As you go on, you want to gradually wean yourself off of dependence on reference. It's actually not realistic to ever completely graduate from using references. Kitty et al still practice drawing from live models occasionally (perhaps even constantly), and every professional artist needs to do this or they run the risk of their work gradually deviating from reality in strange and abhorrent ways (c.f. Rob Liefeld). However, you want to be as good as you can at drawing without a model, because that makes you fast. Constantly stopping to vet your work against a reference, and correct what you did wrong is painfully slow.


Like I said in valkier's thread, you can find untold sums of good reference material simply by going here, and looking for the search term "athlete", as well as the desired age/gender: www.istockphoto.com For that purpose, it's much better than google images in relevance.

[Zerovirus]

@Jet: Too much for me to write an in-depth reply, so I'll just say: Duly noted, and thanks.

Invader. I'm not sure if it's an improvement, de-improvement, or a sideways shift. It's different, to be sure, and I took a lot of liberties with it.

EDIT: I also tried to fix up the twinmaster's arm. I know it might not get used, now, but I really didn't just want to leave it sitting there with such an obvious flaw.

[iLeeT_PeeP]

That invader looks very good.