Ancient Lich Development

[Reepurr]

The 'funky strike a pose' kind of pose looks a bit...odd...And I do think that he's leaning back a bit too much.

[Eternal]

There was this sprite I was working on earlier this year. Trying to mix the ghost line style to the lich, this is what I got.

Overall I'd say this dude's too bulky. The floating thing isn't very clear since there's no shadow, and I wonder if floating is a good idea in the first case. Some of the clothing might need some ghostliness and a few touch ups. Also, a staff or some dark energy swirls are needed. I couldn't decide which'd be better, staff or dark energy but now that I think of it, it might look stupid if a unit loses his equipment with a levelup.

What do you think?

[JackBarber]

I suggest that ZeroVirus, or ArtisticDude give the sprite a shot.

((P.S. I wasn't voluntering either of you, I was merely saying who I thought would do a good job with it. No need to be a jerk...))

[Zerovirus]

@Jack: At some point you'll realize that volunteering other people, who may or may not be interested, to do art you want them to do usually doesn't work so well. I was going to give a reply anyways on my own good time but I just had to reserve this special comment for you.

@Eternal: The main problem with it looking so stocky is the huge sleeves. If you reduce the sleeves around the armpit, the silhouette of the torso will be reduced enough to give the lich a slender appearance while retaining the details of the lower robes.

As an aside, I based the first version of my avatar off this sprite. The pallete is basically the same, and the influence is easily visible in my first versions.

[Thrawn]

@Eternal: The main problem with it looking so stocky is the huge sleeves. If you reduce the sleeves around the armpit, the silhouette of the torso will be reduced enough to give the lich a slender appearance while retaining the details of the lower robes.

Another idea, if you wanted to keep the sleeves, would be to make the torso itself thinner/less bulky. However you want, I guess?

[Reepurr]

You don't really have to worry about losing equipment in level-up with an ancient lich unless you're playing DiD, because only DiD lets a lich advance to an ancient lich.

[peanut gallery]
I think that the first thing that made me think "Wow, that's a big sprite" are the legs, actually, which are pretty much the same size as its torso. I don't see many problems with the arms at all.
[/peanut gallery]

[wayfarer]

Four limb Lich but unnaturally tall and gaunt? - check
Hood and cloak? - check
Attitude? - Uuh, yes

Another concept for a Generic Ancient Lich.

Uh nice.

[kitty]

Uh nice.

Hell yes! That has to be one of my very favourite concepts for the humanoid kind of lich up to now!

If you'd finish him up I'd like to put him in as an alternate lich, Sleepwalker!

[Valkier]

Four limb Lich but unnaturally tall and gaunt? - check
Hood and cloak? - check
Attitude? - Uuh, yes

Another concept for a Generic Ancient Lich.

Uh nice.

As useful a comment as you've ever made.

I wanted to say thank you for those of you keeping this thread going. I regret the time I've lost on this project due to school work. If nothing else, I'll have time to come in and get some more done soon.

Also, very nice concept Sleepwalker. I'd like to see it fleshed out a little more, as I think it would make an excellent portrait.

[Sleepwalker]

Seeing it in a different light he does look a bit funky, like hes disco dancing at club macabre. Eh, well I think that could be fixed well enough by making him not point and perhaps slackening his furthest most arm a little. The image I tried to achieve here is one of the lich turning around away from studying his tomes like "Aha! More foolish mortals entering my lair!" or the such. (His pelvis is pointing left and he is turning to his left.)

Hell yes! That has to be one of my very favourite concepts for the humanoid kind of lich up to now!

If you'd finish him up I'd like to put him in as an alternate lich, Sleepwalker!

Also, very nice concept Sleepwalker. I'd like to see it fleshed out a little more, as I think it would make an excellent portrait.

In that case I must obey.

Thanks all!


Very nice sprite Eternal, with the potential for awesomeness. Some ideas; It could keep its staff, but it don't need to be holding it, sling it across its back... Then, something that uh, "strikes a discordant chord", is the part of its robe under its waist. That looks too bulky to me. If the lich is supposed to be floating I would consider removing its legs entirely and making the robe less wide at the bottom. If it is standing then I suggest slimming its waist considerably.

Actually, I'd give it a staff if its floating and go with dark energy if its standing, to keep a balance between the two unit types its based on.

[wayfarer]

They can't be all diamonds.

[Reepurr]

Without any knowledge, whatsoever, of even basic portraits, I did a 5-minute sprite of what I was thinking of...

lich.png (3.47 KiB) Viewed 4285 times

Basically, it's an ancient lich which gradually gained so much power that it didn't need a skeleton any more (although it needs something to direct its power with, thus the hands, and a lich's skull - with the spectral remainders of its brain inside - can never be replaced) and so made a swirling vortex around it with its skeleton, sort of like the electrons that fly around a nucleus. If it needs to, it can make minions out of its bones and use them against its enemies.

- Because an amateur sprite is not a thousand words.

[Sleepwalker]

Ok, concept now turned into a portrait with outlines, color and more detail. Instead of going for the usual skull and bone motifs for his gear I tried something new; googling for rebirth i found this triple spiral symbol which i found nice, so I somewhat incorporated it in the image. Kind of likening undeath to a twisted form of rebirth.

Something I have noticed when doing grayscale shading first is that it is much easier to get the lightning right, and you can worry about the colors later. When I got to coloring I copied the grayscale layer and painted it (with transparency lock) to a flat grey color, giving me a silhouette of the lich. Then I turned the layer blending to color and started coloring. With "color" as the layer blending setting it only applies the hue and saturation of the layer to the ones beneath. When i needed to adjust values i just went back to the grayscale layer.


Reepurr: Reminds me of the demilich of D&D. Though it may make sense I always thought a little flying skull as a super powerful being looks a little silly.

[Vendanna]

The portrait looks really good, the only nitpick I can see is that his/its right arm bends weirdly or at least the positioning you choosed is giving wrong impressions to the reader (like the arm is bent).

I must also congratulate you for the motiff on the book, its a little touch but it gives a lot of depth to the image.

[LordBob]

The pose and shading are fine, but some proportions are off-limits. Namely :
- The (our) left hand is missking knuckles, which in turn makes his fingers look rather short
- His skull is very small
- It also looks a bit high compared to his current shoulder level & head angle. Though increasing the skull size by 5-10% without moving its top side ought to solve everything.
- His upper arms are very, very long. I suggest :
* moving upwards the (our) left forearm
* introducing more lower arm/elbow and less upper arm on our right. The hand and vambrace don't have to move since the overall arm length is correct.

Other than that, I'm not completely convinced by how the cowl unnaturally stands up. Either throw in some kind of armature, or a hat underneath, or have it subjected to gravity and rest on his head