new Fire Dragon

[Lord-Knightmare]

This alternate fire dragon's eyes are impossible to detect clearly .

Why is that a problem

Yes, it is. Without the eye, this may look like a bling dragon

could you make the eyes a bit bigger and add a different color

No.

Why not?

[Jetrel]

In all seriousness, I'm not opposed to a palette tweak on the current fire dragon, there is room for improvement there. It should remain "fiery" in color, but otherwise things are pretty open.

But there's absolutely no chance we're replacing it. Especially not with something at a smaller scale. Blarumyyran's work here would actually make a nice juvenile/baby dragon, though, if given a complementary color-scheme.

[homunculus]

[...]But there's absolutely no chance we're replacing it. Especially not with something at a smaller scale.[...]

does that mean the mainline dragon is considered perfect or what?
i understand this new version here would not fit in the context, and the mainline dragon does fit in the context and (imho) does not look like 'an ugly placeholder', even with its flaws:
1) too large (as i understand, the opinions differ here, but you need to play graphical mmo-s or something, to get used to such sizes).
2) the tail looks not fitting with the rest of the sprite.
3) the hips are too narrow, there seems to be no back width.
4) the wings do not connect at the hindlegs or lower back, but end at the shoulder.
5) hindleg perspective looks suspicious.
6) there is no cast shadow from the wing.
7) the neck is suspiciously thick and looks like someone just connected the head and body with two lines.
8 ) the cast shadow on the neck attracts attention as being only single color.
9) (last but not least, because it is in the attention area) the lower end of its left horn is too much visible like flyswatted.

[..]Without the eye, this may look like a bling dragon [...]

the eyes are closed and imho it looks right.
it is unfortunate that the new mud glob does not close its eyes during attack animation, because it looked cute and very fitting.

@Blarumyrran:
1) do you need some help with creating gif animations?
they can be very useful at detecting animation flaws.
2) your recolor lacks some dynamic range, or maybe you used some paintings as a reference?
i have read somewhere that bright colors are lost in old paintings because of reaction with H2S, not sure, though, and don't have reference (don't even know what it would be called in english, therefore cannot search for one).

[Blarumyrran]

Without the eye, this may look like a blind dragon

its eye is in the eye socket, which is black due to the thickness of the scales; also i like deep eyesockets on everything, much in the same manner as Jetryl likes dimensions, energy and japan. The blackness of the interior of the nearby mouth does not imply a lack of tongue & throat.

Why not?

Glowing (other than in dark) eyes are stupid (other than in very magical creatures such as ghosts). I like to think of dragons as mostly non-magical creatures.

@Blarumyrran:
1) do you need some help with creating gif animations?

No.

they can be very useful at detecting animation flaws.

No; any decent general-purpose image editing software (such as Adobe Photoshop which i use) has in-application support for animation; in any case I won't be doing any animation frames of it unless I am certain the result will be an animated Fire Dragon.

2) your recolor lacks some dynamic range

I don't believe very much in "dynamic range"; I'm sure the Oversized Orange's palette is very full of "dynamic range" yet it fails to demonstrate the worth of "dynamic range" to me.

or maybe you used some paintings as a reference?

No

(I hope you understand the frames in your animation were just a sequence of revisions of the base frame, not meant as an animation?)

[Sleepwalker]

Your dragon is very cool, though I'm not sure exactly how the wings will work. The wing arm seems to be lacking part of the limb or something. Perhaps you meant it to be behind the membrane...?

Both dragons are very well made in their own ways, still some things could be improved.

Throwing palette conservation out the window I toyed with them a bit, they are both more similar now. They have a metric f-ton of colors now though...

[Wussel]

There was critic voiced about the tail of the big dragon.
I share that point. To me it bends artificial.
Could only the tail be rearranged?

[Blarumyrran]

I'm not sure exactly how the wings will work. The wing arm seems to be lacking part of the limb or something. Perhaps you meant it to be behind the membrane...?

I didn't have a rationale behind it - I had already drawn the wings, and figured that as long as they have space to extend to flap around & keep the dragon in air, they'd be alright.

Throwing palette conservation out the window I toyed with them a bit, they are both more similar now.

I really like the purpur wings! they look better on both sprites, no idea why I made them grey on mine in the first place.

[homunculus]

the reason for the fire dragon not making much use of the dynamic range could be (imho) that the dragon is supposed to look as if it might be made of fire, and therefore glowing.

my previous 'prematurely animated' recolor was using the fire dragon palette, and other than being oversaturated, i think it worked better than my next attempt:

was trying to recolor to more stereotypical dirty green-brown as seen in http://www.imperialteutonicorder.com/si ... /a1111.jpg.
maybe i should have chosen a darker dragon picture, or did something else wrong, but i got the impression that the abundant speculars on the pearl colored dragon are not extremely suitable for recolors that are supposed to look like some other material.

[Crow_T]

The size of the head is changing dramatically, also other parts, like shading on the wing, look very wip atm. Maybe some anticipation at the top could add some drama as well. Much kudos, this spriting thing isn't easy

[Blarumyrran]

homunculus, again you post a gif and really I'm lost at what are they meant to convey? What's the relevance of putting those images in an animation? Also tbh I do not like either of your recolors - you seem to say that you subscribe to some strange rigid theories of "dynamic range" & put them above results of experimentation.

[homunculus]

homunculus, again you post a gif and really I'm lost at what are they meant to convey? What's the relevance of putting those images in an animation?

As I wrote previously, I like the head high version more for its pose (except the sad look in its eye and the wobbly legs), so I wanted to include it, but didn't want to post a lot of images. Nothing mysterious about it.

Also tbh I do not like either of your recolors - you seem to say that you subscribe to some strange rigid theories of "dynamic range" & put them above results of experimentation.

I am also not extremely excited about the recolors.
As I wrote, imho the orange was too saturated and the green-brown has too large highlights.
It is not so much about the 'dynamic range' thing, I like the speculars that make the thing look shiny, and somewhat deep shadows.
Your own red version seems to have lost the somewhat reflective surface and I think making the lit side into flat average red makes the image so much more boring than the original, that I thought your red recolor was certainly meant as a joke.
But as far as I understand the terminology, 'dynamic range' should cover that without a long explanation as far as color ranges for the recolor are concerned.

The orange was not a very serious attempt, just tried what Zero did the other way round.
The green-brown was a more serious attempt to try to recolor it to a traditional dragon color, but didn't have enough time to try darker, and not sure it can be recolored like that at all.

There was critic voiced about the tail of the big dragon.
I share that point. To me it bends artificial.
Could only the tail be rearranged?

Yes, it does bend a little strange, with the top line of the tail bending outward in the middle and this might seem unnatural, but my crit was really about something else. The metal cover of my shower hose has less prominent ridges than the tail of the fire dragon, while the rest of the dragon seems to be covered by scales mostly (the exact thing I think about when I look at it, uncut).

[direfish]

That's the most goofy dragon i've ever seen.
This all looks like a wicked practical joke to me.

[Wussel]

That this was meant as a joke was my first thought when this thread started, too. However the original dragon is so big, that some people consider it to big. I like the winged giant lizard in the shape of a winged crocodile. It might serve as a baby dragon.