Stern's Art: Speckles the Toad

[tr0ll]

should they bob up and down a bit?
i could imagine that smooth-as-maglev ramrod-straight run for raptors/saurians though

[Stern]

You are absolutely right tr0ll! I added a 3px bob and a 2px weave to each frame and came up with the below animation.

ghast-run-14A.gif (1.79 KiB) Viewed 6839 times

Next order of business is to define the legs a bit more and begin adding details.

[artisticdude]

That's a very nice movement you've got there. Not a whole lot to comment on until it's a bit more refined, but the bob definitely sells the overall movement for me. Nice job!

[boru]

I like the hunch. It gives him character.

[Stern]

As an update, I started blocking out the Ghast's claws and extra heads. Soon I will begin detail work.

ghast-run-18A.gif (2.37 KiB) Viewed 6797 times

[edit] Heres the latest and greatest. Ghast is still missing teeth...

ghast-run-19A.gif (3.37 KiB) Viewed 6775 times

[Thrawn]

Looks much smaller than the base ghast: even though it's low to the ground and foreshortened, the head and shoulders should be the same size (if not a bit larger) than the base frame, as it's leaning forward from where it would be in the baseframe.

[artisticdude]

Looks much smaller than the base ghast: even though it's low to the ground and foreshortened, the head and shoulders should be the same size (if not a bit larger) than the base frame, as it's leaning forward from where it would be in the baseframe.

I agree. Also, I feel the feet should come under him more before they contact the ground; ATM it kinda looks like his body is moving forward by itself while his legs try and keep up as best they can.

[thespaceinvader]

yeah, why's it so teeny? I've been assuming that you were going to scale it up between blocking and shading, or something, but... wut?

[artisticdude]

yeah, why's it so teeny? I've been assuming that you were going to scale it up between blocking and shading, or something, but... wut?

It's a bad habit of mine as well... I'll start blocking something, and as I get farther into the animation and away from the baseframe, the unit starts to become steadily smaller. Dunno why that is, exactly, but it's something I struggle with. Anyway, I find it helpful to compare each frame of the blocking to the baseframe as I create it, to make sure the size and general proportions match.

[Stern]

Yeah, I made the mistake of drawing the Ghast too small, but I did learn something interesting from the experience. Blocking on a smaller figure allows you to experiment with fewer pixels to move around. Animating on a smaller smaller figure first could result in gains of productivity and time savings as you later scale the blocking of the animation up to its proper size. Heres a couple versions of the Ghast scaled up. Let me know if he is large enough. I think I got him pretty close to his original size. I still got to do some work on his legs.

[thespaceinvader]

He needs to be exactly his original size, or the animation will look stupid. He therefore still needs to be bigger.

[Reepurr]

I find it helps to measure the size and diameter of the original (in pixels) when doing things like this. Then you can match up the size of the unit in the animation relatively closely, better than just doing an estimate.

[Stern]

Summers done, and Stern has returned!

My next project is to animate Speckles the Toad. To my current understanding, Wesnoth lacks a highly animated amphibian for UMC. Speckles' job is to fill that role.

Here is the current state of his base frame.
Let me know what you think of structure, shading, coloring, contrast, etc.