Jake's Art Corner, More TWL stuff [Critique Encouraged]

[artisticdude]

{DISCLAIMER}

#idef {DISCLAIMER}
I'm no portrait artist, I'm just using what little I know from my own larger-than-sprite-scale artistic attempts
#endef

The eyes are too high up in the head. Eyes are actually located equidistantly between the bottom and top of the head, not, as is the common perception, in the upper portion. And since it's a white cloak, I wouldn't go so dark on the shadows. But I like how you did the hand. Hands are one of the hardest things to draw in the human form. But perhaps his thumb could curl over his fingers so it looks like he's holding his staff more firmly?

[dipseydoodle]

His head is massive. The staff bends right at the shoulder.
The belt, and left side of the staff are really good. The rest is... not.

I don't know art, but you asked so...

I disagree... The head/hood and maybe the hands and staff are the only things that look weird.

[francophone]

The design of clothing seems good for me.
But the belt is too high. The body too straight. The right arm (left image) lack of folds of fabric like the other arm. The opening of the round is not good. You could also add to a rebort or piping.
The neck is too short.
Hoods are generally conical. So sharp when they are worn or bent end.
The opening of the hood ... is not good. But I do not know how to fix that.

[Hariram]

I agree that the map is empty, it could still have the captions The Backlands and Garkhan's vein.

[Blarumyrran]

Eyes are way too high, shoulders are way too horizontal.

The ice guy reminds me a lot of the ice demon in homm4; I think learning from the shading of those would do good (they're 3d renders, but doesn't really matter for this).

EDIT: a crude draw-over,

[Jarkko]

Thanks, Blarumyrran. I'll see, if I can fiddle with it should this next backfire radically. I tried fixing it myself, but managed to only mangle in a very horrid way - thus I did a complete redraw.

Now, being more enlightened (and for the simple fact, that I don't trust myself enough)
I post only the lineart of the version 2, so that I can commit all necessary changes before shading.




Also here's the Level 1 version of Zarek's sprite.

zarek-l1.png (1.52 KiB) Viewed 4063 times

[artisticdude]

Portrait: Looks much better. I wish I could do linework like that. The things I notice is that his waist seems a bit narrow, and his thumb on the left hand looks unnaturally low. If you assume the same hand position yourself, you'll see that your thumb is higher up on your fingers.

Sprite: I like the shading, but's a bit hunchbacked. That impression is given by the fact that his shoulders are so round and his head is rather low. Even stiff cloth will conform somewhat to the shape of the shoulders, which aren't quite as humped as that. He's holding his staff rather low on the shaft, perhaps you could either lengthen the shaft or have him hold it a bit higher up?

[Jarkko]

I've been forcing to keep myself busy by brushing up my portraiting skills (yes, I have been writing too) and now I chose to draw Mirrok for change.

Unlike in previous portraits, that are soon doomed to oblivion (save for Ice Spawn), I scratched the whole thing on paper first, then scanned it and did the rest with GIMP. Naturally this portrait is not finished, because I like critique on early stages, when errors can still be properly fixed. This portrait has some texturing and base color laid on to it.

Mirrok, Zarek's apprentice and the first Dark Adept.

[BLM]

I went ahead and made a basic red line for the body, head,and right arm. Hope you don't mind. He currently does not have much of a neck, the chest curves out in an odd way, his right arm(view's left) is too small. For the arm holding the staff, I think it might have more balance for the way he is holding it if you brought it out further. Overall the lines are still very jagged and need to be smoothed.
It is not a bad start, though I would not even bother with texture brushes at its current state. I've made the mistake of adding texture too early, and really it is better to wait till you have smooth lines.

[Jarkko]

It feels kinda - strange - to do a sprite after a long break. Nevertheless:



This is supposed to be an elk - or a cross-breed between north-american elk and a north-european moose - Doesn't really matter, because WINR and this elk is going to play only a minor role in The White Lich campaign adaptation

TWL readers know...:

...that the elk dies and the skull gets fitted to the head of Mirrok's staff. So this is that said elk.

[Tet]

I think your icespawn is really good to be scaled down. Please have a look.

[artisticdude]

Dunno why I didn't see this before. The elk's form and proportions are pretty good, but it seems rather dark, and it could use some more contrast in places and stronger outlines throughout.

I think your icespawn is really good to be scaled down. Please have a look.

'Scaled-down' is never good for sprites. It results in messy palettes, semi-transparent pixels, and -in many cases- unrealistic proportions. When compared to the clean-up effort necessary to fix up a 'scaled-down' sprite, just plain creating a sprite from scratch to represent the larger image doesn't require a significant amount more effort.

[Jarkko]

Now that I have my constitutional obligations and other personal matters handled out, I figured that it's time to restore the projects, I was involved with.

And just like previously, I continue with the same theme - The White Lich, that is. This time I concentrated more on the unit base frames of Zarek's lich form. As you may have noticed, the cloth design has changed radically from previously posted Zarek and the fleshy form will be done soon, once the skeleton is good enough

Today I present two variations, both of which are straight from the book. Simply, one without a robe (a bare, naked skeleton) and the more common frame with the trademark robe being worn.

As always, I attempt to achieve mainline quality, or at least get as close that it hurts. Therefore I stay true to my style and ask for your humble, truthful feedback.

On a special mention, especially on the bare lich version, I've aimed for a look that the skeleton looks like half-burned.

The bare White Lich after awakening.

zarek-lich-bare.png (2.48 KiB) Viewed 3676 times

The White Lich with robe

zarek-lich-robe.png (2.65 KiB) Viewed 3676 times

[Sapient]

Welcome back! These sprites are very good. It even looks very close to how I pictured him as I was reading the story. The staff he is holding, however, looks too straight and plain when considering its size and thickness.

[Jarkko]

I'm not quite sure, what you mean. Straight by how it should be aligned in the picture or how is it shaped. For the latter option, although not explicitly mentioned in the book, Zarek's staff is straight and relatively simple - having only that orb at the tip.

Anyway, I personally reviewed the robed unit frame (I finished the originals at 3AM or something) and noticed, that they were too tall, even when compared to the default lich. Here's the slightly shortened version. Also I thinned the staff and applied some colors to it.

Comments?

Robed White Lich v2

zarek-lich-robe2.png (2.99 KiB) Viewed 3614 times