feline units art [other artists work welcome]

[StDrake]

Well since i got my feline faction running in an early alpha stage i might as well try making some art for it..but i can't draw! well..i can but i'm crap at it, even worse at pixel art, but i can't keep on placeholders forever

if someone would be so kind and help me with sprites for my kittes he's more than welcome to hijack this thread for this purpose :>

meanwhile come criticise what i've managed to do on my own: a panther warrior from scratch and a single white kit made from EoM devlings
hmm wondering if that orc-looking fella would be good enough if i just changed the head to more tigerlike

Overall idea about what's needed for anyone who might get tempted to help:

whole race - best way to describe would be "werecat" - not neko, but fully catlike anthropomorphs, just walking on two legs (but those still being tri-bent, not just the double:knee+ankle bends of humans) and being able to hold things in hands

Purrer line - gray(sometimes called 'blue') cats, rather housecat ('siberian') face outlines, practically unarmed except maybe for an optional dagger, also not wearing much garment that might abscure movement through thick forest/jungle foliage. Mages, but their 'magic' works through purrlike 'songs'. There's also buddha cat - floating around in that turkish-sitting pose, glowy-white-furred, can actually even have a halo.

Panther line - strong, but dextrous hunter-warriors, also not dressed up much, not using armor (though some negligible decorative parts are acceptable), armed mostly in double blades, preferably scimitars, cutlasses or similar. The word "leopard" basically should say all about posture and fur pattern. Yes - black panther included.

Tigran line - Tigermen, tall, well-built, strong, the main line is armed in variations on two-handed weaponry (swords preferrably, especially the lev 3), an optional line may use lighter one-handed swords and leadership insignia - scrolls, cloaks etc, lev 4 commander having white tiger fur pattern. Both lines may use clothing and light(or at least not very heavy) armor.

archer line - as purrers (gray cats), but with bows and perhaps more stalking poses. Japanese-like archery poses would be neat

plaincat line - also as above (gray cats), but with light armor and helmets acceptable (those rather fight on plains than forest) + necessary shields, preferrably not much normal metal and wood in the shields (substitute with leather for example)

sprinter line - cheetah-like, not wearing much armor (would just slow them down), not very buff, but very fast, weapons appropriate to use on a fast, unmounted charge - perhaps long daggers, drake-like claws, short swords/blades

kits! - units consisting of groups of smaller anthro kitties, most often white, carrying and using various wacky inventions and stolen gear. Included:
-flykit line - a single kit trying to fly with a kite, dropping bombs with poison gas. lev 2 would probably use something more like daVinci style wings, lev 3 is so crazed it acts like a flying-squirrel
-kit musketeers - a bunch of kits running around and trying to shoot with a modified dwarven thunderstick
-kit blunderbussiers - as above, but with a blunderbuss
-kit cannoneers - as above, struggling to carry a ship cannon, they can swing it too if you want to do a funny animation
-kits up to no good - no idea on this really, they (group of kits obviously) got a small sniper gun, and generally anything they might find useful to fight unfair
-kit pirates - a group of kits gone 'yohoho', with knives, hand pistols, cutlasses, tricorn hats, bandanas, eyepatches, you name it
-kit howitzers - group of kits with a WWII-style portable artillery cannon
-kit bertha - group of kits operating a..ever seen a german WWII railgun/rail cannon? something like 'big bertha' or 'karl gustav'? that's the thing

[Lord Ork]

The panther is not well done, but I find the kitten quite good. It reminds me to one I had.

[melinath]

Panthers aren't actually pitch black. Check a reference.

[thespaceinvader]

Besides, as a general rule you should never use pure black, even for things meant to appear black. Pure #000000 almost never appears in nature - there's always some ambient light. Look at the soon-to-be-committed Drake Blademaster, or the Orcish or Human Assassins to get an idea of how to do it =)

[StDrake]

well the pure black looked well enough for the head, and i can't do shading for peanuts unless i have somehing to hol on to, like the blade on this tigran here
sprinter is just a recolor on a sprite i found during gallery raid, tigran is some orc fitted with a shrunken tiger profile with some sharpening, changed his axe to a sword..hiltless one no idea how to do a hilt

I find the kitten quite good. It reminds me to one I had.

You had a kitten running around with a musket in the house?

[Zigg]

Teh latest 2 are awesome!

[Lord Ork]

You had a kitten running around with a musket in the house?

A musket? I can't see anything the white cat is wearing.

[Iris]

Teh latest 2 are awesome!

But the very last one looks familar to me.

[thespaceinvader]

It's out of the graphics library, it's a neo one =)

[Aethaeryn]

Inconsistent, old-style shadows. See [wiki]Creating Shadows Under Units[/wiki].

[StDrake]

shadows? i ahev shadows? man i can't even keep my sprites intact, shadows are a secondary issue

meanwhile i've found a nice figure, tweaked it a bit and shrunk and tweaked again, and got something that..well.. needs more tweaking but should suit the buddha cat

[thespaceinvader]

Where did you find it?

If it's not GPL or public domain, you can't use it.

[StDrake]

pretty much public domain, the image itself does not fall under copyright, even less does such a drastic edit of it as i've made, the original served only as presentation of a real item and wesnoth rather does not involve clayworks

[thespaceinvader]

'pretty much'?

Please explain the provenance of this image. And for that matter, any images you post. Copyright violation of any form is neither permitted nor tolerated on these forums.

We have to be hard-line about this, I hope you can understand that

[StDrake]

to be exact: the image presented above is based, but not a copy of, a public presentation photo of a statue

laws of copyright concern form of an intellectual creation, and as such apply to the statue as a real life item

the picture above has as much connection to a copyrighted entity as Kittys bat portrait has to copyrighted vampire movies or wesnoth elves, orcs and dwarves to their Tolkien originals
inspired, but not copied