Ghastly

Contribute art for mainline Wesnoth.

Moderator: Forum Moderators

Forum rules
Before posting critique in this forum, you must read the following thread:
Post Reply
User avatar
thespaceinvader
Retired Art Director
Posts: 8414
Joined: August 25th, 2007, 10:12 am
Location: Oxford, UK
Contact:

Re: Ghastly

Post by thespaceinvader »

Looks great =)

But you could do with turning it away from camera slightly more, so its facing matches the necrophage's, and spreading its left leg a little further out.

Nice work =) Suitably weird and creepy.
http://thespaceinvader.co.uk | http://thespaceinvader.deviantart.com
Back to work. Current projects: Catching up on commits. Picking Meridia back up. Sprite animations, many and varied.
User avatar
Darker_Dreams
Posts: 608
Joined: February 1st, 2008, 5:26 pm

Re: Ghastly

Post by Darker_Dreams »

?
Attachments
rawr2.png
rawr2.png (5.26 KiB) Viewed 3483 times
User avatar
Turuk
Sithslayer
Posts: 5283
Joined: February 28th, 2007, 8:58 pm
Contact:

Re: Ghastly

Post by Turuk »

Great job on making the head easily recognizable while being sunk into the upper body, I like that the beady little eyes are still visible.
Mainline Maintainer: AOI, DM, NR, TB and THoT.
UMC Maintainer: Forward They Cried, A Few Logs, A Few More Logs, Start of the War, and Battle Against Time
User avatar
beetlenaut
Developer
Posts: 2814
Joined: December 8th, 2007, 3:21 am
Location: Washington State
Contact:

Re: Ghastly

Post by beetlenaut »

Nice job! I like it. There are a few small things I would change. I think the two white dots below his head (teeth?) are distracting and don't make much sense. I think it looks better without them. It's also a bit more creepy if you can see structure in his mouth rather than solid black:
ghast-test.png
ghast-test.png (3.43 KiB) Viewed 3426 times
Right now, I think he looks a little passive because his left arm is up by his mouth. It should be open and ready to grab like on the necrophage. Hang onto the arm though, because it's perfect for a defense frame. One last thing. The toes detract from the grossness. Make his feet wider, and his toes fatter. (You can even add more.) Think "elephant" instead of "hawk".

That's a lot of comments, but they're mostly minor. He's almost ready to go as far as I'm concerned.
Campaigns: Dead Water,
The Founding of Borstep,
Secrets of the Ancients,
and WML Guide
User avatar
JW
Posts: 5046
Joined: November 10th, 2005, 7:06 am
Location: Chicago-ish, Illinois

Re: Ghastly

Post by JW »

I don't like how prominent his diaper is. I use the word because the loincloth is only used for TC, not realism, and I, as well as others, don't like that it needs to be used at all. Unfortunately there really isn't any better option to display TC on him AFAIK, but I don't think it should be the 2nd most visible feature of the unit (after the stomach). Otherwise it looks fine.

edit: I also like beetle's suggestions.
jdsampayo
Posts: 185
Joined: April 1st, 2007, 5:10 pm
Location: Mexico
Contact:

Re: Ghastly

Post by jdsampayo »

Hello,

I like the concept, and have an idea, but can't say it in my poor english :/ so, forgive me for this quick edit to show what I mean.

It makes the illusion (at least for me) that in the picture of the left, the "thing" is sleeping if you take the eyes for the uhmm "tits" (little knowledge of English). It's like if the "thing" was using the ghoul like some kind of parasite or something.
Attachments
idea
idea
rawr3.png (5.24 KiB) Viewed 3303 times
In quechquixcauh maniz cemanahuatl, ayc pollihuiz yn itenyo, yn itauhca in Mexico-Tenochtitlan
As long as the world exists, no one will forget the glory and honor of Mexico-Tenochtitlan - Culhuacan memorial
User avatar
Darker_Dreams
Posts: 608
Joined: February 1st, 2008, 5:26 pm

Re: Ghastly

Post by Darker_Dreams »

jdsampayo; this is back to the eyes/no eyes discussion, and I'm pretty indifferent either way. I'm moving along without, because I'm pretty happy and that's how I've got stuff right now.

JW;
comparison shopping2.png
comparison shopping2.png (4.34 KiB) Viewed 3144 times
I think it looks more like a diaper or gratuitous effort at censorship and less like a loincloth at the smaller size... That's actually part of why it grew initially.

beetlenaut; That arm got tucked in when I tried to rotate the sprite- I've tried to adjust it back out (above)- after staring at the pixels for a while it's starting to blur for me regardless. let me know how it looks.
I don't agree on the toes, for two reasons; first, it's a clear point of visual departure from the lower level units, and shifting them to "elephant like" is a reversion. Second, it's a point of personal preference that I like claws on my predators. A wider stance isn't out of the question- and the appearance of that wider stance is actually one of the things I do like about the smaller loincloth... I've not played with it much, I'll have to look and see.


Regardless, I'd like to shift to polishing (and animating) rather than adjusting basic form soon...


random aside, does it bother anyone else that the line advancement is ghoul -> necrophage -> ghast when (mechanically) both the lvl 1 and 2 only eat live stuff (via feeding) and the lvl 3 is the only one to eat dead stuff?



oi, missed a couple things;

beetlenaut; the dots are indeed supposed to be leftover teeth, something I picked up from TSI's paintover and thought might be fun. I meant to get to them first, so that whatever other changes I did they'd propagate through- but I forgot and figured it'd be easier to come back to on the next round of edits.
Trying to put color inside the mouth has, thus far, been solely an exercise in making it less clear what's going on... I've tried to use some varying blacks to give some feeling of depth... some of the experiments just looked bad, and I'm thinking that what I ended up with just won't be noticable.
User avatar
thespaceinvader
Retired Art Director
Posts: 8414
Joined: August 25th, 2007, 10:12 am
Location: Oxford, UK
Contact:

Re: Ghastly

Post by thespaceinvader »

As regards the arms: instead of having it held close into the body, why not have it reaching out already in a slightly grabbing motion? A slightly more dynamic, and hungry, pose.
http://thespaceinvader.co.uk | http://thespaceinvader.deviantart.com
Back to work. Current projects: Catching up on commits. Picking Meridia back up. Sprite animations, many and varied.
User avatar
beetlenaut
Developer
Posts: 2814
Joined: December 8th, 2007, 3:21 am
Location: Washington State
Contact:

Re: Ghastly

Post by beetlenaut »

Darker_Dreams wrote:I think it looks more like a diaper or gratuitous effort at censorship and less like a loincloth at the smaller size
I always thought of it as some random bit of clothes still hanging on, not something he was dressed in. That's why it made sense to me that it would be small (and get smaller as it leveled up). As an aside, the help text actually says the ghouls are naked. If you can find another way to add team color, that would be probably be better.
Darker_Dreams wrote:Trying to put color inside the mouth has, thus far, been solely an exercise in making it less clear what's going on
What about what I did? I used brown to make a tongue, and that's all. (Anything else did indeed make it less clear.) The tongue is not particularly noticeable, but it looks more like a real mouth, even if you don't know why at first.
Campaigns: Dead Water,
The Founding of Borstep,
Secrets of the Ancients,
and WML Guide
User avatar
Vendanna
Posts: 626
Joined: September 16th, 2006, 10:07 pm
Location: Spain

Re: Ghastly

Post by Vendanna »

I made a crappy attemp (Because I'm not good at shading) trying for a more menacing pose.

Basically, I tried to put the arms more open (shoulder going up, and arms going down like an inverted V joint)
Attachments
Separated arms, and broking a ton of pixels in the process ^^U
Separated arms, and broking a ton of pixels in the process ^^U
verycrapattemp.png (3.8 KiB) Viewed 3068 times
"Mysteries are revealed in the light of reason."
User avatar
beetlenaut
Developer
Posts: 2814
Joined: December 8th, 2007, 3:21 am
Location: Washington State
Contact:

Re: Ghastly

Post by beetlenaut »

Too uncomfortable-looking for a standing frame, I think. Maybe it could be the beginning of an attack animation though.
Campaigns: Dead Water,
The Founding of Borstep,
Secrets of the Ancients,
and WML Guide
User avatar
Darker_Dreams
Posts: 608
Joined: February 1st, 2008, 5:26 pm

Re: Ghastly

Post by Darker_Dreams »

Vendanna; I keep looking at that image and thinking; "so that's what the love-child of mr fantastic and the thing would look like" ;-). I'm not sure I like it and I have a hard time justifying that change. I see the shift from lvl 2 -> lvl 3 as the ghoul becoming more of what it is, and that's kindof a tangent. Don't get me wrong, I can see all kinds of alternate advancements where the thing gets extra arms, mouths, strange deformations, etc- I just don't see that as the path of it's primary advancement. It's a tank whose purpose is to consume, and at each stage it should progress towards the end of grinding relentlessly towards its victims and swallowing them whole.

TSI; I did open the hand some as well as shifting it out. let me contemplate how to accomplish that nicely.

beetlenaut;
re: loincloth- looking for more opinions: A) is less better? B) does the current application of the loincloth look good?
I'm looking for consensus wider than a couple people, or a comment from 'on high.' (as much as the prospect of attention from on high actually kinda terrifies me.)
re: tongue; no pun intended, but I'll have to chew on that a bit.
User avatar
Darker_Dreams
Posts: 608
Joined: February 1st, 2008, 5:26 pm

Re: Ghastly

Post by Darker_Dreams »

?
Attachments
mouthy...
mouthy...
comparison shopping3.png (3.58 KiB) Viewed 2977 times
User avatar
Thrawn
Moderator Emeritus
Posts: 2047
Joined: June 2nd, 2005, 11:37 am
Location: bridge of SSD Chimera

Re: Ghastly

Post by Thrawn »

very rough WIP, but what I imagine it's like: as it keeps piling on flesh, it kinda starts being bloated, and the mouth in the stomach becomes an actual mouth. Also, just to again keep up the groteque greediness, a head is forming.

The coloring sucks, and the legs aren't right (I'm gonna make them mostly obscured by stomach, make them smaller ad less wierd.
Attachments
ghast wip.png
ghast wip.png (7.67 KiB) Viewed 2969 times
...please remember that "IT'S" ALWAYS MEANS "IT IS" and "ITS" IS WHAT YOU USE TO INDICATE POSSESSION BY "IT".--scott

this goes for they're/their/there as well
jdsampayo
Posts: 185
Joined: April 1st, 2007, 5:10 pm
Location: Mexico
Contact:

Re: Ghastly

Post by jdsampayo »

Darker_Dreams wrote:jdsampayo; this is back to the eyes/no eyes discussion, and I'm pretty indifferent either way. I'm moving along without, because I'm pretty happy and that's how I've got stuff right now.
Sorry, I didn't read the entire topic :(
In quechquixcauh maniz cemanahuatl, ayc pollihuiz yn itenyo, yn itauhca in Mexico-Tenochtitlan
As long as the world exists, no one will forget the glory and honor of Mexico-Tenochtitlan - Culhuacan memorial
Post Reply