Khalifate facelift: Redux

[X-Site]

The overhaul is great and the new style is fitting the old one while being polished without being to different.
There is much potential in these new base frames. I especially like the new Ekim.

[thespaceinvader]

ARISE FROM YOUR GRAAAAVE!

Sadly, sleepwalker has not been on the forum for nearly a year. After much persuading, noy's managed to get me on board doing base frames (for the moment) for the Kalifa, whilst I have a little time on my hands (i'll be doing some mainline work too, I REALLY want to get those drakes finished). SO:

We begin with continuing the Amir line - the Arif and the Immortal. Some of you may recognise some bits of these guys from an old project of mine. I REALLY wanted to see them used. And they fitted. So here they are. I included the Amir, for comparison purposes.

[Boucman]

yay califa resurected

I really would like to see that faction mainlined..

[Cloud]

I agree Bouncman.

Hmm I think their helms might be a touch wide for my liking, and as difficult as it is a little variation in pose between levels would be nice to see. Nice work on the shields and spears, I'm really liking that concept

[thespaceinvader]

Yeah, maybe a little. I also need to fix up the shading a little, i think, to make the metal a little more metallic. As for stances... there's a lot of units yet to come. Forgive me more making a couple of the stocky defensive ones in stocky defensive postures

[StDrake]

not a problem with some stockyness, but was it intentional that the arif looks so bent forward? mostly with his head - i got a feeling it could use moving a pixel or two to the left

[thespaceinvader]

Maybe i shifted it a little far, you're right. Another item on the list for fixings

[Max]

Amir looks a bit grainy/pixelated. i'm aware it's because of all the chain-mail... i don't get this impression on Arif/Immortal - it's more obvious that it's chain-mail there...

[thespaceinvader]

Amir's not my work, I just posted it for comparison. However, I will probably be giving sleepwalker's old stuff a quick once over to improve certain things, and I'll take a look at that as I do.

[Zerovirus]

The helmet, and armor to some extent, of both units, looks more plastic than metal to me. The Amir's helmet had those really awesome metal highlights, but the next two seem to be rather lacking in that department.

[thespaceinvader]

Yep, I need to rework the metal highlights. I started out doing a simple recolour of the older project, but it needs some work. This evening, or tomorrow.

EDIT: first shot at improving the issue.

[Zerovirus]

New shading helps a lot.

Not sure what's going on with the Immortal's chest armor, but that's probably because I have absolutely no expertise in realistic armor.

Also, I think the Immortal could do with a bit more distinguishment. There's nothing new on him; he just gets bigger versions of the Arif's stuff. Bigger spear. Bigger shield. Bigger Armor-pieces. Bigger helmet.

Maybe a piece of cloth TC on the helmet? Something?

[thespaceinvader]

A plume could work. I like the spike, too, but a plume is an easy way of adding that certain je ne sais quoi

[doofus-01]

The shoulder pad and mouth-guard of arif.png sort of have a tangent (or common outline?) along their top, making them merge a bit. I'm not really sure how to fix it, maybe make the helmet darker? But that might only work for magenta...

[thespaceinvader]

I see what you mean. I'll address it.