Wose shaman

[thespaceinvader]

Hopefully a touch more balanced now - I agree that the head looks better a little higher up, but not that mcuh higher.

[Zerovirus]

I didn't get to say how cool and awesome this was. This is cool and awesome to a very high order of magnitude.

[Jetrel]

Shapewise it looks great, but I'd make some of the more outlying leaves a tad sparse. Like so:

wose-shaman.png (6.92 KiB) Viewed 4421 times

Also, you have GOT to stop banding/stairstepping like that! Key example on the nose. You keep making this mistake over and over. (As a consolation, you are indeed, over on the portraits, starting to "flatten and simplify", which is really, really helping.)

WRT to this wose's fingers, never do this "light on the edge, and ramping down" look. It doesn't correspond to any RL lighting schema that could affect an object of this shape. It's bad, wrong, and evil, and you've done it on dozens of curved "simplifies to a cylinder" shapes, such as drake tails, and the sea serpent. You have got to stop falling into this - it's a bad habit.

I know what it's like to fall into something like that, when you're deep in a drawing, want the thing to get finished, and just start running on autopilot. You have to fight that "autopilot" mode, because "the way you've always done it before" is wrong.

Remember, specular highlights DO NOT FACE THE LIGHT SOURCE. They're at the spot halfway between "facing the light source", and "facing the camera". That's a huge, huge difference in terms of perception. It means in this case the highlight should be 1/3 of the way in from the edge. In order for the highlight to be on the edge of a cylindrical surface, the light source would have to be completely behind the object - that is why this is never valid for wesnoth sprites, ever.

Left: old, right: fixed

[Zerovirus]

I'm sure I'm not the only one speaking when I say that Jet's post taught me more about spriting than a month of pixelpushing.

[A-Red]

Yeah. Particularly the example. I knew the facts more or less, but every time I try to keep the light in from the edge I get told I'm pillowing--it's tough to find the balance on a shape that small, but Jetrel makes it look effortless, and the example provided is extremely helpful in showing how it's actually accomplished.

[Moribund]

I saw the newest pic without seeing the earlier pics of just the trunk and no greenery, and it looked really weird to me. I didn't even think that it could be a large curve under all the green stuff, I just thought his head was attached in a funny way.

It looked really really good after I saw the early pics and realized it was kind of a hump. Just thinking that maybe other people won't be able to read the sprite very well unless they've seen the naked version.

[thespaceinvader]

D'oy. Still doing it. I thought I'd broken myself of that particular bad habit >.< I might do a couple of things to that - in particular fixing the fact that the highlight on his nose, as well as being in the right place, had gotten a lot wider, which makes the nose look wide and flat rather than tall and narrow, but the others, couldn't agree more.

The annoying thing being that I was explaining that very point to someone on IRC the other day, so I clearly remember it exists dammit.

SO yeah, that does look better.

EDIT: kickback: bit of fixing on the nose, including making it a little thinner and longer; and trying to bring out the nostril bit a little more; bit of fiddling with the forefinger and thumb, which had lost a little of their pointy feel; and a tiny tweak to the eyes, which felt a little like they weren't quite level. Animations will be interesting, thanks to all the dangling leaves. Kinematics are FUN!

[Jetrel]

D'oy. Still doing it. I thought I'd broken myself of that particular bad habit >.< ....
The annoying thing being that I was explaining that very point to someone on IRC the other day, so I clearly remember it exists dammit.

I know the feeling. I really do.

There are quite a few things I know I should do, which I fail to follow, myself. Hopefully if we all keep watching each other's backs, we'll get better, faster.

[woodmouse]

Woah. Nice. I like it really REALLY much. I hope you don't mind that I post this... But I just thought I'd have to say it, because it really rocks.
THOUGH, I know I shouldn't post critic because I'm not an art person, but anyway:
Feel free to ignore, but I somehow think the left hand looks a bit... swollen and plastic-like.

[thespaceinvader]

MM, I felt it had maybe gotten a little bigger/flatter. I'll re-examine it before I animate.

[Aura]

His left hand reminds me more of a closed lobster claw or a curled up armadillo than a hand. Is it meant to be like this ?

[thespaceinvader]

His left, or our left? The one in a fist?

It's a fist, but it's slightly amorphous fist, by intention. he doesn't have bones, after all.

[Aura]

Oops, I meant our left. Now I look again I can tell what it is meant to be, but at first glance it gives the impression of a ball/oval shape with horizontal ridges down it.

[thespaceinvader]

I'm going to do some simple animations from this version - attack, defence, magic. Hopefully, I should be able to do this reasonably quickly, but I'll do them from the tree skeleton first and add the leaves later. So here that bit is...

[Trilby]

It's interesting, even though the Wose is clear from this, I can still visualise the foliage covered sprite in a very different pose. I thought you might be ineterested...

Where the the roots spread, I can still decipher this as it's hand -as is if the Wose is crouching/squatting, so where the fist ended branch emerges from the leaves, I picture this as a knee-cap from it's covered leg.

I just wondered whether anyone else saw this, because I actually think it would be quite a neat design. Not like you're wanting a complete redesign, but still...