Unit sprites for Invasion from the Unknown/After the Storm

[A-Red]

The facing of the Enforcer is a bit too far from typical perspective--it looks like he's facing almost directly to our right, but I think it could be fixed fairly easily by adding a shoulder and upper arm on that side, and shifting the tail over closer to the center of the image.

[woodmouse]

He's so blue...
I mean, he looks cool, but somehow he seems lower level than the level 2.

[Iris]

It will have to do as a placeholder. The L3 War Drone is going to have more bling.

[woodmouse]

The L3 War Drone is going to have more bling.

Can't wait to see that... Makes me think of Eternal's Draug...

[Iris]

I can't believe that more than a year has passed since I last posted in my own thread.

Of course, this is mainly the result of artistic frustration in two departments: art, and storytelling. I think I've finally managed to overcome that and I may be making greater progress during the following weeks/months. Although I believe I've said that before...

flying-comp-1.png (5.28 KiB) Viewed 5088 times

Thanks to Zerovirus' help, we have a candidate baseframe for Elynia, which now only needs to be animated. Hopefully stern's tutorial will help me along the way once I feel able to concentrate my efforts on this.

elynia_screenshot.png (75.19 KiB) Viewed 5088 times

[bigkahuna]

Definitely a large improvement, but I've always wondered: why is she stretching her arms out...? And the way her legs are positioned makes it appear that she is struggling to stay afloat. [/non_important_artist_comment]

[doofus-01]

The pose seems fine to me, it's better than just having her limbs hanging straight down.

[Iris]

Oh hi topic!
(Topic says hi.)

I guess I haven’t posted for ages here, probably because of my prolonged creativity block, which has also resulted in my crappy pixel art skills severely rusting up in the meantime.

I released AtS 0.5.0 a few days ago including the full first episode (13 scenarios), and I wasted a lot of time designing the gameplay for the final boss fight, and the baseframe for the boss unit itself. Since it’s never been my intention to let artwork development block my progress on the campaign proper (especially when it’s already been blocked by countless other issues), I decided to selectively ignore some of the comments I got on IRC and just get the damn thing ready as soon as possible, so I wouldn’t have to release with the goofy War Drone baseframe placeholder. I guess I can call it mission accomplished, even if that means I had to temporarily do away with my pathological perfectionism. Ugh.

AI0867 and Espreon forced me to make her larger.

queen-progress.png (8.17 KiB) Viewed 4794 times

One of the comments that comes to mind is Gambit’s insinuation about ‘pillows’.

I am trying to address this and the illogical shading of the first half of the sprite’s tail, at the moment. However, I’m unsure I’m doing it right, or at least what I’ve got purportedly corrected at the moment, which comprises the arms, hands and torso. Opinions? Ideas?

Pillow shading in 0.5.0 (left), reshading progress (right).

queen-shading.png (6.19 KiB) Viewed 4794 times

[Lord-Knightmare]

That is one scary-looking shaxthal. Keep up the good work.
As for the bordering , the use of a darkish blue color instead of black would look nicer.

[Deserts]

Elynia !

[artisticdude]

I think the problem you're running into with the arms is that right now they're basically composed out of roundish blobs, which are extremely difficult to shade (especially if they are supposed to be metallic). I'd suggest adding more defined, angular shapes to the arms.That should both enhance the aggressive appearance of the sprite and make it easier to shade. I'll try and knock together an edit later today to illustrate.

Elynia !

?

[Zerovirus]

There's some pretty darn powerful eyeburn from the oversaturated blue shade- I toned it down a lot but in the end it's your choice. I also sort of revamped the arms to get rid of the evil spherical pillowy shapes. I'd recommend highlights with a more stark edge, strong differences between light and dark in an almost cel-shady manner.

[Iris]

Some early thoughts since I’m busier with plot at the moment:

The increased angular appearance makes me think of a machine designed for battle (i.e. what the War Drone should look like), which is not what the Queen is, although I like the right arm pose.

Spoiler:

She is a decoy.

She also appears to have become shorter in the process.

EDIT: oh, ah, the palette. I was considering changing her to a unique palette (a more purple or reddish hue, perhaps), but I’ll see if I can adapt the other units to the suggested changes. I am already having some troubles with that in-game since I appear to have two different versions of the primary palette around.

[homunculus]

looking at highlights on my coffee spoon.
with more than one spoon, there are mutual reflections (though that may look weird):

jcwy4ch5.png (1.54 KiB) Viewed 4651 times

[Superking]

needs more moody filters!