Zero's art

[Zerovirus]

Hey Melinath! Remember what I said about the Steel Boltstriker's baseframe sucking ass? And that I had improved and could redo it better?

Lol yup. Comparison time.

Old:

It sucked. Bad.
New:

I removed cluttered and messy pixeling, revamped the orbiting blades with more coolness, and made the Lightning less... tangled. Overall I like this version a lot better.

And now it's time for a Pokenoth battle! Encountered wild Steelhive Era! Go, Melinath! I choose you! Use WML Editing Powers To Make The Steel Boltstriker A Lot Cooler! It's super effective! Wild Steelhive Era is Updated! Melinath gains 12 XP! Melinath leveled up! Melinath learned...

*Gets slapped by melinath*

Sorry. Maybe I went a bit overboard with that. Anyways go do it Melinath...

EDIT:
I was on the Multiplayer chatting with Jogadar. You should remember him, Melinath.

We came up with an awesome idea.

Elves can recruit Woses.

Woses are, in shape, basically big trees.

Elvish Rangers can hide in forests.

Result?

We fused the Elvish Ranger and the Wose to create a perpetually invisible unit that can hide anywhere. The wose cah carry up to 6 Elvish Rangers.

Armored Transport Wose, ready for Deployment! XD

[StDrake]

I admit, the new detail and shading is great!
just one question - are you sure to resign from those parts of electric beams between.."wings" arching out of bonds into surroundings?

[melinath]

Zerovirus, you are a ridiculous being.

Graphics updated. Will upload a new version soon. Looks great! I have to agree with StDrake, though - part of what made the boltstriker so awesome-looking was the wild electricity between the wings.

[Zerovirus]

Alright then. Hope you're not too annoyed when I make a new version later with wild electricity and tell you to upload it.

[wesfreak]

i like the new boltstriker better.


that post was very, very random.

i'll do the blue fire thing. it won't be hard, but will probably be time consuming, so i should be able to do it. this way melinath can do the other tedious, time consuming things involving the factions.

[melinath]

wesfreak: I would honestly prefer not to do any graphics for Steelhive; the programming takes up enough time as it is. However, I actually kind of like where I'm going with the welding torch. If you want to, you're welcome to continue working on it, and if you make one better than mine, I will happily use it. However, here are some icons you could work on that I haven't started:

1. a better attack icon for the sentient.
2. an AMLA icon for the sentient's engine upgrade.
3. an AMLA icon for the sentient's hull construction upgrade.

Zerovirus: Of course you're welcome to work on these too but I figured you've got enough to do with the units or you would've volunteered or given them a shot back when I posted that horrid collision graphic.

[wesfreak]

a mistake on my part: i thought you already made the weld-heal animation with red fire, and i would just have to recolour it. looks like i signed myself up for more then i bargained for... i'll still do it though.

i'm done the engine. you already had one made, in the misc section for art. i just recoloured it to suit the steelhive steel colour.

for the weld, i think it should use the blowtorch icons, not the light-saber ones.

i will try to make a construction icon, but don't keep your hopes up. the only thing i ever hand drew was a trident, and that wasn't even good.

my idea for it is an up arrow in front of an outline of the sentient.

EDIT: tried a new collision. didn't try hard yet, though; just a rough sketch. i tried to erase some of melinath's to make the collision lines look less unnatural. not much of a change though. what do you think?

[melinath]

I should clarify: I don't consider my weld attack icon finished. I plan on making it more like the previous version and less like a light saber.

Also, for the engine: The version I have in the era images folder is a WIP. You can try to finish it if you like, but a recolor is not what it needs.

We could definitely use a recolor of the drake's fire missile, though. At this moment, that might be more useful than the icons.

In terms of construction: The up-arrow isn't a bad idea, but if it's just next to the zoomed sentient, it's not really worth the effort. I was thinking along the lines of a close-up view of the hull plating. Like how in Warcraft you can upgrade attacks (pic of the weapon) or defense (pic of the shield).

[wesfreak]

we could use up arrow plus plating, plus armour or plus shield, i guess.
i think one problem would be finding a good up arrow.


i'm experiencing some problems with the animation: i can't fit all of the fire into the picture. if anyone could tell me how i could expand the area of the image?

here is the first (and last) frame of the animation. the other fire animations wouldn't fit.
not very sure about from where the fire should come out of on this one. from all of the leg spike things? or just from one? or the center?

[Zerovirus]

Zerovirus: Of course you're welcome to work on these too but I figured you've got enough to do with the units or you would've volunteered or given them a shot back when I posted that horrid collision graphic.

Actually, first, I was too lazy to work on them (I have a life too, complete with piano and painting lessons), and second, I'm not that good with GIMP yet. I can't even do a good lineart. Just a question, do you guys who are good at GIMP and Photoshop use the mouse or do you guys have a tablet? If you guys use a tablet I might just have to go and buy one...

@ Wesfreak: You don't have to do the Repairer repairing animation. I know what I'm going to do for it so you just sit back and relax.

And, no offense, but that engine sucks. I think I should just give GIMP a run and see if my skills have improved with all the tuts I've been reading.

[melinath]

Wesfreak:

Re the collision edit: the problem was not the collision lines, but rather the big pixelated sentient - it needs more resolution.

Re the repairer attack: The recolor is all right, but the request wasn't for fire attached to a welder, just for fire. Don't worry about where it comes out. The project is a recolor of the data/core/images/projectiles/fire-breath-* images. Just a recolor. Same size. Same shape. Not attached. Start with the ne sprites.

Zero: I would be very happy if you would take the engine off my hands. Just to clear my name, here's the WIP version that wesfreak recolored:

engine.png (5.33 KiB) Viewed 3868 times

Here's the ref.
I wasn't planning on posting it here for a while - say, until it was more or less *solid* at least - but if you're taking over, then I'll just stop working on it.

Oh, and the good people do use tablets.

[Zerovirus]

Oh, and the good people do use tablets.

I read that and I instantly said in my mind:

F***!!!

Darn it. Now I have to persuade my parents to allow me to buy a Tablet for artistic purposes...

[TheJM]

You don't really need a tablet if you do pixel-art though.. It generally works just as well if not better to use a mouse.

[melinath]

In other news, here's a new version of the weld attack:

weld.png (5.99 KiB) Viewed 3851 times

Getting better?

And here's an attempt at drawing the improved hull construction icon for the sentient, using LordBob's metal tutorial:

hull2.png (3.86 KiB) Viewed 3851 times

Obviously only the one plate has been shaded so far. I want to make sure that the style I'm using fits with the steelhive faction before I do any more work on it.

Here's the palette I used for the hull, if you want it, Zerohive. I don't really want to do the new collision graphic. I just don't have the time.

palette.gif (184 Bytes) Viewed 3849 times

[Zerovirus]

Well, not everyone is able to appreciate good pixelart. Good portraits, on the other hand...

That hull plate and weld look very good. Definitely suitable. I'll see if I can do something with the remaining plates, but the turbine is too complex
for me as of yet.