Unit sprites for Invasion from the Unknown/After the Storm

[shadowmaster]

The artwork in these earlier pages of the thread is horribly outdated. Nowadays it has been completely replaced in favor of my latest upgrades. In those early days I had no clue about spriting, I guess...

Please refer to the last pages if you are looking for good enough artwork. Thanks.
-- Shadow Master

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Original post:

Not really an attempt, I'd like to learn till achieving expertise.

In any case, here goes, my sprited version of myself and my attempt at enhancing the Elvish Shyde (GIMP xcf only, I forgot to bring the PNG; I'll replace it as soon as possible).

My shading style involves using colours from palettes of known pictures, and also taking advantage of GIMP's alpha-channel-wise pencil drawing tool. Usually I take the colour I want to degrade from and start drawing pixels of 50% opacity, 30% and 10% in direction to the final gradient colour.

The Shadow Master sprite's armour was taken from Spearman's base frame, recoloured with GIMP hue-brightness-saturation controls, and partially modified by hand. The arms were recoloured and re-shaped from the same base frame, but the hands were drawn from scratch by me. The boots were drawn from scratch based on Swordsman's feet.

The Shyde's hair lowest part was drawn from scratch. I made some changes in her face and I'm trying to enhance her dress. I also still have to complete her legs. Basically the rest of her frame was directly taken from Wesnoth 1.3.6 base frame file, although I deleted a great part of it.
For removing her wings, which are transparent, I had to remove them pixel by pixel with only the alpha channel visible.

EDIT: removed XCF version to save space on wesnoth forum attachment's server. Look for the PNG version in the replies below.

[BloodIssyl]

mmm, the sprite of yourself looks rather good, IMO, although the "fists" look a little awkward in that he seems to be bending them back.

[shadowmaster]

Yeah, but I don't know how to improve it, nor can get the correct posture for a standing unit. They are robotical hands.

I attach the PNG version of my attempt at improving Elvish Shyde's base frame. Hope you like it. I need suggestions on making her look like an actual Level 3 unit (say, she should look a little more impressive), but first, let's check the background details, such as her hair and basic shape, which is the only part I've done as of now. I'll add later components once these are ready.

What do you think of her hairdo?

Apart from impressive, I want to make her look more... powerful. You see, an Elvish Shyde isn't supposed to be a little nice girl, but a defender of nature. Legend has it that they become quite aggressive when offended.

Did I mention that the Elvish Shyde used in BFW 0.9.6+ is what made me fell in love with this game?

[Shadow]

Huh the shyde looks already quite powerfull. I don't know where to improve it and the hair is already top notch.

[BloodIssyl]

Yes the original doesn't need to be altered.

Although MAYBE a slight aura?

[shadowmaster]

Right, the mainline graphics are already good. In such case, I could use this for my own unit anyway (or avatar).

[Jetrel]

Apart from impressive, I want to make her look more... powerful. You see, an Elvish Shyde isn't supposed to be a little nice girl, but a defender of nature. Legend has it that they become quite aggressive when offended.

Did I mention that the Elvish Shyde used in BFW 0.9.6+ is what made me fell in love with this game?

Little history lesson, then:

0.9.6 is probably the third image from the right (e.g. the first one after the stretch where she had green hair). At this point I had a CRT, and the pixels blended together enough that it looked as smooth as the next version does. As soon as I got an LCD, it looked jagged and terrible, and I quickly worked to fix this in a lot of our art, not just the shyde.

I tried making her outfit TC in the most recent one, but that didn't pan out; it was just too bold with most colors. Changing her outfit to grey, I thought, really helped her to look more appropriate in a forest setting, since the interior of most forests is heavily grey and brown; it's only the ceiling that's predominantly green. It's best to have a mix of all three, rather than a bright green splash.


Adding a healing animation to the shyde was actually one of my first sprite contributions to the game. Fmuñoz was our lead artist at the time.

[Shadow]

Right, the mainline graphics are already good. In such case, I could use this for my own unit anyway (or avatar).

No offence meant I just pointed out that the hair would need the least changes it can't get much better.

[shadowmaster]

0.9.6 is probably the third image from the right (e.g. the first one after the stretch where she had green hair).

I didn't notice any difference when switching from 0.9.6 to 1.0.2, nor from 1.0.2 to 1.1.2b. I guess that was because I had a CRT monitor then. When I switched to 1.1.10, I had already a LCD, and IIRC she was already team-coloured.

I tried making her outfit TC in the most recent one, but that didn't pan out; it was just too bold with most colors.

Perhaps the engine should provide a more complex team colouring in the future, perhaps in version 1.6 or something. I can think of a good method, anyway, because by all means it would a) use more disk space or b) use more a larger memory space for the program.

Changing her outfit to grey...

I don't know if it's my eyes, but I see it's a greenish gray in the 1.2.x, 1.3.x line. Almost unnoticeable, though.

... really helped her to look more appropriate in a forest setting, since the interior of most forests is heavily grey and brown; it's only the ceiling that's predominantly green. It's best to have a mix of all three, rather than a bright green splash.

Um, right, I thought the same. However, before uploading the frame I made, I recoloured my gray version of the dress for some unknown reason. I guess I'll recolour it again back to greenish gray.

I just pointed out that the hair would need the least changes it can't get much better.

Not sure about this, but I kind of dislike the current official hair, it's like it looked like (?) *dry*. And the little pieces of wood and leaves in her hair are not noticeable enough.

In any case, I'm trying to put my mental image of her in the sprite, not sure if you understand what I mean. Probably a portrait would do a lot better, but I just suck at drawing portraits, and certainly my attempt last year was horrible (no, I didn't upload it here I keep it in my HD backups, though).

However, something I noticed while drawing this version, is that her skin colours (of the BFW 1.2.x/1.3.x pictures) is slightly different from that of other elvish units.

[Weeksy]

While you're doing this, would it be possible to get you to do a 'desert' version using newer sprites? the UtBS version is very outdated, and looks rather crudely done compared to what I'm used to.

[shadowmaster]

I doubt that. I just want to say that what you call "my artwork" is actually edited pieces of other people. I do no artwork on my own, only minor edits to existing ones. Edits that rarely improve them. But I use "my artwork" for my own amusement anyway...

So could somebody tell me what's wrong with her belly?

The staff was stolen from one of the unit pictures used in "Saving Elensefar". Her right leg was stolen from the current Elvish Enchantress base frame; it's only the lower part of her dress and completely her left leg what I drew from scratch.

[Shadow]

She stretches it out too much.
Though you got better.

[shadowmaster]

Alright, after playing around with her stomach for, like, 3 hours, I think I finally got the cause of her pregnancy, and it seems to have been my fault... with her shape *and* shading, apart from the little TC-colour thingie in her belly, which I decided to remove while I find a solution for it.
EDIT: and updated the avatar accordingly.
EDIT2: and again, for I modified her boots' colouring and shading, to fit that of other elves.

[shadowmaster]

Some edit, combined parts of my first attempt, i.e. hair and eyes.

[Sabata]

Some edit, combined parts of my first attempt, i.e. hair and eyes.

I prefer the old one =/