Frogger's art. Possible UMC story art.

[Lx_121]

hey;

1. very cool! i like the 6-legged lizard especially; wish i had one

2. any ideas where/how i could find sprite art that will enlarge enough to do as buttons? (minimum 1-inch disc)

(not sure if it would be better to have the sprites "smooth" or pixel-lated; both maybe? opinions welcomed)

store is in my siggy, but i don't have any sprite designs posted; they don't up-size well enough, none of the ones i've tried

[Frogger5]

Hmmmm.... sprites don't enlarge or scale like vector or other images. It's probably best to keep them the same size only tuck in a couple more. For a one inch disk I'd go for about two sprites or maybe three small ones, like goblins and such. Any more and it will look busy. Also, four is a bad number composition-wise.

[Lx_121]

i understand what you're saying, & "group shots" are a possibility, but i was thinking it would be neat for people to be able to get a mini-button with their favourite character, specifically. i can enlarge the sprites enough onscreen/in-game i just can't get it to work (well enough) with the files when i'm trying to put them on a button. i might try playing around with svg via gimp; haven't really had enough time to get deep into the problem; was hoping there might be a "quick fix" solution i just didn't know about yet...

[Frogger5]

The reason the sprites don't look good enlarged is because they're bitmap. Bitmap only looks good if it remains the size it was created.
No matter how well you try to make them look good larger, it wont work. You could trace the sprites to make them vector, but that is in no way at all, quick and easy.

[Lx_121]

lol; yeah i kno...

hence my desire for an easier way to get what i want, rather than mucking about with gimp (or worse... )


ty for the help/info tho

[Frogger5]

Update of some of my sprites can be viewed in my first post. Have more, but I couldn't add any more attachments. C&C please!

[artisticdude]

You mean you're getting back into art again? Hooray, one more artist to torment with my horrible critique! XD



Axeman

His pose is great, but his helmet seems… distorted. He seems to be looking at the viewer and down, which is kinda weird considering most units look at the bottom right corner.

Longaxeman

This one's more or less finished as far as I can tell.

Longaxe Major

Again, pretty much finished, but I gee the feeling he's not really holding his axe very firmly, probably because his hands are so small. Right now it looks more like he's resting his hands on the pole

Swordsman

This guy looks good also, but there's some weird lighting going on in the middle of his sword, which I can't figure out. His left arm seems a bit short compared to his right, and his left hand is also a bit indistinct.

Fighter

I get the feeling that his arms are out of proportion. It seems his right arm is longer than his left. There are also a bunch of gray pixels surrounding the bow, and I don't really think those are necessary. Perhaps the gold edging on his breastplate could extend to his left a pixel more as well.

Warrior Captain

His legs seem in a rather awkward position, like he's standing on tiptoe with his legs spread apart. His right arm seems longer than his left, and it appears disjointed from his body. The arrow feathers seem a bit straggly as well.

Cold Mage

Nothing much to say here, he's good for me

Serader

I'm trying to figure out why his left arm is the same color as his clothing and his right arm is more of a gray color. Other than that, the outlines on the sword in his left hand seem a bit too dark.

Master Cold Mage

I have trouble reading his hands. The right one gets confused with the gold ornamentation on his staff, probably because the colors are so similar. The left one.. I can't quite figure out its position at all.

Cold Mage Scepter.

His arms seem a bit short in this one as well, and I have trouble reading both his hands. His hood is shaped unnaturally; rather stiff. But perhaps that's intended? His scepter is 100% vertical, which makes it look very unnatural, since that hardly ever happens in the real world.

Spearman

This goy looks goo, except his chin is a bit too large and you might want to move the boss on the shield further to our right.

Phalanx

His shield still looks like it's attached to his body, and the upper and lower edges are shaped differently, which gives the entire shield a misshapen look. The spear is completely vertical as well, and his head appears a bit small compared to the spearman's.

Spear Fighter. Exactly the same problems as the Phalanx.

Fire Mage

His right hand seems a bit distorted, but other than that he looks good.

Master Fire Mage. Again, the staff is completely vertical. The cloak bugs me as well, it seems to drape unnaturally straight, and I'd think it would cover some of his shoulder, since cloaks are usually fattened at the throat. His hood is a different color from the cape, which makes it seem detached.

Horseman

The angle of the spear still seems wrong to me for some reason, but that's just my personal opinion.




All of the red in the units should definitely be replaced with TC if you plan on using this for multiplayer (or for two sides in a single player campaign).

Keep up the good work.

[Frogger5]

Thankyou artisticdude.

Well, this critique all sounds legit to me, so I'd better finnish my homework. Then get spriting.

[Frogger5]

Spoiler:

Boy have I not posted in a while.

Anyway, presenting my first sprite made from scratch!

rat.png (2.73 KiB) Viewed 4184 times

A guy with a thin sword. Probably a thief of some kind.

C&C please!

[shiremct]

Looking good

You have good levels of contrast and definition and the shading is solid. The color choices work well with each other.


Only issues I see are those of shape:
a.) He's pretty tall; this unit might not fit in well along other wesnoth sprites I suspect, if that matters.

b.) His left arm has a strange bend near his wrist. You may be able to simply lighten the outline for a few pixels there to lessen the effect if you don't want much of a bend to his elbow, otherwise, if his arm is gonna bend, it should do so a little higher.

c.) His feet. This is the area that could use the most improvement. Feet are tough for a lot of people tho. Firstly, His left foot is in a pretty good position, but is very flat-looking. To add some depth and perspective to it, try rounding the end of his boot, adding the bulk to the inner side. I would say adding at least two pixels the toe of his boot is a good start and then work that back to the heel, which should stay about the same size (just bulk the toes, not the whole boot.)

His right foot is at an odd angle. This is where it gets tough, but it really should be rotated in to face the viewer more, which means dealing with foreshortening. The same bulking/rounding of the toe (maybe just one pixel here, depending on how you shape/position it) would help give better perspective and depth to the feet. For his right foot, you want to again add the bulk toward his center, as opposed to rounding it on both sides. Feet can be pretty tough to work with, but you have a good start, good job!

[Frogger5]

Spoiler:

Thankyou very much. This all seems valid.

UPDATE:

rat2.png (2.54 KiB) Viewed 4168 times

[shiremct]

A picture is worth a thousand words so I uploaded a quick edit for the feet to illustrate what I meant by bulking up and rounding the toes.

Pasting it into an existing worksheet to do a little tweaking, seeing it alongside existing units, it is giant!

I guess it's a matter of style and there isn't really a "set" location for a light source, but you seem to shade as if it pretty far off to the right of the image, to the point it seems a bit off to me, but as I said, this is subjective; I generally shade as if the light source is almost facing directly into the units facing, kinda lined up with the SE tile transition or somewhere there-abouts. I would say your light-source, tho well-defined, is a bit farther to the right than most standard sprites. There's nothing wrong with that, i just want to point it out.

That thin sword might end up needing an outline, at least on one side, to not get lost in terrain in the game. You'd have to overlay it onto terrain to be sure, but I'm guessing it would.

[Frogger5]

Height is not an issue for this sprite as I am not planning to use it.
As for the boots I prefer the pointed look as the boots were intended to have pointed toes, although the left one is still a wip.
I am aware of the fact that wesnoth units have a light-source from the top right but this is also not an issue for the reason explained above.
The sword is also a wip.

[artisticdude]

I'm not going to say anything about the art at present, but I will remark on the fact that he seems to be leaning on his sword as you would a cane. Presuming that he's supposed to be a gentleman (like the fencer, duelist, etc.), he wouldn't do that for a variety of reasons:

1) It would blunt the tip of his sword and wear/corrode the metal much faster than normal wear and tear ever could

2) It has always been considered rude and unsporting to have a dirty sword (from the earliest days of dueling all the way to the modern sport of fencing), since that shows contempt for the opponent by proclaiming 'I don't care about you or myself enough to even clean my sword'.

[Frogger5]

Spoiler:

Actually he's not supposed to be a gentleman, he's supposed to be a ruffian thief guy. But your absolutely right. I really should've taken these things into consideration when I made the sprite.
Oh well.

Ooooook did some more stuff, came out with a crap sprite and came out with this:

head.png (2.32 KiB) Viewed 4065 times

A headless swordsman. Right now, he's also handless. I tried to make an out stretched hand but it didn't work. And I suck a spriting lightening or auras.