Captain Wrathbow's art

[Captain_Wrathbow]

I in no way consider myself any kind of artist, but just since I don't have much talent with something right now doesn't mean I can't still try it and work on improving. Anyway, I am nowhere near being able to draw even half-decent freehands, so for now I just try to be content with playing around with frankensteins. I am interesting in improving my art skill though, (right now I do little but coding, and I'm really not even too good at that) so please feel free to give critique/comments/suggestions.
My first work I will be posting in this thread:

dark-sentinel.png (3.38 KiB) Viewed 3015 times

A skeleton swordsman. In case it isn't already obvious what the parts are: Bone shooter base, Draug's shield, and Royal Guard's sword.
Instead of making lots of sporadic base frames, I'm going to try to more or less complete one unit before moving on to another. So when I get around to making the animations for this I will try to post them. They (like the base frame) won't be incredible, but will be better than the unit just sliding toward an enemy.
Any helpful comments or advice for a less-than-amateur artist?

[thespaceinvader]

I'd suggest that you make the colours match a little more - for a fairly dim and grungy unit, it's a very bright and shiny sword...

[Captain_Wrathbow]

I'd suggest that you make the colours match a little more - for a fairly dim and grungy unit, it's a very bright and shiny sword...

Heh, yeah, you're right. Thanks. I'll try to fix that.

dark-sentinel.png (3.47 KiB) Viewed 2993 times

Any improvement?

[Issyl]

It would be really cool if you made the blade rusty.

That IS better than the last, though.

[thespaceinvader]

Better indeed. And though rust is difficult to portray at this small scale, it could be doable, if you're subtle about it - put some low opacity oranges and reds around the joint of the blade and hilt, and up the fuller, and see how it looks. I suggest doing it on an additional layer using an 100% opacity tool, and then varying the layer opacity, to give you the option of removing it and changing the strength of colour.

[Captain_Wrathbow]

Thanks for the suggestions everyone!

I gave the rust a try, but it doesn't look that great to me. What can I do to improve it?

no-rust.png (3.52 KiB) Viewed 2900 times

with-rust.png (3.46 KiB) Viewed 2900 times

By the way, I just realized I labeled the files backwards, so no-rust.png has rust and with-rust.png doesn't have rust.

Also, here's an early rough draft of the attack animation. I decided to give it a stabbing animation, just since it's unique and not very commonly seen with swords in Wesnoth units. This is still very WIP. It needs a lot of work and probably another frame or two. (but please do still point out things that need to be fixed. )

dark-sentinel-gif.gif (4.91 KiB) Viewed 2893 times

[Frogger5]

Not NEARLY big enough. (although I'm not sure if I'm one to say so) Remember, he's trying to kill someone, not poke them.
Good job though, especially at making the sword look undead-like.

[thespaceinvader]

The rust is well done - nice job. The animation, however, is difficult - stabbing motions are cool, but might easily be misread as dealing pierce damage. And also, are more difficult to work properly. You need a big slash - unfortunately, there isn't really a good one to copy from in mainline - thoguh the Revenant's might be worth a shot.

[Captain_Wrathbow]

Not NEARLY big enough. (although I'm not sure if I'm one to say so) Remember, he's trying to kill someone, not poke them.

I tried it out in-game and it actually looks better, as he's moving toward the enemy. But yes, you're certainly right. I think this may partly be due to the fact that I haven't added the motion blur yet, and also that it just isn't a far enough thrust. (By the way, what is the best way to do a motion blur for stabbing? Don't just link me to the How to Create Motion Blurs wiki page, that's not what I'm asking.)

The rust is well done - nice job.

Thanks!

The animation, however, is difficult - stabbing motions are cool, but might easily be misread as dealing pierce damage. And also, are more difficult to work properly. You need a big slash - unfortunately, there isn't really a good one to copy from in mainline - thoguh the Revenant's might be worth a shot.

Hmm, that's not encouraging... (not that there is any requirement for you to be totally positive and encouraging. I know you're just giving helpful critique, and I thank you for that. ) So do you propose I ditch the stabbing and try to use a slashing one instead?

[thespaceinvader]

I would, in your place. A piercing motion, to my mind, should be reserved for piercing attacks

[wesfreak]

Alternatively, you could make the sword a tad thinner and call the attack stab and give it pierce. Swords are occaisonally used for stabbing, after all. Maybe a stab and a slash attack, for pierce and blade damage?

[Captain_Wrathbow]

Making a massive slash attack is really intimidating, but I suppose it would be a good way to practice and improve my abilities, so maybe I'll give it a shot... although I really don't want to abandon the stab. Maybe I could make both then have the anim engine randomly choose which one to use each time the unit fights. But then there would still be the appearance and possible misconception that the attack does pierce damage... In any case, I'm probably going to give the slash a try and find way to not exclude the stab.

[Issyl]

I like the idea of making it two distinct attacks, especially if this is the only weapon he'll be using.
I've always thought Wesnoth never really did represent the way swords were versatile.

[thespaceinvader]

No, it doesn't - I've thought about using sword-point pierce attacks for a long while. But in the end, it's a representative game, not a reaslistic game. If we were being realistic, everyone would have impact attacks, for instance, because we all have fists, hilts, spear-butts etc.

I think that the use of bladed weapons only to do blade damage is simply to keep things logical and simple.

[A-Red]

No, it doesn't - I've thought about using sword-point pierce attacks for a long while. But in the end, it's a representative game, not a reaslistic game. If we were being realistic, everyone would have impact attacks, for instance, because we all have fists, hilts, spear-butts etc.

Not to mention that if you hit an armored person with a sword, you're basically dealing impact damage. Now that would get *really* complicated