Descent into Darkness Campaign: Giant Rat Revision

Contribute art for mainline Wesnoth.

Moderator: Forum Moderators

Forum rules
Before posting critique in this forum, you must read the following thread:
Post Reply
User avatar
Stern
Art Contributor
Posts: 154
Joined: September 23rd, 2008, 6:23 pm

Descent into Darkness Campaign: Giant Rat Revision

Post by Stern »

Having practiced for a bit on my Gremlin Era, I would like to try something new by developing a mainline quality graphic for inclusion in the Descent into Darkness campaign. There is a unit in Descent into Darkness called a Giant Rat, but the graphic itself shows a swarm of little rats instead of a single giant rat. I would like to try to draw/animate a mainline quality giant rat to replace the swarm of little rats. I believe that by improving this graphic, it would bring into focus what the orginal author of the campaign wanted to portray in the game.
I took the liberty to interpret a giant rat as being as large as a human, therefore being a giant to rats. I decided not to take into account that a giant rat could in fact be giant to humans as this would make the Giant Rat be about the size of a troll or dragon. To give the rat character I gave it a hunched back and large claws. I created a rough draft of the sprite focusing on the new giant rat's new posture and form. The graphic is drawn in flat colors for now. Proper shading and colors will be added later.
The old giant rat and a rough draft of the new giant rat are attached below for comparison. Let me know what you think of the Giant Rat's posture and whether or not it looks natural.
Attachments
giant-rat.png
giant-rat.png (804 Bytes) Viewed 4673 times
giant_rat_standing.png
giant_rat_standing.png (1.92 KiB) Viewed 4673 times
Doing things one step at a time. Current Project: Speckles the Toad!
User avatar
thespaceinvader
Retired Art Director
Posts: 8414
Joined: August 25th, 2007, 10:12 am
Location: Oxford, UK
Contact:

Re: Descent into Darkness Campaign: Giant Rat Revision

Post by thespaceinvader »

I think making it anthro is a mistake. A simple giant rat would be fine.
http://thespaceinvader.co.uk | http://thespaceinvader.deviantart.com
Back to work. Current projects: Catching up on commits. Picking Meridia back up. Sprite animations, many and varied.
User avatar
Stern
Art Contributor
Posts: 154
Joined: September 23rd, 2008, 6:23 pm

Re: Descent into Darkness Campaign: Giant Rat Revision

Post by Stern »

I changed the anthropomorphic giant rat into a more realistic rat. Does the form/pose look better?
Attachments
giant_rat_standing.png
giant_rat_standing.png (1.43 KiB) Viewed 4616 times
Doing things one step at a time. Current Project: Speckles the Toad!
User avatar
melinath
Posts: 1298
Joined: May 20th, 2009, 7:42 am

Re: Descent into Darkness Campaign: Giant Rat Revision

Post by melinath »

Pose looks decent (maybe a bit too crouchy) but it's rather large, even for a giant rat. It should probably be more horse-/wolf-sized, if not smaller.
User avatar
thespaceinvader
Retired Art Director
Posts: 8414
Joined: August 25th, 2007, 10:12 am
Location: Oxford, UK
Contact:

Re: Descent into Darkness Campaign: Giant Rat Revision

Post by thespaceinvader »

melinath wrote:Pose looks decent (maybe a bit too crouchy) but it's rather large, even for a giant rat. It should probably be more horse-/wolf-sized, if not smaller.
Definitely smaller. Maybe up to knee height on the average unit - batt sized, but without the wings. It's a level 0 with minimal HP, remember.
http://thespaceinvader.co.uk | http://thespaceinvader.deviantart.com
Back to work. Current projects: Catching up on commits. Picking Meridia back up. Sprite animations, many and varied.
User avatar
Speedbrain
Posts: 137
Joined: August 10th, 2009, 9:51 pm
Location: Utah, USA

Re: Descent into Darkness Campaign: Giant Rat Revision

Post by Speedbrain »

I think what comes to mind is the R.O.U.S. from the Princess Bride movie.
User avatar
Stern
Art Contributor
Posts: 154
Joined: September 23rd, 2008, 6:23 pm

Re: Descent into Darkness Campaign: Giant Rat Revision

Post by Stern »

I have been tinkering with the size of the Giant Rat and I made him a great deal smaller. Is this a good size for the Giant Rat?
Attachments
giant_rat_standing3.png
giant_rat_standing3.png (1.28 KiB) Viewed 4524 times
Doing things one step at a time. Current Project: Speckles the Toad!
User avatar
Zarel
Posts: 700
Joined: July 15th, 2009, 8:24 am
Location: Minnesota, USA
Contact:

Re: Descent into Darkness Campaign: Giant Rat Revision

Post by Zarel »

I think we went a bit too far in the "small" direction. It is a giant rat, after all... it should be relatively clear that it's not a normal-sized rat.
Proud creator of the :whistle: smiley | I prefer the CC-0 license.
stimj
Posts: 85
Joined: June 2nd, 2009, 1:05 am

Re: Descent into Darkness Campaign: Giant Rat Revision

Post by stimj »

I like that size. Though you'll need to fix the outline where his haunches turn into the tail. There's something funky going on back there.
Sangel
Moderator Emeritus
Posts: 2232
Joined: March 26th, 2004, 10:58 pm
Location: New York, New York

Re: Descent into Darkness Campaign: Giant Rat Revision

Post by Sangel »

melinath wrote:Pose looks decent (maybe a bit too crouchy) but it's rather large, even for a giant rat. It should probably be more horse-/wolf-sized, if not smaller.
On the other hand, a unit of that size would serve nicely as a L3 "Truly Giant Rat"...
"Pure logic is the ruin of the spirit." - Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
User avatar
Thrawn
Moderator Emeritus
Posts: 2047
Joined: June 2nd, 2005, 11:37 am
Location: bridge of SSD Chimera

Re: Descent into Darkness Campaign: Giant Rat Revision

Post by Thrawn »

I'd say that given the size of the mice in the rat swarm, that would work.
...please remember that "IT'S" ALWAYS MEANS "IT IS" and "ITS" IS WHAT YOU USE TO INDICATE POSSESSION BY "IT".--scott

this goes for they're/their/there as well
User avatar
Stern
Art Contributor
Posts: 154
Joined: September 23rd, 2008, 6:23 pm

Re: Descent into Darkness Campaign: Giant Rat Revision

Post by Stern »

Theres has been some discussion going around about how big a Giant Rat actually is. Therefore attached to this post is a graphic of a character from the Descent into Darkness Campaign and various sizes of Giant Rats. To get the correct size for a Giant Rat, we need to use the character as a make shift measuring stick to compare with. Which Giant Rat do you think seems to best fit a level 0 unit?
Attachments
Ratcomparison.png
Ratcomparison.png (4.43 KiB) Viewed 4294 times
Doing things one step at a time. Current Project: Speckles the Toad!
User avatar
thespaceinvader
Retired Art Director
Posts: 8414
Joined: August 25th, 2007, 10:12 am
Location: Oxford, UK
Contact:

Re: Descent into Darkness Campaign: Giant Rat Revision

Post by thespaceinvader »

I'd probably go with the middle one personally, in that it's roughly the same size as the level 0 bat. But you'd need, i think, to do something about making the tail and feet darker and more easily visible.
http://thespaceinvader.co.uk | http://thespaceinvader.deviantart.com
Back to work. Current projects: Catching up on commits. Picking Meridia back up. Sprite animations, many and varied.
User avatar
beetlenaut
Developer
Posts: 2814
Joined: December 8th, 2007, 3:21 am
Location: Washington State
Contact:

Re: Descent into Darkness Campaign: Giant Rat Revision

Post by beetlenaut »

thespaceinvader wrote:But you'd need, i think, to do something about making the tail and feet darker and more easily visible.
I don't know about that. The rat is only used in a cave, so they will be plenty visible. The tail does need to be more limp. Rats drag their tails instead of holding them out like that. I like the size of the middle one too.
Attachments
rats_in_a_cave.png
rats_in_a_cave.png (26.73 KiB) Viewed 4180 times
Campaigns: Dead Water,
The Founding of Borstep,
Secrets of the Ancients,
and WML Guide
User avatar
thespaceinvader
Retired Art Director
Posts: 8414
Joined: August 25th, 2007, 10:12 am
Location: Oxford, UK
Contact:

Re: Descent into Darkness Campaign: Giant Rat Revision

Post by thespaceinvader »

However, if it turns out good enough, there's every chance it will go into mainline and be used elsewhere too ;)
http://thespaceinvader.co.uk | http://thespaceinvader.deviantart.com
Back to work. Current projects: Catching up on commits. Picking Meridia back up. Sprite animations, many and varied.
Post Reply