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The dragon(cat)'s shiny pixels: 4/2/2015 Extreme Makeover: OC edition


Dragoncat
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I don't really see any changes to the dog tails... o.O

The tiger stripes are pretty cool though! I didn't add stripes to mine. I just find they're not noticeable enough on the actual tiger laguz to warrant being added to the sprite.

Edited by Anacybele
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The ends of the tails have been filled out. Just a few pixels though...made them look less pointy/whatever at the end. But ML said they don't look like that to him, and he's one of the best spriters here, so...

Yeah, the 3d models kinda have muted stripes.

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You have a pretty serious pillow shading case, probably most obvious where the front legs meet the chest. Would suggest looking at Mauthe/beast sprites and copying how they shade.

Also not really sure why you're keeping with the monochromatic scheme? That'd solve the fox tail issue.

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Here is an example of a fox tail...

turtle-co-lost-boy-fox-tail-ear-set-2233

I would suggest you do some references on actual wolf/fox/coyote tails... As I don't really get why the tails are at the angles they are right now... They look... Stiff and pointed... Which combined with the unfortunate resemblance to certain anatomy I now can not unsee(:p thanks Ana >.<) is... Not so good.

Shading needs some work too, looks very pillowed, I would suggest looking at the shading of the mauthe dog fur parts... Seems to be improving somewhat at least? I actually kinda like the wolf, the fox and the coyote don't have the right body type/ear shapes though.

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Yeeeah, sorry about that, ErrantShepherd. xP

I do agree on the pillow shading thing too. I remember people have said he same on some of your past sprites, and it can be a bit annoying to hear it again... Trust me, I felt this way. But after awhile, I finally succeeded in going away from it, so I know you can too! :)

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Pillow shading again? Ugh. Suppose I could look at pixel fur tutorials or something to that nature, but would that even work on something of this size? And the bases have too much fluff/two colors.

I've looked up pixel shading tutorials and they're either "this is pillow shading, don't do it" without saying how to avoid it, or tailored to non spriting, stuff you just make for arts sake without wanting them to look like they come from a game. If anyone can direct me to one that's not those I'd be grateful.

As far as the tails go, that cosplay fox tail really won't transfer well into pixels. I mean it's a reference, but not a very useful one imo. You said they were stiff looking. Should I curve them like the beast tails? Might be hard because they're shorter.

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Yeah, all of your Laguz really don't have a good resemblance to their real word counterparts, which isn't exactly a good thing. The... dog? Laguz, particularly the Coyote and the Fox, look nothing like actual coyotes or foxes. They aren't nearly as tall as a wolf (typical foxes are actually half the size of a wolf) and foxes have longer tails comparatively, they reach the ground while wolf and coyote tails go about halfway down their legs

Here's a pic that shows all three, showing their differences in size https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-8q9antPWHXk/VLnUd_3UVcI/AAAAAAAAADY/KPHPz0ndYvE/%25255BUNSET%25255D.png

And is there a reason you're using so few colors? Using so few only helps to make it look more pillowshaded and limits the amount of detail you can put into the sprites.

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I've used a fur reference.

untitled_by_rubydragoncat-d8lutc0.png

Let me know if this looks better, if it does I'll work on the tail next. And sprites have a 16 color limit. I generally use 3 shades for each color, that's what battle sprites usually have right? I can add a 4th shade if you think that will help.

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This is an extreeeemely quick edit

gBUKH.png

and the workspace I used to get that far.

You need to break loose of the Mauthe base you began with and try some modifications. If possible stick with referencing photos or FE sprites for now, using other spriting styles without also borrowing their palette won't give you the right result.

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That's helpful, but I don't want it to look entirely like the real life fox. If laguz looked identical to the animals they're based on, I can see somebody coming across a wolf and thinking "laguz or wild animal?" It's fantasy. It doesn't have to be that way.

Using more of the lightest shade huh? Can do.

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You can recolor it to your liking then, Dcat! The generic cat laguz is a yellow color, and you don't see yellow cats in real life, so you can do something like that. :P

You can also add accessories like I've done. The cat laguz have glove things on their ankles, for example. And in Kiara's case, she has bows.

Edited by Anacybele
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Even so, there is no reason for three separate species to look almost exactly the same. There is almost literally no difference between your fox and coyote, and it makes both incredibly bland. How am I supposed to know the difference between them offhand? That one of them is red and the other is tan-ish? Palette swapping is not a good way to differentiate your characters

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You can recolor it to your liking then, Dcat! The generic cat laguz is a yellow color, and you don't see yellow cats in real life, so you can do something like that. :P

True. Heck, I'll make the coyote white and the fox silver...maybe.

Even so, there is no reason for three separate species to look almost exactly the same. There is almost literally no difference between your fox and coyote, and it makes both incredibly bland. How am I supposed to know the difference between them offhand? That one of them is red and the other is tan-ish? Palette swapping is not a good way to differentiate your characters

They can all be any color. Not all cat laguz are yellow, not all tigers are gray. These are just the generic enemy/npc palettes. And they're not different species, they are all dog laguz. They can crossbreed and stuff. Like Naesala and Leanne...both bird laguz. And Ena and Rajaion. Both dragon ones.

Edited by Dragoncat
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You're kind of missing the point there, honey

There are barely any differences between the fox and coyote to tell which is which at a glance

You need more than a couple of pixels of difference for others to be able to tell them apart

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That's helpful, but I don't want it to look entirely like the real life fox. If laguz looked identical to the animals they're based on, I can see somebody coming across a wolf and thinking "laguz or wild animal?" It's fantasy. It doesn't have to be that way.

Using more of the lightest shade huh? Can do.

Can you tell the difference between these two laguz species?

gC0CT.jpg

How about the variations in these color variants beyond the 'oh their colors are different'?

gC0V8.jpg

I would say from what I have seen, it appears as though the Laguz are pretty close to regular animals in their beast forms, just much much larger than normal.

...anyways, DC, you can honestly do whatever you want with your sprites. But pretty sure all of us here are just trying to help you understand how to make them better. :)

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This is an extreeeemely quick edit

gBUKH.png

and the workspace I used to get that far.

You need to break loose of the Mauthe base you began with and try some modifications. If possible stick with referencing photos or FE sprites for now, using other spriting styles without also borrowing their palette won't give you the right result.

what lenh said. especially about the face. even if you tried customing and it didn't look good, it's more impressive than the mauthe doog

That's helpful, but I don't want it to look entirely like the real life fox. If laguz looked identical to the animals they're based on, I can see somebody coming across a wolf and thinking "laguz or wild animal?" It's fantasy. It doesn't have to be that way.

its still more impressive than a mauthe doog edit.

Using more of the lightest shade huh? Can do.

looking forward to improvements~

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And a note on the FE Herons. While there are no obvious matches to a real-life counterpart, they are most likely based on the Chinese Egret, a species of white heron with some significant head plumage. Of course, the FE Herons were stylized more to look more "mystical"

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ig3erVt.png

Made an edit of the fox with some of Lenh's edits. Made the body longer and made the legs shorter to differentiate it from the wolf and coyote. Also remade the ears entirely so it would look more "battle ready" than it did before.

I'm going to make similar edits to the wolf and coyote as well. The wolf in particular will be pretty massive comparitively since, y'know, they're kind of huge

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foxes are bb small.

kon maybe you should hold off on showing the wolf edit and see what she can make out of it based on everything here :o

They're not even all that bigger than a cat :x

I guess sooooooooooooo

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Can you tell the difference between these two laguz species?

Sure. http://i.imgur.com/OvUC1Tr.png

Red: Lengths of tail feathers do not match up.

Orange: Necks don't match up.

Yellow: Beaks don't match up.

Green: Peak of the heads don't match up.

These differences all cause a wildly different silhouette to be produced, even ignoring the angle and possible talon differences. They are not extremely distinct, but they are distinct.

How about the variations in these color variants beyond the 'oh their colors are different'?

Sure. http://i.imgur.com/uaUS5kW.png

Purple: Arm filligres / faux wings. The pink dragon has none, the white dragon has two or three, the black dragon has at least five spines.

Blue: Horns. Pink has two horns that curve forward like a ram, and two "whiskers" (pieces of skin coming off of the jaw, more accurately). White has multiple slicked-back horns, that have icy-colored 'flesh' between them, not unlike a fish and its fins. Black one has more backwards-going horns that lack the connector between them.

Green: Shoulders. Pink has shoulder horns (that seem to be going backwards?), white has basically pauldrons, black has two sideways spikes.

Yellow: Scale designs are wildly different for each dragon. This is most noticible on the leg, so I put all focus here. On the black dragon, the scales are layered going towards the hips. On the white dragon, three (that are visible) large overlapping 'leaf'-like scales cover the upper leg. On the pink dragon, it seems more like the design of a human's muscles-- there are two layers, one on the outside edges of the body. Without a proper turnaround I can't tell, but it definitely seems different.

Fair warning: I've never played the Tellius series, so this is only drawn from what I know of their appearances from the screen captures, but there are a sufficiently large number of differences to be able to tell them apart-- admittedly not EASILY-- even if they all had very similar coloring.

edit: I need to not open a thread and then not read it for 6 hours and then forget to refresh the page. I am very not smart today, it seems.

Edited by Eliwan
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  • 2 weeks later...

wyvernprofile_by_rubydragoncat-d8n2lm3.p

An enemy/npc profile thing, full custom except for the border. It might not be perfect, but I'm still learning custom...so be nice please.

dogsandbeasts_by_rubydragoncat-d8n2lnh.p

Took your guys' advice and tried to fix the laguz.

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wyvernprofile_by_rubydragoncat-d8n2lm3.p

An enemy/npc profile thing, full custom except for the border. It might not be perfect, but I'm still learning custom...so be nice please.

dogsandbeasts_by_rubydragoncat-d8n2lnh.p

Took your guys' advice and tried to fix the laguz.

i was looking at the old post for comparisons... Looks like all you did that was significant was fix the shading. Which is better. But why didn't you use kon's base fox as a reference for your foxes? it was a great reference for the fox and coyote. the sizes are still too much. The fox is huge. Its bigger than the lion. the lion should be the biggest. What advice did you take exactly?

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