GR#035 - Sea Monsters from Outer Space - Sprite Process

[Cure]

slug-guy is still wip. plan on doing more, so any ideas for designs are welcome as well.
current:

[Tourist]

Design ideas for sea monsters?  Well, there's always Sigmund and family.....



Tentacles are probably better suited for zero-G space than feet.

Tourist

[Organ_House]

I feel this is missing an obligatory Swamp Thing character.


Also, maybe the Toxic Avenger?


Lastly, what about a manta-ray style one?

[EvilEye]

These are great

As far as designs go, howabout one of those deep sea fishes, like maybe a lantern fish.

[Cure]

the last two are both still wip

[Cure]

had a near-finished version of the lanternfish-guy, but that computer's having issues so that file's gone. swapped to my laptop, so the palettes of the newer monsters might not match.

[PypeBros]

impressive and inspiring. Out of curiousity , how do you proceed when working with such desaturated/dark tones (as opposed to the vibrant crab-soldier of your avatar) ?

[Demon11777]

If you're still looking for ideas you might wanna check out Pirates of the caribian 2 and 3. davy jone's minions are pretty cool lookin :]

[ter-o]

ALL GLORY TO THE HYPNOTOAD.....

[FRAWG]

I think there could be a little more attention to texture in the last two rows, but it overall looks incredible.

[bonehead11]

You could make monster out of this bizzare and almot not known creature.

And you can never make a bad design with clam.

[Cure]

@PypeBros: Dunno exactly what the question is, so I'll ramble about colors and hope I say something useful. Working on the medium grey bg I've got helps with using darker and less saturated colors, on a lighter background they start to look like dark masses. I had a good monitor when I started, newish lcd running 64bit vista, so it may just be that I thought the colors looked more vibrant while making them (contrast looks off on other computers I've been on, like they're washed out and the black comes off too strong). As far as my treatment of the colors goes, I've tended to disregard the whole "warm highlights, cool shadows" bit and pushed the lighter colors towards blue, gives it a murky underwater look that fits the nature of the creatures. I work in warmer colors through reddish purples and yellowish greens.
Sorry If I didn't answer your question, here are some WIP stages that might be more insightful:


@Demon11777: Good idea, they had some neat designs in that film.

@FRAWG: Only the first 4 are anywhere close to finished, I'm just roughing them out first since that's more fun.

@bonehead: Yeah I was thinking of making a clam creature with a hand on the inside.

[buddy90]

The one thing I notice is that they all, except for the salamander, seem to have cool colors (greens, blues, violets) and not alot of warm colors (reds,oranges,yellows). That doesn't necessarily mean anything, although having some creatures with warmer colors might help make them pop out more. Or if some features on them were warmer, like eyes, faces, lips, mouths, etc.

[Mathias]

What's the rock with seaweed growin' out of it?

You need a hammerhead shark guy!

[PypeBros]

Sorry If I didn't answer your question, here are some WIP stages that might be more insightful:

It sort of answers, and extend beyond. I see from your WIPs that you use alot of black in the initial steps, which keeps contrast high enough. One of the reason why I'm asking is that I usually find it hard to see what I'm doing when working on less-vibrant background things and am considering a "palette swap" feature for my sprite editor software in order to switch between "high-contrast working mode" and "low-contrast rendering mode".

[Cure]

So anyway, back to this



Mainly just cleaning up a few of 'em. Alligator needs a complete overhaul (may just get rid of him). So just ignore that guy, I guess.

@Mathias: Seaweed dude is just that. He's, like, this imp or river spirit or something that sleeps on riverbeds and looks like inconspicuous rocks.

also, bog monster and lips-slug are still WIP, jellyfish-guy and seaweed-guy are both heavy WIP, lanternfish and mantarilla just need some a little detailing.

edit: update:


- - -
also, if anyone knows how to select and move stuff around in grafx2 (can't seem to find the selection tool, brush grab is the closest I know of), that'd be great.

[Cure]

crits on color choices (within a sprite, or if a sprite seems not to fit with the rest) are especially welcome. the two new ones on the bottom are WIP, the sharkamander in particular.

more WIP stages:

[SwapBrain]

I am really enjoying watching this develop.

crits on color choices (within a sprite, or if a sprite seems not to fit with the rest) are especially welcome.

An excessively nit-picky crit re: the sharkamander and the fellow above him is that the red highlight tends to make them seem more infernal than abysmal (so to speak).

In general, if I may say so, there is something less developed and refined about some of the more recent ones vs the first 3 especially. For instance, with top-lefty, you make some surprising color choices that are perhaps somewhat risky, but they pay off. I am talking here about the iridescent eyes and the dark green > light blue > yellow transition on his chest. The surface texture and volumes seem somewhat more varied on those first two especially as well. Lastly I think that some of the more recent ones could use more color variation, colored fringe on gills, creepy soft white underbellies, mottled flesh, that sort of thing. Refs would be more helpful here than I could be.

Also, I could just be full of bananas.

Finally I'd like to vote for a lamprey, goblin shark or a horseshoe crab. Those things are just creepy.

[what]

I agree with SwapBrain. i really like where this is goin, but I think the third creature from the left (top row) doesn't look much like a sea-creature.
I'd also like 2 see something with a lot of tentacles 

[Cure]

yeah I'd say SwapBrain is dead-on. Happened last time I tried to make a matching set, the first was great then the clones were all mediocre. Anyway, tried to implement all that, still got plenty more fiddlin' to do.
also the final one on that row is going to be an eel creature, possibly with a tadpole tale and a fin mane. dunno yet if I'll stop there or do 3-4 more.

update:

[EvilEye]

Great progress.

Some of these guys look like they are melting instead of dripping ( especially the squid ). Maybe making the water beads a shade lighter then their background would fix it.

[SwapBrain]

Great update!

The perspective on the salamander's head seems off, and the pink highlights on the manta ray work, but should be broken up, in my opinion. I also have sortof a love-hate relationship with the catfish-slug. It seems like something is missing there, but I can't put my finger on it.

[Cure]

lookin' at it now, might have to change the angle on the eels head.
had to cut off the tail to fit him in. same for fishdude's fins.

[EvilEye]

The eel looks fine to me, he just has his head cocked to the side is all.

[Larwick]

I'd say show more of the eel-guy's inner cheek or upper lip/mouth on the other side, like in the concept. Will give some more depth to his head.

Love these cure. Some of them seem to have thicker outlines than others, was that your intention? Mainly the top row has thinner outlines.

[ptoing]

A really like these and have not much of a crit apart from: Give them more space. They are too cramped in their boxes. I would leave at least 4 pixels room to every side, if not more.

[Cure]

@Lar: No, just sorta happened that way. I tried to fix that a bit in this update. Just a result of the style becoming exaggerated over time.

@ptoing: you mean widen the spaces between the boxes, or widen the boxes themselves? I admit I've kinda been cramming them in there to meet my arbitrary size restraints.



edit: widened the boxes 8 pixels and let a few of the monsters stretch out more.

[Sly]

I love these excellent colors and shading!

The top 4th one and the second one in the second row both look unfinished compared to the rest. I'm not sure if it is the lack of texture because of their slimy nature.

Also I love your sketches of them! Could you please possibly post them!

[Rejected Skeleton]

I most say that these are pretty awesome. Excellent work on the color pick, shading and the anatomy.