GR#099 - Stone Monster - Texture

[xeokk]

i'm working on a dino-monster-thingie sprite. his name is heavyhide:



his scales are supposed to be made of stone, but he doesn't look... rugged enough. how can i make him have a, er, stoni-er appearance?

[Dorian]

Overall the sprite is pretty awesome. Really like the style he's in as well.
As for the stonyness...Why not experiment a little? Bring the texture from the body-spikes down to more parts of his torso...Or try making his lags a bit more jagged/stiffer?
Just some ideas.

[9_6]

Well if I'd do a rockmonster, I'd go with something segmented with lots of angular shapes.
Your design is a bit too round to convey "stone" on its own.
You might also not want to give those rocks that stick out of it a scaly texture.
Using cold colors may also help conveying stone rather than scales.

It is also a bit hard to tell where the light comes from.

[xeokk]

 thanks for the tips, guys! it really helped me realize in which direction i should be heading.



is this any better?

[slym]

Much better. This is starting to look really nice. There is some banding that can be cleared up where his chest meets the rock. Another thing is that his horns are a bit undefined as far as shape-wise. I really like where this is going. The chest reminds me of Delicious/Zack James' work

[xeokk]

thanks for the comment, slym i was unfamiliar with delicious' art up until now, i love it
all the feedback is making me feel soo so motivated, so here is v3:


i tried adding more texture without exaggerating, though i think i overdid it a bit. i also made a few slight adjustments to the overall body structure. i may have strayed too far from the original concept, though
i also tried fixing the banding you mentioned, but i think i only managed to make it more noticeable. help pl0x

[Phlakes]

That might be a little too much right now, but if you could just make the outer textured areas a bit less pronounced it should be good. And you might want to get some harder angles, some of the rocks look like they could be piled mud or something. Maybe even some highlights on the edges of a few to give them some sharpness. Something like that.

[slym]

Well the banding is much better, however it could be fixed around a bit. All you need to do is add more of that transition color to get rid of it. The texture addition is only over done by adding those body highlights. Without them it shouldn't look over done at all! You should also clean up the highlight on his two right legs.

[API-Beast]

I would have tried to get some bigger rock-like structure into it rather than small details.

Like this:

[questseeker]

The current scales or rock shapes are quite good, but If the monster is meant to be made of rock he needs them over all of its body, without leaving untextured parts: in this sort of creature, untextured flat surfaces can only be interpreted as smooth, thin skin, which isn't rocky at all.
The open belly segments suggests arthropod-like thin shells, which might or might not be the right impression. Does the creature have articulated rigid parts or a flexible but thick skin?

Have you considered using more colours? The light belly is ok, but the darker part of head+horns+legs+back+tail is too uniform.
In nature, turtles have a completely different appearance for back (shell scales), belly (shell plate), head + legs (five very clearly separated parts); you add a tail, which should look different from the nearby back and the legs, and horns, which should be different from the head.
In Pokémon, there is some tradition of bulky creatures with something strange on their back, and their unnatural features are clearly different from the more normal body parts. Example: Bulbasaur, with a large plant in the middle of generic smooth skin.

[RAMENSHOP]

Triangle pattern shadow will be useful for craggy texture. ▲▼▲
and some crack lines are added.

[Mathias]

YES. The RAMENSHOP edit punnishly rocks. It's working well. Nice job, Ramen Noodle.

How about thicker outlines, too? I just don't like the thin hairlines since the beast is so thick and blocky - the thin lil' outlines don't jive too well. Though, I realize, outline style might need to stay consistent to match other gfx assets if this is part of a set, or game, or something.

[xeokk]

Does the creature have articulated rigid parts or a flexible but thick skin?

the skin is supposed to be something like plating or armor, i guess.

YES. The RAMENSHOP edit punnishly rocks. It's working well. Nice job, Ramen Noodle.

How about thicker outlines, too? I just don't like the thin hairlines since the beast is so thick and blocky - the thin lil' outlines don't jive too well. Though, I realize, outline style might need to stay consistent to match other gfx assets if this is part of a set, or game, or something.

i thought about that, but yeah, this has to fit with some other sprites too. it's a custom terraria mob, actually; i'm working on a texture pack that will fit this beast's style.

Triangle pattern shadow will be useful for craggy texture. ▲▼▲
and some crack lines are added.

:O
so beautiful i cried.

i tried emulating your style but i failed miserably am i at least headed in the right direction?

[PypeBros]

i tried emulating your style but i failed miserably am i at least headed in the right direction?

I wouldn't necessarily say so, but
1: you overdid it in some area (you've even lost your monster's shape)
2: you haven't applied it globally (bottom-side)
3: you seem afraid of doing it large (check the knee again)

Also, ramenshop's edit featured long scratches. your doesn't.

If I may suggest an analysis I'd propose the following reason for your failure: Ramen had a rock in his mind and identified what was notable about it and injected it on your monster. You had Ramen's edit in mind and tried to apply a technique without a reference. At this point, it may be good for you to find a rock reference ... possibly a real one ... and use that to guide your mind. It needn't to be photo-realistic, but it may help moving beyond the "abstract concept of a pixel art stone"

[RAMENSHOP]

Uniform triangles will bring images of artificial objects. 



The variety of triangle size,angle and density is important for natural rock texture.

[PixelPiledriver]

He's a bit flat in some places.
His volume could benefit from broader shadows:


The surfaces I decided on are something like this:


They could be drastically different (and a lot cleaner) depending on what you want to describe.
But if you are going for something simpler it's not really necessary to delineate the larger surfaces.

[slym]

please don't apply the rock texture to the chest. I mean, you haven't yet, but the smooth texture that it has now makes the monster so much more fun to look at.

[PypeBros]

The variety of triangle size,angle and density is important for natural rock texture.

And iirc, it could theoretically work with triangles of any shape, but works better with 45° lines because they have less aliasing and lead to cleaner pixel clusters, right ? So it's a bit more than a stylistic choice, isn't it ?