Just out of curiosity, is there something I'm missing about the sponges? they seem kind of out of place in a book/ink-themed zone, and they don't really fit visually either; compared with your other elements, they look kind of rough and unfinished.
The bindings on the books also look a bit unusual. They're quite thick, and seem to extend over the pages.
I actually kinda like the look of the sea of ink as you have it now. It's definitely worth experimenting with larger waves, but these do a pretty good job of conveying the look simply and effectively.^_^
One thing that might be fun (or you might already be doing) would be to have bookends occasionally appear in the walls. That could add a bit of texture and diversity as well.I hadn't thought about bookends yet for this vertical level ... I'll brainstorm about something interesting to come with.
Anyway, crits aside, I really do like the way this is going.
The problem with those water tiles imo is that the peaks look like they slush forward then back again. instead try to make them move—one should fall into the next to create the illusion that each peak is sliding across the screen. that breaks the obvious tiling.Note that I'm aiming at a stationary wave (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stationary_wave) here, like the one you can produce in your bathtub. Not propagating waves like the one you'd see in a river or at sea.
Also once that's nailed down, I think you could really make the animation a lot subtler—and a lot slower. maybe it shouldn't have those kind of wavey peaks at all. when I think about ink or oil vs water I imagine it being all goopy and sticky rather than pure liquid. even closer to a tar pit kind of thing.Thanks for the suggestion. I had no intend to have "oily" ink so far, but I'll investigate that.
can you replace them with more modern chalkboard brushes?this (http://www.topnews.in/files/Sponge.jpg) is the kind of sponge I'm talking about. Chalkboard brushes would not make sense for the desired monster design (http://sylvainhb.blogspot.com/2007/03/monster-design-bop-lponge.html). They're just too heavy. Plus, I've never seen any of them in a school here, only in Simpsons Cartoons.
Hehe cute attempt at the rayman styleWell, clearly, Ubisoft shoot our originality in the back 15 years ago with Picture City, but the school zone design even predates that (http://sylvainhb.blogspot.com/2011/01/la-old-school-zone.html). That being said, it's clear rayman on PSX *did* have an influence, although I'd credit Lewis Carol, Zool and Coolspot equally high for inspiration. I've indeed peeked a few colours on Rayman screenshots to see whether it'd be neat to have some hue shift in ink highlights, but that's basically all. I intentionally went for something much simpler that rayman's ink sea.
The lines of the circles in the binders are really weird.You mean the "metallic" reinforcement for the circular hole, right ? I don't like it much either, now that you attract my attention there. I'll try to improve it next.
Do you have a limited palette?This is for a game on DS, so technically, I can have one 256 palette for tiles and one for sprites, although they're mostly the same in practice. The background so far is just a placeholder generated following a "make yourself a magohany texture" tutorial. I'm not surprised you don't see it harmonious, but I'm surprised you've got issues with the *colour* ... and even more wondering about picking a colour from the *books*, which are deliberately vibrants and saturated to pop out against the background. If you can provide an example through an edit, that'd help me to understand what you suggest.
I think it would work better if you re-used a least one color from the books in the background.
The colours aren't very harmonious right now.
Maybe try to make the waves in the ink more like hills than spikes, since it's more like the liquid is slowly moving than actual waves.Looks like I'll definitely have to try this: that's what everybody seems to mention.
Have you considered making this tile scroll ? It would show that these waves are caused by a wind.(*sigh*)
(http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-DtABLyJzixo/Tooq0rpWxCI/AAAAAAAADD8/JAQogmn0F4Y/s320/bookshelf-mockup-monsters2.png)(http://img35.imageshack.us/img35/5533/mockups.png)Really interesting edit. It's much more simple that anything I'd have done myself, there's something that shines in it. Like if it was a real snapshot of a game on some 8-bit machine ... That's always a good thing to see through the eyes of someone else.
(http://i.imgur.com/QE0z5.gif) <-pyp- :: -yrz-> (http://imgur.com/Tt8CA.gif)@yrizoud: I haven't noticed your ink this morning. I must admit that there's something quite interesting in it. That "flow" effect it has, combined with the minor/major waves will certainly be interesting to study for location in my game where I have water/ink that "push" you in some direction.
This is a smaller palette, but no effort has been made by me to unify it, just cleaning it up and pushing brightness/contrast. Does it help?That's the kind of fearless alternate I'm after, yes. Feel free to replace sprites with one-shade silouhetto if the overall colour count is already too high for other colour edits.
The biggest problem with your art is bad texturing, at this point, I'll return with specific edit and critique.Ah. Well, that's not much of a surprise: it came out with quite much pain. I look forward for your advice.
Use both the bright and dark variations of wood for added variety, IMO.That's a good idea. I'll find a way to do that.
I would personally make the background a chalkboard to heavily emphasize the middle school theme while still having a dark background, which would allow you to have various writings and equations to break up empty space. That is just me though, I may also recommend light, greyish plaster walls and "giant" (relative to your character) windows/posters/hangings.I have plans for a few levels in the school zone, at different places of the school. The giant classroom is one of them - and there will clearly be a giant chalkboard far in the background. Then, there will be the "ink temple" (http://sylvainulg.blogspot.com/2007/03/on-road.html) where Bilou learns that he's the long announced "hero" who must save the planet. But first, he must bring back Booklet to the Library and have a talk with Pr. Harraps. So says the scenario (http://sylvainulg.blogspot.com/2011/02/library.html). At last, there is the escape from Pendats jail (http://sylvainulg.blogspot.com/2011/07/on-sevade.html) and epic fight against SqRt, the math book (http://sylvainulg.blogspot.com/2007/09/gare-aux-chutes-de-livres.html).
You should play (or watch on youtube) those levels, 'cause they are really cool.I may have found a fair quality gameplay video on youtube. That will be for tonight. If you have the ability to do screenshots of the level yourself, I'm very interested by the glass flask just nexto the books in the CoI screenshot, as I lack a proper reference for pixelarting "inkjet" monsters. (unfortunately, it looks like there's only low-quality JPGs around on the Web)
(http://i.imgur.com/ZSwEc.gif) vs (http://i.imgur.com/QE0z5.gif).
There are interesting things, indeed. I also doubled the exposition of the "spikest" frame, as I think there might lack some pendulum in my original ink swamp. Of course, a doubled frame with some details animation while keeping the same shape would work better.
My brain seems to do some resistance and tries to convince me that the spiky one is best because those spikes better transmit the idea that falling in the ink means sudden death.
Sorry to bring this back up, but I really believe the version that isn't as spiky. The Spiky one immediately makes me think of a really light liquid. Ink is heavier and the smoother version really promotes that idea. Plus, the sudden death concept doesn't necessarily require you to make like a pitfall into a massive rotating fan. Sudden death can also be achieved from the opposite effect. Like the sludgy ink. That's just my opinion though.That makes sense. Thanks for the convincing argument :)
It seems that those are at least 2 different books, but it's kinda hard to separate them
(if they should have different sizes, change the color/details of each book)Yeah, good point. I think I'll also have to come up with something with a more square-ish shape for certain platforms (or ban that from that level altogether). Your TOP/FRONT visualisation convey well what I'm trying to do and produce more convincing objects. Thanks for the tip.
Yeah, good point. I think I'll also have to come up with something with a more square-ish shape for certain platforms (or ban that from that level altogether). Your TOP/FRONT visualisation convey well what I'm trying to do and produce more convincing objects. Thanks for the tip.
Well, just go with that general idea, then, but also move the books out of the level/screen on the left side. That way, you can have them occupy the space you want them to but also look "right" at the same time.
Having platforms (the books) that appear to recede in space does raise the question of exactly what plane the character is on; which edge of the book?
I really like the book fort architecture of the background :y:, but having the books unilaterally larger (and significantly so) than those of the foreground invites a sense of dislocation of scale. I think the previous, plainer backgrounds felt more appropriately intimate and 'zoomed in'. Personally I'd apply that (very nice) idea to the foreground platforms (the current foundation of woodblocks seem uninspired and not particulary evocative of a classroom). BG books could look good as well but I'd keep them at the same scale or smaller.
What about a view of the school room as if you're looking out from the bookshelf?I did a couple of tries in that direction, but it didn't worked the way I expected ...
you can walk all over the book top, and the blue line can be jumped through
Woodblocks to shelves makes a lot of sense.I like how you brought volume to that. I'll try to mime it.
For more interest with a close-up bg I like Hugh's previous blackboard suggestion; it's pretty flexible (you could use primitive chalk drawings as the scenery or little in-jokes or whatever) and I reckon you could get a nice chalk effect with a little tlc. I updated the example in my previous post.Yeah, that gives good. I think mixing chalkboard and more conventional wood could provide the type of background I'm after.
Going for a full classroom in perspective might end up quite busy but if that's the way you want to go why not post up your attempts?These are a bit scattered and weren't all digitized nor present on this laptop. I'll look after and post them. There will definitely be some level with open space, but then that will be more mario-like levels, horizontally designed and with fewer "climbing/exploring" aspects. Backgrounds on this comic page (http://sylvainulg.blogspot.com/2006/10/le-crayon-rencontre.html) can give you an overview of one possible approach.
I was reading a blog post (http://sevencamels.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/flat-funny-and-depth-dramatic.html) the other day relating pictorial depth and comedic cues that resonated with me, perhaps you'll find it interesting.Interesting. That' suggests I should keep the "books church" background as scenery for boss fights...
Yeah, sprite AA to an uncertain BG is a strange choice, particularly considering the absence of much AA elsewhere. Perhaps try something simpler, without interior transparency. Animating the ink sloshing about has the potential to be pretty fun ;D.Gotta try that ^_^
(http://i.imgur.com/gZEUf.png)
For some reason I had it in my head that you wanted to do a full projection the length of a classroom with rows of desks but this a nice solution.That was the idea ~10 years ago, but since then, I realised that it wasn't necessary to have a school-typical arrangement. Instead, furnitures are like mountains and hills, small supplies are the inhabittants and their fossilised ancestors are used as construction blocks ... after all, isn't the "living" knowledge built on layers of past knowledge ;)
Cute Comic :)Thanks.
this is the only thread I've been following for the past few weeks. I am way too jealous of the creativity of this projectThank you, slym. That's warm to my heart.
(http://i.imgur.com/RKNnq.gif) (http://i.imgur.com/zcCaD.gif)I like that a lot. I'll work on something similar. Thanks ^_^
old -> new
I always missed the body of Bilou, but the rayman-like animations are polishing him up very much. What about making the jumps more dynamic?
And the walking bottles (?) could walk a bit faster. They look too lazy.They mostly serve the purpose of being thrown at stronger ennemies in my level design, but they could definitely use a slight speed-up, I agree. A few more bugfixes and I'll get into it.
edit: oh, these are pencil sharpeners? Then there should be walking pencils, too!Yes, they are, and yes, there will definitely be some walking pencils too: the pendatz (http://sylvainulg.blogspot.be/search/label/pendatz). I haven't presented them yet because I initially planned to use 3D hardware of the DS for their "body", but I'm no longer so sure it would be a benefit against some more traditional pixel art. I'll sketch up a pixel art prototype over the week-end :)
Looks awesome sir, Keep it up and stay going strong on this project, your work is the one that inspired me to do pixel art. ^.^Thanks for the motivation. I'm almost ready for a first demo release, so I'm freezing all art until that point. I'll do a second run on the art after that. I still hope to get more comments on how to tame large pieces like the owl meanwhile.
I'd think about going more chunky/planar for the wood carvings,I like how you used the mid-tone for a second level of shadow *outside* of the carving.
also symmetry; symmetry is great for finding elegant, appealing designs even if you want a directional lightsource or detailing in the end.Yus! I should have figured this out on my own. Plus, the mirror-capable hardware is gonna love it. I just need to find something that is not a flower ...
I thought the BG whorl pattern was a bit busy/repetitive, perhaps some occasional stand-alones might be nicer, mine actually turned out way heavy-handed and a bit weird, but the idea is there anyway.There is indeed a balance to find here. I'll explore that path. And yeah, yours are indeed a bit creepy ...
(http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-H1CMAhcSRl4/UGVNYBoygDI/AAAAAAAADzI/LELnRMXCDxA/s1600/morebooks.png) at last, the final (?) touch on books. I'm afraid I'll need a second book cover tile for some of the angles, unfortunately (@ black question mark).
I'd have loved to post an update on the owl too, but that will have to wait for the week-end (http://sylvainhb.blogspot.be/2012/09/owl-story.html), I'm afraid.
Offtopic but I really really love your apple bat.. Imo it is best bat desing ever.Thank you. I'm a bit unsure whether you mean the applebat (http://sylvainhb.blogspot.be/2008/04/appleman.html) or the berrybat (http://sylvainhb.blogspot.be/2010/09/hows-berrybat-doing.html), but I'm glad you appreciate it. I had need for something more separated from regular applemen at the end, so I dropped applebat in favour of berrybats ...
Ah, shame about the lost progress. The feet are really large in that off-screen shot,yep, I noticed that when posting, too. I prefer the proportions of yours, so I updated my working copy. I'll try to post the "up-scaled" 128x160 sized owl this week-end.
actually my attention thus drawn I think owls have an opposable front toe (perching owls) (http://www.google.co.uk/search?num=10&hl=en&site=imghp&tbm=isch&source=hp&biw=1280&bih=709&q=owl+perching) so they mostly perch two toes forward, two back like parrots; whether that really matters though... :crazy:You pay attention to details, don't you ?
You pay attention to details, don't you ?Ha, I've just been drawing a bunch of owls myself fairly recently. Love 'em. The attribution of learnedness based on hairstyle is rather interesting, not to sidetrack too much but regarding toe configuration I remember reading it's a case of volition with owls in general rather than congenital arrangement. Found a footnote here. (http://www.owls.org/Information/feet.htm)
Well, I've flickered a little bit (http://www.flickr.com/photos/fionaandneilpics/3626402576/) myself, too, and it doesn't look to be a "family" thing (like mammals having 4 legs) but more a "species" thing, with some flavour of owls using indeed 2+2 and others (as far as I can tell from pictures) using 3+1. I deliberately ommit a lot of owls from my investigation because in french, we have different names for "ear-wearing" owls (Hiboux) (http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hibou) and ear-less owls (chouettes) (http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chouette), with only the former conveying an intuitive image of wisdom and teacher-role.
So, I'll stick to my 3-toes-forward character. I won't really matter in a school where books learn to write and hard-lead pencils go on night-watch, indeed :PQuite. ;D
I have to say i agree with Cyangmou about the angles of the books, thats been bugging me for a while.You mean (http://share.cherrytree.at/showfile-6233/bilou.png) and (http://i.imgur.com/EkdSv.png), I guess ?
I also think Facet's edit looks great...
It does look quite high sat./contrast for the bg thoughMy intent is to move him back to the bg colours you used in your first edit. Such colours, however, are a nightmare to use for edition on the DS, so I use an intermediate -- fg-like -- palette while it is in progress.
I think the addition of pupils lends quite a severe lookI agree. That was not necessarily thought ahead, but it's a good thing to have an intimidating look for something that represents teaching in the "old school" zone. I'm trying that the pupils look to the bottom, as if that glance was focused on Bilou, and not on the player. He should not be really "malevolent", though.
(http://i.imgur.com/k2zrj.png)(http://i.imgur.com/gtVV6.png)
I prefer this version, based on the binders.
Much much better make the red book with the same style.I hesitate to do so. Could you please indicate the features that you prefer ? I'd like to keep the rounded shape of the laying books, but I'm not opposed to improve them if that can be done.
Not sure why the upright spines are double width ...hum ... because it worked :P (compared to my earlier, unpublished attempts)
I was having trouble at first trying to sketch with your palette, and I think it's primarily because you've a huge hue-shift but little difference in saturation. I toned down the cooler colours and added a nice desaturated mid-tone to effect as a bounce light; the strong highlights seem to indicate a reflective surface so I ran with it, also spaced the values out a bit.Thanks for the tip. I'll see to what extend the Nintendo DS tolerates that (there are pretty few colours available when de-saturating things as result of the low # of bit per channel) without introducing rainbow artefacts.
The new mockup looks great but I do miss the sense of architecture of the previous, ie, bg appearing as part of the structure of the fg. Probably this is just a result of a quick asset test but I'd like to see the owl perched on something of the foreground and the architrave appear to support a platform.It's indeed mostly a test, and an in-emulator screenshot rather than a mockup, but there will be a parallax scrolling between BG and FG, meaning that the illusion of "supporting something" may be working differently in different places. I should be able to tweak the alignment of the planes to produce interesting architecture effect, though. I'll try to do that better in the next run.
In order to simulate depth, you could use contrast to make the perspective more obvious without compromising too much your style.A good tip. I have to figure out how to apply it with this tiled hardware in a smart way, but I'll definitely give it a try.
you could have dents in the silhouette thanks to those "leaflets", instead of the clean curves; The cover could be thicker considering the size of the volume.point taken.That seems to vary from books to books (http://yrol.free.fr/LITTERA/images/litterature.jpg), though.
The illusion of "supporting something" may be working differently in different places. I should be able to tweak the alignment of the planes to produce interesting architecture effect, though.Ah, I did think afterwards you might be doing offset scrolling, what jumped out at me most was the carving being behind (partially submerged in?) the ink.
I meant to say earlier, with the tilemap you had those ribs do work against the hard-won foreshortening effect; I don't think it's all that noticeable, but differently compressed variations wouldn't be so hard to do along with the kind of tonal tile variants of Mocket's; just so long as you have the space
Not sure why the upright spines are double width ...I'm not 100% sure because you're using the English language at a level I've not mastered yet, but i suppose you mean the "stairs" effect of books cover, near the left and right extremes of the 32 px tile, aren't you ? If that's so, I'm trying to render the effect that the "dent" just between the spine cover and the front/rear covers. (see side view below or this picture (http://www.royscabana.com/images/book-spine.png))
@beetleking22: I like that. I'll do my best to improve the spines along these lines without introducing back the kind of noise I initially had.
(http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-LMic9jD1JUQ/ULaL0C47i3I/AAAAAAAAD7I/Pnghlkc-TvM/s1600/carry.png) <--old -#- new --> (http://imgur.com/lD8io.png)
Meanwhile, I think I pin-point'd some shadow/lightning issues with the books. I'm not yet fully done, but that looks like a step in the right direction to me. Does it to you too ?
thanks for the tip, Beetleking.
It also looks like I should stick to 1 colour for the shadow (and pick one that will unambiguously read as a shadow), and possibly allow some colours to be used as AA.
When comparing my curent books to your edit, the attempt to have "progressive" shadowing simply doesn't work.
Btw, I think I will drop the "diagonal shadows" too, and just have 2 levels of shading, with book-like shape as transition. Hopefully, that should allow me to use the additional tiles to build better textures for the paper and book spines (I'm over-repeating some 8-pixels tile, atm).
It doesn't jump a whole lot, but the actual movement/stretch is very "big". Doesn't seem right.I'm trying to animate something like this (http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-pbT2WPn_GHk/URP5m_08dDI/AAAAAAAAEI8/MowpPZW55EM/s400/tx-inkjet3.png), not really a "bop". But I guess you got it, so I'm gonna take my editor and try to come up with something better.
Maybe instead of having it do what it is doing now, you could have it suck its body inwards and use pressure to shoot a drop upwards.Err ... my mind fail to translate that into pictures. Sorry.
Hmm, I think the issue with your animation is that the anticipation is too quick. You could make the down-anticipation like two or three frames of it preparing to shoot the inkblot?
(http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Ed7y-0QnbSA/UTtakN0KIsI/AAAAAAAAEN4/5fujF_BwTV8/s1600/inkthrow-mix.gif)I would vote for that one. Now show us the ink!
Thanks for the vote.(http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Ed7y-0QnbSA/UTtakN0KIsI/AAAAAAAAEN4/5fujF_BwTV8/s1600/inkthrow-mix.gif)I would vote for that one. Now show us the ink!
Hm... Is "Inky" supposed to fly in the air or was that just a test?He's indeed supposed to float, or to camp on some location. Actually, he's the moving platform of the level, but a platform that may throw you up and throw droplets when you're not riding him.
Another thing, when Inky starts to spit, his eyes get centered again. This is a bit confusing for my eye, I would suggest doing different spit animations with the eyes looking in the correct direction.The more things progress, the more it seems to be an un-satisfying choice to have such a strong direction for the eyes. I need to think about it.
If they are floating, maybe have them sit on top of a platform of some kind? For example, a revolving ruler with pencils as the plaforms -> the inkbottle is camping the pencil. It seems like an odd/inconsistent choice to have an ink bottle fly around, when it doesn't really have any qualities that would allow it to do that. (If it was spitting ink as a weird kind of jetpack, that would make some kind of sense.)
The problem is, usually floaty platforms are non-animated blocks of some kind. They are also very consistent. "Square blocks can move around vertically or horizontally in the air." But wouldn't it look wrong/scary if suddenly the platforms started following you around or floating around in non-consistent patterns?I had no plans to have inkjet following the character. Actually, they're "on rails", and you can spot those direction-changing tiles that are still visible on the level.
What about the ink bottles makes them special? Is there a special reason why they can float while other enemies can't? Why doesn't it show in their design?I have to admit that I have no good answer to those accurate questions. I could make up some like "but wait, they're carrying ink! the magic that brings words to life, etc." but that would not make it more consistent so I guess I'd better not try to.
(Also, the way they can touch the platform as they pass it by without reacting to it makes it look even weirder, as in sidescrollers touching platforms -> you are standing on it. Flying enemies always keep a certain distance from the platforms unless they are programmed to fly through walls.)Oh, that's just the direction-changing tiles that are a bit too close. Nothing intentional here.
Even giving inkbottles wings would make better sense than having them slide around on the screen.You definitely got a point here. I value "better game immersion through consistent fantasy", so since you demonstrated I have no way to make the fantasy of floating inkjets consistent, I will make my best to recycle levels and sprites to the best as soon as I'm done with the technical challenges in the engine that they allow me to illustrate and test.
I strongly urge you to rethink your choice here, it's detracting from the rest of your game.
I had no plans to have inkjet following the character. Actually, they're "on rails", and you can spot those direction-changing tiles that are still visible on the level.Hehe, that was mainly me trying to prove the case of how extremely important consistency is for a game. <:U!
Hehe, that was mainly me trying to prove the case of how extremely important consistency is for a game. <:U!Then it was definitely a good argument to make your point.
I would never think to use them as platforms and even when I would figure it out I would say 'well... this is weird' and it would take me out of the game.
As he looks now I would instinctively try to kill it.Point taken. It is indeed a threat, and should be avoided most of the case. There will be some way to disable inkjets permanently, but only in some circumstances, and -- as Mathias will enjoy -- not through Bilou's typical ways of attack. Throwing a dumblador here will only produce a glassy sound, and trying to jump on it will only reveal to the player that inkjets can be used as bumpers.
If its a platform, try putting a lid on the bottle (probably a light colour e.g. off-white or yellow).good piece of advice, but I prefer keep his current look that match its role in the story, and figure out ways to use something else as a moving platform where I really have to.
Let him look happier normally then his eyes squint (rather than being so angry) as he shakes from side to side, then the lid pops off and you can ride the lid up.
If something is attacking, I attack back. And I expect to be able to have an offensive effect - i.e. damage/destroy it.And that's the established rules for an action game. So I realise that it will be important for me to make sure that alternate behaviour (where the right move is *not* to attack back) leads to secrets or alternative routes, but that I do not force it on the straightforward path so that every player can make it through, just like Mario series do not use advanced technique as the "only one path" to get to the exit.
When I encounter an indestructible enemy in a game, I always resent it.
I was really missing a run button and the little pauses and lack of inertia take away from the fluidity. I'd like to bounce and slide more.
I like how smooth the animation looks.I added a "split time" option in my animation editor to add in-between frames ^_^
Should the pupils move from left to right however since the rest of the face does?I decided to avoid that. The rationale is that Bilou keeps his gaze focused to an objective when running, although he cannot prevent his headbody to twist while running.
Yeah that is better but make more rounded shadow and the book paper end angle is too triagled.. i think its should be more rounded.. Also I made for you some kind of paper texture...forgive my bad english..
Edit.
(http://i48.tinypic.com/dwoih.png)
(http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-tVHM7hozSOc/Uamc37ahWvI/AAAAAAAAEgg/QV21w3hmlWk/s200/pendatr.gif)The Marching Pen(cil sol)dat.
I think in one of the frames a black line appears just underneath his eyes. I'm not sure whether that is his mouth or not. At the moment it looks a bit off.Diantre!
is (http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-aEbQ2VFe0E8/UanNPKZT3FI/AAAAAAAAEgw/v8Pmi3eCZZY/s1600/pendatr.gif) better ?
Overall one thing stands out to me a lot: while the twisting of the pencil produces a decent perspective effect, the eyes don't seem to be included in this -- they feel a little like a cardboard cutout. It feels to me as though they should have at least two frames where they angle a little down.Hmm, I had no intention to put twisting here, rather tilting, but I copy the issue on cardboard eyes.
(http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-WPpZgcA0mVc/Uann6US_grI/AAAAAAAAEhA/mlcH2BOAcBA/s320/pendatr2.gif)Does this improve the situation ?
(http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-WPpZgcA0mVc/Uann6US_grI/AAAAAAAAEhA/mlcH2BOAcBA/s320/pendatr2.gif) --> (http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-DLFPy2MgDWk/Ub2f7ZrA8-I/AAAAAAAAElQ/a37wPDS6cXE/s1600/anim-46.gif)Iterated. Hope it's getting better. (speed modification happened out of control >_<)
it's mainly the decorative patterns at the bottom that are so distracting.Yeah, I see what you mean. I will see what are my options to address that.
Perhaps lowering contrast/detail of the background a bit could help with this, (...)
I would add little bit contrast..My options are unfortunately quite limited here.(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_monochrome_and_RGB_palettes#15-bit_RGB) I'm already using almost neighbour colours of the NDS palette (5-bit RGB). There's just one or two bits difference between the over-contrasted image (http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1kC0lKwPe6E/Uod0In9YrGI/AAAAAAAAFC4/4OWx-KbQppY/s1600/B.png) and the under-contrasted one. I'm open to suggestions if someone find colours I have missed, but to be honest, I haven't found anything better.
The pillars shape is a little confusing maybe? and the way you are clustering is making it look a touch flat, but it's a fairly minor gripe all up.Thanks for pointing out. I'll look for ways to improve that. The pillar is supposed to be sort of twisted, like with forgery.