AuthorTopic: [WIP] War of the Elements Characters - not sure what to do next...  (Read 5334 times)

Offline cheatsguy

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Hey everybody, I've been working on a new game that will (hopefully) be called War of the Elements. anyway, there are 12 different unique classes, each of which has different roles, abilities, weapons, etc. I've tried to make some basic ideas of what they should eventually look like, but I'm not sure about them yet. What should I do to make them into a finished product  ??? here are the images:
'Air' class:

'Earth' class:


a big thanks in advance :D
« Last Edit: December 25, 2012, 04:06:38 am by cheatsguy »

Offline cheatsguy

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Bump :/

Offline Cage

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Things I've immediately noticed:

1. Outlines vs. no outlines - the Air character has no outlines while the Earth class and weapons used by both have one - I'm not sure if this is just how things "turned out" or a conscious decision to make the Air character feel a bit more "light". With the current looks, it feels like inconsistency to me, I'm sure it would work better with a non-black color for the outlines but I'd still decide on one consistent look - either everything has outlines or there's none. :)

2. Proportion - both characters have different proportion and it's a great tool for building character of the classes, their difference in looks and therefore their powers/behaviors, but it seems that both they relate differently to the environment which would be the same for both - like they were made with different scale in mind. As a start, I'd try to get their both head in similar/same size and then differ the size of the body. I think the Air character should feel delicate in contrast to the Earth one, and currently, I think the Air class is more imposing.

3. Style clash - the Air class with more cartoony head, and height of ~3,5 heads clashes a bit with the Earth character which feels a lot more serious in proportion and style. The difference in shading is pretty significant, and the shading in the Earth guy gives a lot better sense of the his form, while the Air one is very gradienty. I understand you wanted the give him a more aetheric feel, but I think you should find the middle ground - don't use straight gradients, but don't define the forms as much as you would with a character made out of rock.

4. Weapons looks VERY generic - pretty run of the mill human guns, something that would work in war/soldier game - the idea of a War of the Elements, as you called it, gives GREAT potential - there's plenty of room to let your imagination gone wild. :) Simplest thing you can do, is to take any of the known, established weapon types like guns, swords etc. and think of creative designs for them - Air class weapons could be made of very light metal, have a lot of curves, a generally "fluid" appearance while Earth's weapons would be crude and angular, made to be used by big, rocky hands

5. Colourwise you could use some hue shifts to escape the "colouring book" approach - the air is cyan, rock is brown etc. -  vary the hue of your shades as they go lighter/darker, tint them.

6. You could work on the anatomy a bit, but I'm sure there's somebody out the who can give you a better advice in this matter than I can :)

I like the idea you have, I think it has some potential, but I recommend you do some more concept artwork (preferably, NOT pixel art) before doing any more actual game art - try to think about the environment and the setting of the game and then put your characters in. The current sprites, seem like both are from a different universe and that's the main problem IMO.

Offline cheatsguy

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Thank you very much! to answer these:

Outlines vs. No outline:
I've been thinking about it, and it definitely makes sense to add an outline to Air. I was thinking about using a color slightly darker than the current darkest to outline.

proportion and style clash: air is supposed to seem light while earth should be very intimidating; this ties into their roles in-game. Air is an offensive class that you will likely encounter on the front lines, while earth is supposed to be a defender and should make you run in fear :) I will work on these.

Generic weapons: I wasn't sure on the direction that I was going to take on this, and what I decided on was to make them start with some very generic weapons and gain some more 'interesting' ones as you go on. Now that you mention it, I agree that the names of the classes should extend to more than just their appearance alone  ;D

Coloring and Anatomy: I will work on adjusting the hues, it honestly wasn't something I was thinking about at the time, but looking back, should have been more of a priority. Anatomy is definitely not a strong point for me, and there is plenty of room for improvement.

I will work on concepts for weapons and appearance ( and enlist my artsy sister for help, haha) and post some concepts here. Thanks for the help!

here is the current running animation for Air:



I used the running tutorial that has been posted in other topics several times :)

EDIT: possibly the new shotgun?
« Last Edit: December 28, 2012, 02:38:38 pm by cheatsguy »

Offline Helm

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fifth frame on both sides - are you sure? That frame looks like the sprite's standing. Have you tried animating the sprite sheet? I bet you the animation will look better without those frames.

Offline cheatsguy

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I thought it looked weird without the fifth (and eleventh) frames, so here's a comparison for everyone else.

100% speed:


100% minus 5+11:


50% speed:


50% speed minus 5+11:


let me know what you think of these.

Offline Dr D

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Your character looks like he's ice skating because the amount of contact with the ground is very little. The feet should go back much further before lifting of the ground.

Offline cheatsguy

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About the 'Ice Skating' look, he is the current fastest character in the game, so I'm not sure if it should be changed. Anyone else feel it should? A rework of both sprites is on its way soon, so I'd like to fix that in the next version.