ITD++: Dragon Boss [WIP] [C+C]

[Psiweapon]

Here's the first boss for Into the Dungeon++.




That front-facing walking arm is ridiculous, so I'll be changing it soon.

It's the first time I'm animating something bigger than 32x32 so critique would be appreciated.

Bad points: that arm, immobile tail and wings (The wings were already difficult so I'm *not* going to animate them), the rear view neck is stiff, some arm poses are not that believable. The front view and side view heads aren't that similar. The animations are only two-frame, so the movement is jerky, but the dev and I agreed upon that from the start.

This took a LOT of time!

Good points: I'm really satisfied with how the side view hindlegs turned out (If you are not, please tell me why)

I've already started with the attack animations, but won't post it here yet because I only have one frame for now.

[Cesque]

I'd suggest making its head/whole body bob up and down when walking in the front/back sprites. It already does that in the side sprites, and the front/back animations look incredibly boring otherwise.

[Psiweapon]

Oh my you're right!! 

Thanks for pointing out. The kind of thing you don't even notice when you've been staring at something for this long!!

 

[pistachio]

The animation has its problems, but I think the sprite itself needs some work as well. Your values and shading need some work; it's pretty difficult to tell what's what. The neck is pretty much indistinguishable from the body, for example. You seem to be using highlights on only details more than focusing on larger shapes, a problem which a few of your previous pieces seem to share. The ramp from dark to light is also very broad, and lowers readability still.

I'll see if I can squeeze in time for another edit today.

[Psiweapon]

Thanks for the feedback, pistachio, but there are a couple of things I don't understand:

What do you mean with the ramp from dark to light being "very broad" ? Too much difference between the lightest and darkest colors?

Why is the detailwork so bad? Usually I put together a silhouette in the darkest (or second-to darkest) color and then build up detail with increasingly light colors... I tend to not like flat areas of color, usually.

[pistachio]

Thanks for the feedback, pistachio, but there are a couple of things I don't understand:

What do you mean with the ramp from dark to light being "very broad" ? Too much difference between the lightest and darkest colors?

Why is the detailwork so bad? Usually I put together a silhouette in the darkest (or second-to darkest) color and then build up detail with increasingly light colors... I tend to not like flat areas of color, usually.

No, not that way. If you lowered the contrast that would only make it worse.

Working to lighter colors gradually isn't a good way to go about it unless you're sure you know what you're doing. In this case I'm not sure it turned out well. Things seem to have started to go wrong at about the third-darkest color. The contrast was pretty low and your shading started to get specific at about that point.

Ah, now where's that edit... Here.



The palette probably didn't turn out as "menacing" as it probably should have been--the dragon now appears light blue, for example, where the palette should have been warmer and perhaps darker. But I think it proves a point about lighting. One of my favorite pieces of advice which I first heard from EyeCraft, don't mix lights into darks. There might be more to it, though.