[WIP] Sophia III

[Ryuza]

Hello everyone, been working on a bit of an upgrade of the sprites for Sophia III from Blaster Master. The sprite is from scratch but the layout and design of things is based on a combination of the original sprites and the official art for the game. So here it is, let me know what you think, here are the past versions:
-> -> ->

The current version(s):
-

And the main pieces of reference:

^ From the manual


^ From the opening

Edit: Added a slightly updated version

[burntvision]

Hi Ryuza

Not the most experienced artist myself, but no one else seems to have responded so I'll give it a shot.

Firstly, a quick question - why have you decided to do the image as small as you have? I never had a NES and had never heard of Blaster Master so I did a quick google.  From what I can tell the origional sprites were larger than the size you're working at.  Is that right?

I only mention it because at this size a few extra pixels might just allow you to define the shapes a bit more.

Anyway, a couple of things I noticed.

1) I wouldn't extend the highlight on the glass dome as much as you have, look at your bottom reference. And actually I prefer the blue glass in your original more than your edit.  Maybe try to find a colour in between?

2) You've rendered the bit that joins the canon to the chasis as just a thick black line. I think this totally masks what it should look like. A bit extra width on it and a little grey in the middle may do the trick.

Hope this helps for now.  Give it a go and I'll take another look for you.  Best of luck with and dont give up!!

[Lizzrd]

You should fix up the shape around the cockpit area, it looks a bit sloppy atm, and don't worry about size, it's perfectly fine.

@burntvision : nope, it's pretty much the same size.

[Ryuza]

Thanks for the comments you guys, I've made a few of the changes you mentioned and made a separate outlined version to see how it would look:
-

[burntvision]

Excellent, glad to see you're still working on it and improving!

Apologies about the size confusion.  I found a dodgy jpg somewhere.  It was blurry, as jpgs are, but it must also have been resized by about 10%. God knows why.

Anyway, I think it looks a lot better already, and I really prefer the outlined version.  Helps to make it more distinct and clean I feel.

I still feel that it could be pushed and improved further. To that end I've tried my hand at my first ever edit of someone elses work. Hope you dont mind.



Made a fair few minor changes to the overall shape and shading.  Have a close look and see how yours and mine differ, then take what you like and ditch what you dont. 

The only thing I want to draw particular attention to is that I have 'grown' the wheels by a pixel vertically and horizontally.  I dont know if you were planning to animate, but at the smaller size I think it would have been tricky make them spin and still retain the detail you were aiming for.  And also if you look to your reference pictures, the front wheel extends as far forward as the gun does. Couldn't resist making a quick animation for you.

[Ryuza]

I like a few of the changes you made but I'm not too sure about the wheels, they seem too big and they kinda take some of the space away from the body.

I've made a new version with my own variations on some of your changes as well as a small change to make it look more like the reference.

I also made another small split in the design, the first one is the normal version with the changes while the second has one more extra change that makes the part of the body connected to the glass look more like the reference, I'm not sure which I like better but I'm leaning towards the second.
-

The reference I've been focusing on the most is the top one since it's a bit more detailed.

Also, this will be animated eventually, I already have some work done on the other sprites from the game as well, it's part of an update for an existing project that I'm working on. I can't post any details now but I'll update the topic with a link once the update goes out, but that won't be for awhile.

[Mezyrthim]

I like the sprite from the one on wii a lot. Have you played that one? It came out in 2008 I think.
.. always liked that game.

[Ryuza]

Yeah, I saw it, I thought the game was good but I was iffy on the graphics, they didn't remind me of the older one too much.

[Perihelion]

Two main things jump out at me. First, lose the internal outlines; it'll look much more like one piece. Second, don't have the highlights at the very top of the object. That makes it look flat. Try putting it lower down.

[Drascoll]

Hi, this is my fist post in this forum so I hope this is not out of line  

But I thought I'd give a crack at the Sophia III just for fun.

VS:
my version / yours

it not much of a difference from yours but I tweaked a few things that I thought where off from the original drawings.

I did steal your front tire though because mine looked off.

Sophia looks like a modified vw bug imho, so I tweaked some things to reflect that.