GR#106 - Grimoire - Character Artworks / RPG Base

[Blaze Enigma]

This is currently one of our designs for a rather aquatic race for Grimoire, C&C would be very appreciated

- This is currently in a WIP state.

[PypeBros]

if it's an aquatic race, how does it have use for nose and ears, exactly?

[Blaze Enigma]

I never suggested they could not go on land, and since they would not be constantly surrounded by water on land a respiratory system including lungs would be very handy, hence the nose, and how pray tell do ears make it a non-aquatic race xD

[Seiseki]

Well I for one have never seen an aquatic creature with ears
But it don't see how that's a problem

Also, sharks have noses and they can hear quite well too!

[PixelPiledriver]

Your words "a rather aquatic race" sets up an expectation in the viewer.
Most of this expectation is implied as no other information is provided.
The common thought that comes to mind is that this guy lives underwater.

Anatomy design has many factors.
An important one is mobility.
Creatures use their adapted bodies to move thru their environment.
Certain forms and features are better suited to specific environments with specific types of mobility.

Of course an adapted body is not necessary for specific types of mobility with the power of technology.
People cant fly so they use airplanes.
People cant run 70mph so they use cars.
From this characters body and features I imagine he would need and be able to develop similar technologies to get around underwater.

Visual theme carries a lot of power (and because art is visual this is important).
Its not necessary at all to design an aquatic character to have extreme fish like features.
However it makes him quickly readable, relates to the natural world, and distinguishes him from characters of other enviroments/classes.

Of course character design isnt nature or science.
Its enough to just make something cool, whether it fits how we relate it to the natural world or not.
Telling the viewer what something is has a lot of power.
Just keep in mind that without telling us anything, would we all come to an agreement of what this guy is, where he lives, etc?
An easier description to swallow might have been "a race that uses water magic".

Two great pieces of advice that have always stuck with me:
1. "Show me, don't tell me"
2. "Always error on the side of more extreme"
The idea being: try stuff, and if it turns out really silly, it's easy to remove.
Pushing a design on paper can reveal appealing options that seem ridiculous in the mind.

But I'd say dump all of my design choices here and come up with your own.
It's obvious that you are going for something different than a fish man.

[Phlakes]

Just a quick thing to add to PixelPiledriver's reply there, the only thing tipping me off that the character is aquatic is that he's blue. Although without you telling me I probably would've thought he was some kind of elf/lizard thing.

[Seiseki]

The clothing sorta suggest that he lives in a desert or any hot place where he's exposed to the sun..

[Tourist]

Here is a bowl of psychic goldfish.  They communicate by telepathy and zip around on a little cart.

I don't expect they will work for your game.  I hope by understanding why they won't work that you can better define what your aquatic species needs.

How human-like?
What purpose does being aquatic serve?
How much world-building and culture building will go into defining this species? (none is an ok answer too)
Which real world aquatic species will you draw from, if any?  A small sample: squid, crab, eel, shark, jellyfish, turtle, whale, swordfish, shrimp, anemone, these all look very different and can offer much inspiration.

Hope this helps,
Tourist

[Facet]

'Tis a fair nice drawing (I'd lose the the anime chin though ) but PPD explains form as derived from fuction friggin' eloquently

If this is concept art (ie. not intended as a presentable final product) then why do it in a notoriously slow & fiddly medium? I'd personally start by iterating with pencils if not a digi-painting sketch.

[Blaze Enigma]

I wasn't aware that I needed to post information about the race lol
- Although they are primary aquatic, they can live on land, somewhat like Amphibians can.

@PixelPiledriver
I do quite enjoy your edit, but making them more fish like would certainly drift away from the original idea, I dislike the ideology of all aquatic creatures having to be fish like beings, as this Game does not take place on earth, I presumed no one would worry about the fact they are not fish people, as for adaptations, not all adaptions are visual adaptions, but I do apologize for not giving any detail/information as to where the race lives ect..

- Their main 'city' is slightly sticking out from a sea within the game, thus it is not fully submerged, and is not fully supported by the water, if you need an example, a ice berg would be the easiest comparison
- Although they live in the sea, they can walk on land, and breath like any human, but as their skin is not adapted to the heat the sun would provide, they tend to wear desert like clothing to remove said factor of heat that could harm them.
- It still currently a work in progress, thus I will be adding more to it, to give it a visual impact

@Seiseki
The desert clothing is their generic clothing for when on land, I have explained this above ^ :]

Thank you everyone for your help, I don't tend to change the concept to such an extent, but I will eventually add some visual adapations, as for now, I simply fixed the chin, as suggested, and carried on with the body.

I have difficulties with muscle definition, as I don't tend to do large scale work lol



Added a quick edit of how I pictured the character in-game along side the basic template for a human

[Carnivac]

Aquaman lives in the sea and doesn't look even remotely fishy.  Just sayin'. 

[Seiseki]

Expectations can sometimes be extremely strong, as seen in this thread.
I recently watched a GDC talk about the art of Diablo III where they said that they did 75% of what you'd expect and then a 25% twist, to avoid following the norm and make things more interesting.

I'd say this is 25% following expectations and 75% twist

In this case, I'd be a bit worried about people assuming that the race are desert dwelling dark/night-elves. (that was my first thought, and that the skin color relates to magic)
It might just be because I think that PixelPiledriver's ears and tail looks awesome, but I'd recommend that you at least add a fin somewhere.
And because I think it's important that the art reinforces the backstory and setting, which sorta makes both the art and setting stronger by complementing each other.
Granted, the people on these boards are designers and quite picky, but you don't want to risk your players reacting that way..  

[Blaze Enigma]

I hope no one minds, but I am going to post various pieces of art from Grimoire lol as it is easier than cluttering the forums with my posts, and I tend to work on more than one thing at a time.
P.S Sorry If I forgot to mention this game is an ORPG which has just recently started production.

- I added a fin, but it looks quite odd lol


- Character Template
This is the template I will use for making the various races, I hope its obvious that it is human lol, I am currently working on COMBAT, but it is to WIP to post, but I have completed the walk cycle, which I tend to consider the hardest part of a base





And just in case someone wishes to see it frame by frame, each direction is consistent of 8.


Opinions? ^^

[e4r]

There should deffinatley be chest and shoulder movements. Watch how a person walks and you'll notice there torso doesn't stay in one place

[PixelPiledriver]

Aquaman lives in the sea and doesn't look even remotely fishy.  Just sayin'.  

Its a very subtle amount of visual theme but his old costume has scales and fins:

Some of his other designs are less fishy.

form as derived from fuction

Yes!
Function and form go hand in hand.
What's it for?
What's it do?
How does it look?
Does how it looks affect what it does?
Does what it does affect how it looks?
These are important questions when coming up with stuff.

I added a fin, but it looks quite odd lol

Function and form are probly why you think the fin looks silly.
You've added a form but are unsure of the function.
Why did you put it there?
There are different levels of function.
Does it help him swim? <---- function of action
Does it make him more fish like? <----- function of theme
Does it balance the composition of his overall shape? <------ function of art
Does it just look cool? <------ funciton of appeal
Be self aware of why you are adding a prop or feature.
It will help give you direction for the specific feature you are working on.
You'll need to convince yourself to alleviate the feeling of silliness.

but I do apologize for not giving any detail/information as to where the race lives ect.

No need to apologize!
I just wanted to point out that expectation has an affect on perception.
Make the design your own and have fun with it.

[Carnivac]

Its a very subtle amount of visual theme but his old costume has scales and fins

Yeah, but he himself looks indistiguisable from a human being. Anyone can dress up as Aquaman (although having seen some fans dress up as him as conventions, some are more succesful than others...seriously if you want to dress up as a superhero, at least work out a bit...)

The 'classic' depiction of mermaids always seemed odd to me.  Simply being like they chopped a person and a fish in half and stuck them together.  I have seen other designs where they try to blend a bit more fishiness into the top half such as gills and fins though.

[Grimsane]

oh wow my post got deleted before posting... Retype:
the animations look quite fluent and on their own they seem fine, but here are some issues
Centre of gravity is off:

in the sideview, the arms seem proportionately shorter, and is exacerbated by an extremely low elbow joint. and as i said "on their own" the sideview in particular seems a bit mismatched perspective and proportionally compared to the downward and upward angles
also a quick edit pulling the legs back 2-3 pixels on each frame, and shaving 1 pixel from the height, however didn't adjust anything else:

ed: I also noticed on the contact of the right foot his leg grows 1 pixel longer. and his arms are changing length during their swing a bit too, this is kinda nitpicking it to a state of perfection, you could just assume most people won't notice, but I always think it's better to strive for something more solid and resilient to scrutiny. the shading is quite good, another thing I observed though is that in the upward walk his shading reinforces a far greater stride than the downward simply due to the darker shade of the leading leg going forward.


and on further analysis after staring at for long enough I believe your up/down ones have a bit of mixed perspective, the arms have significantly more foreshortening, as if from a more top down angle. and he legs look more straight on,
which when combined with the fact you might have pushed the tallness quite alot, makes them when possible to interpret a tad like this
edit: rushed example is too extremely exaggerated it could easily be interpreted as insult still extreme but more accurately conveying the effect I witnessed
and a quick colour of my first example just for funsake  super funky hoola time

quite a strut, mainly the perspective issue and long legs vs shorter arms, this image is a rather extreme and exaggerated example but articulates my point sufficiently. perspective is a hard thing to nail, but you have a fluently animated base, the animation definitely reads quite fine, I just think you should work on matching the perspective of the arms and legs, It could be really subtle changes that will resolve it, could just be the long torso

one thing is that editing every single frame is gonna be a bit of a pain

okay staring even more I notice one more thing you're arms arc back and forth quite significantly and without any shoulder movement at all looks quite bizarre if paid attention too, and the extreme backward frame seems to convey a strange flick

and again just noticed something else that shadow implies his entire body is twisting, the shadow is being cast down from his entirety not just his legs, just something to consider, oh and also there is a brow region that flickers in the downward animation.

 wow that was alot of critisism hope you take it all as constructively as it was intended

[Blaze Enigma]

Muahaha? I think I got it, lol pretty happy with the perspective now.

[Grimsane]

got a pm from the Blaze Enigma requesting for some assistance regarding the issue I raised about the strut/limbo slant. so I'm posting it here.

I believe the the root of the problem is in the chosen perspective, it's hard for me to gauge exactly what you are going for with your angle, without seeing some of the intended environment they reside.

here Is my attempt at resolving the issue without braking the aesthetic too greatly, and I found it almost impossible without adding volume to the top to reinforce a top down perspective, otherwise like you can see at the right side of the image it is extremely very close to being a straight on camera angle. also up the top left I believe the major issue in the animation is the legs bowing outward from the hips, which is an extremely unnatural way to walk (unless you have back bent knee joints/alienesque legs), strangely though if you isolate the legs in the animation it's actually a rather good example of a walk toward a camera with perspective.

I think you should re-evaluate the shadow massing and keep it mostly consistent frame to frame, the twisting is counter to his motion, as I alluded to earlier, my suggestion just have it get 1 pixel rounder and contract 1 pixel on the down and up most extreme frames/bobs (respectively).

well I think you are stepping in the right direction. and I've concluded that with your current sprites, I believe most all the problems can be solved with shading. shade below the midpoint an entire tone darker will reinforce that it is deeper. In a top down context, closer to the ground. I think most my examples are in a completely different style and angle. I personally don't use bases or create my own, which maybe i should! I just make a fully rendered character sprite, then make variations and new ones based on the established style, and anime/manga style is not my strength but It is quite appealing in yours, possible view angle issues aside. ironically I think one issue with the hip and leg width  in particular is pixel related, in vectors for example at twice the resolution you could refine the skinny tall proportions and they'd likely work without hitch

also even my examples have flaws and anatomic issues but hopefully you can use them collectively as reference to see what works better to improve your own.

[Blaze Enigma]

got a pm from the Blaze Enigma requesting for some assistance regarding the issue I raised about the strut/limbo slant. so I'm posting it here.

I believe the the root of the problem is in the chosen perspective, it's hard for me to gauge exactly what you are going for with your angle, without seeing some of the intended environment they reside.

here Is my attempt at resolving the issue without braking the aesthetic too greatly, and I found it almost impossible without adding volume to the top to reinforce a top down perspective, otherwise like you can see at the right side of the image it is extremely very close to being a straight on camera angle. also up the top left I believe the major issue in the animation is the legs bowing outward from the hips, which is an extremely unnatural way to walk (unless you have back bent knee joints/alienesque legs), strangely though if you isolate the legs in the animation it's actually a rather good example of a walk toward a camera with perspective.

I think you should re-evaluate the shadow massing and keep it mostly consistent frame to frame, the twisting is counter to his motion, as I alluded to earlier, my suggestion just have it get 1 pixel rounder and contract 1 pixel on the down and up most extreme frames/bobs (respectively).

well I think you are stepping in the right direction. and I've concluded that with your current sprites, I believe most all the problems can be solved with shading. shade below the midpoint an entire tone darker will reinforce that it is deeper. In a top down context, closer to the ground. I think most my examples are in a completely different style and angle. I personally don't use bases or create my own, which maybe i should! I just make a fully rendered character sprite, then make variations and new ones based on the established style, and anime/manga style is not my strength but It is quite appealing in yours, possible view angle issues aside. ironically I think one issue with the hip and leg width  in particular is pixel related, in vectors for example at twice the resolution you could refine the skinny tall proportions and they'd likely work without hitch

also even my examples have flaws and anatomic issues but hopefully you can use them collectively as reference to see what works better to improve your own.

Thanks ^^ for taking your time to edit my base, I took your concept of depth, and did as you said so, I really like it now, lol.


As a side note, I would just like to thank everyone who has made a reply to this post, and I will update the concept art I made above soon, I am simply attempting to get this base out of the way lol.

- Slight Edit

[Grimsane]

some progress, but I think you ignored the part about darkening the lower half, which included the legs. you still have the same issue, here:

you'll notice the colour alone is causing a depth effect, when animated compared to my edit, does it not look like hip thrusting?

also just showed what you could get away with highlight wise on the chest. keep pushing i'm sure it'll be a pretty solid base soon enough, and you seem to have the skills and potential to smoothly animate and fully realize some quite nice sprites, Interested to see what they'll look like with clothing and gear.

[Blaze Enigma]

some progress, but I think you ignored the part about darkening the lower half, which included the legs. you still have the same issue, here:

you'll notice the colour alone is causing a depth effect, when animated compared to my edit, does it not look like hip thrusting?

also just showed what you could get away with highlight wise on the chest. keep pushing i'm sure it'll be a pretty solid base soon enough, and you seem to have the skills and potential to smoothly animate and fully realize some quite nice sprites, Interested to see what they'll look like with clothing and gear.

Not entirely sure there is anything left that can be done to the base without losing any aesthetic lol

I decide to carry on with revamping the other states/animations, as well as an update on the race

- Yes they are no longer blue/purple, but who says they need to be? There are a variety of red creatures in the sea e.g. Crabs lol
- The eyes seem to give the impression of good sight, which I assume is a good adaptation when in the sea, as the sea tends to be very optically dense as you go down in depth.
- They do slightly look demonic now, lol which is my only con currently
- I relocated the fin to a more useful area, which is likely to increase the races hydrodynamics

[Seiseki]

I think it looks completely demonic now, there isn't even a hint of aquatic left..
If your inspiration comes from crabs, then he should look more like a crab, not necessarily with claws, but hard shell-like skin.
Although crabs only turn red when cooked, but that doesn't really matter because most people still relates red->crab.

PixelPiledriver, brought up an incredibly valid argument about function -> form.

And you need to ask yourself, who are you designing this race for?
Yourself? Did you make it red because you think that's cool/interesting?

You're messing way too much with expectations.
Imagine a typical players reaction   "oh cool, demon race!", 'This is an aquatic race',   "uhm, what?"
And 'Here we have the green race with vines as hair and leaf-like tatoos, they live in volcanoes'   "wwwuuuut?!"
Also, 'Here's a picture of an ice cube, it's used for fire spells',   "ok, that's it.. this is just.. too much.."



  "Now that I can tell is a fish-something! Or possibly a green dragon-man lol"

Also, if you really want to make them red, why not just make them into a demon race that lives in the desert?
Does it have to be an aquatic race? If so then why?

[Jeremy]

Yeah the red is definitely a step back. It kinda seems that your process is generic anime body + fish accessories. Look at amphibians/swimmers/things that do what this guy does.

[Grimsane]

whoa dammit ninja'd by Jeremy,

I agree with  Seiseki's points, and did this edit



completely agree with Jeremy he raises some good points on the anatomy too, but I can see how some aspects would clash to some degree with your anime aesthetic, but you can definitely adapt what he did to your intended style, (nice edits and design direction btw Jeremy )

with mine I just quickly was going to suggest a few more fins to reinforce what you were doing from the elbow
and larger webbed feet would be more practical, but if they are land walking a compromise between size and dexterity should be met.
some recommendations on the anatomical forms reinforcing certain muscles, you could argue that you want it to be flat for hydrodynamics etc. but as Jeremy highlighted strong muscular structure is required for swimming,

I think you should probably avoid scales as it'd introduce a few issues and possible style clashes, think more sharks smooth yet course/matte, and the tail could do with some work.

also on expectation I tend to agree, but if you do want to have a more red colour worked in, I recommend using the proven method of easing past expectation, if you Establish the expectations you can slowly introduce things that would out of context look jarring, so for example when you introduce them (the player's first encounter) you should have them bluer and after you have established what they are, you can introduce variations, and the variations (within certain boundaries of course) would look more acceptable and believable to the player.

also I should raise that pixelling or drawing on pure white is a bad practice, think about it, when are they ever going to be present against white? unless on snow or some crazy white dream sequence, never. so you should get in the habit of having a relatively neutral tone, if not one that would be along the lines of what the background graphics or tileset would be. Having White as your BG can alter your perception of contrast and colour values to some degree, something that looks perfectly balanced on white, may look entirely out of place in it's intended context and require avoidable tweaking

[Liksmaskaren]

Quick edit. I wanna see muscles and scales!

[Blaze Enigma]

whoa dammit ninja'd by Jeremy,

I agree with  Seiseki's points, and did this edit



completely agree with Jeremy he raises some good points on the anatomy too, but I can see how some aspects would clash to some degree with your anime aesthetic, but you can definitely adapt what he did to your intended style, (nice edits and design direction btw Jeremy )

with mine I just quickly was going to suggest a few more fins to reinforce what you were doing from the elbow
and larger webbed feet would be more practical, but if they are land walking a compromise between size and dexterity should be met.
some recommendations on the anatomical forms reinforcing certain muscles, you could argue that you want it to be flat for hydrodynamics etc. but as Jeremy highlighted strong muscular structure is required for swimming,

I think you should probably avoid scales as it'd introduce a few issues and possible style clashes, think more sharks smooth yet course/matte, and the tail could do with some work.

also on expectation I tend to agree, but if you do want to have a more red colour worked in, I recommend using the proven method of easing past expectation, if you Establish the expectations you can slowly introduce things that would out of context look jarring, so for example when you introduce them (the player's first encounter) you should have them bluer and after you have established what they are, you can introduce variations, and the variations (within certain boundaries of course) would look more acceptable and believable to the player.

also I should raise that pixelling or drawing on pure white is a bad practice, think about it, when are they ever going to be present against white? unless on snow or some crazy white dream sequence, never. so you should get in the habit of having a relatively neutral tone, if not one that would be along the lines of what the background graphics or tileset would be. Having White as your BG can alter your perception of contrast and colour values to some degree, something that looks perfectly balanced on white, may look entirely out of place in it's intended context and require avoidable tweaking

Ok, lol I simply used your muscles as a template, hope thats ok.

Either way...

- Jeremy : I increased the size of the thighs 
- Ears, I have yet to add these lol.
- Colors, I went with a slightly shark like tone
- Face, those large bulges would decreases their ability to swim at a fast rate?

[ptoing]

You are coming along nicely.

Crits I would have are that we should see his other shoulder and part of his far arm as well and that the fin on his back does not seem to connect in any logical way, unless it has some really weird shape.

[Grimsane]

Ok, lol I simply used your muscles as a template, hope thats ok.

not at all. although I didn't touch the arm and it needs some work, now it's looking a tad out of place.

agree with ptoing about the back fin, but it's a cool idea, I left it in from  Seiseki's, which I based my edit on. his tail could use a tad more refinement but I doubt you've gotten around to that yet, my suggestion if you are going with a shark theme make the tail forked a bit like a shark's. and offering another idea for the head too tentacles/tendrils  



okay well was just gonna do an illustration on what you could do with tentacles, but got carried away was gonna leave the arm too but I'm inclined to believe I've developed some form of editing OCD  
also a suggestion of the background arm

[Blaze Enigma]

Ok, lol I simply used your muscles as a template, hope thats ok.

not at all. although I didn't touch the arm and it needs some work, now it's looking a tad out of place.

agree with ptoing about the back fin, but it's a cool idea, I left it in from  Seiseki's, which I based my edit on. his tail could use a tad more refinement but I doubt you've gotten around to that yet, my suggestion if you are going with a shark theme make the tail forked a bit like a shark's. and offering another idea for the head too tentacles/tendrils  



okay well was just gonna do an illustration on what you could do with tentacles, but got carried away was gonna leave the arm too but I'm inclined to believe I've developed some form of editing OCD  
also a suggestion of the background arm

Lol, I really like the edit/if I haven't said it enough I appreciate all the help you guys are giving, be it visually help or simply verbal everything helps ^^


Does the side match the other directions as of now?

- Trying to get the base out of the way, so I can focus on the variety of other things

@Ptoing
Yes, I fully agree lol the fin seems looks like some prosthetic attachment if anything, I will be sure to fix that in my newer updates

[A2J2TIWARI]

This looks lovely so far! I hope this will turn out to be perfect, Mr. Perfectionist!

[Seiseki]

His arms are extremely thin in the front and back views.

[Blaze Enigma]

His arms are extremely thin in the front and back views.

Lol, well hes not that fat to begin with, I presumed his arms were a good length in comparsion to his body, if I make them any bigger, it looks quite odd, as the arm slightly looks to be the same size as his torso.

- Animation

On a side note returning to the animations as the base's perspective is fixed lol

I do hope he does not look like hes strutting anymore, as for upper body movement, I have failed in my attempt to do so, and ended up with more or less the same thing lol

Any thoughts?

[Mr. Fahrenheit]

I think what would help with the strutting problem is if his hands during the walking animation went over his torso instead of going directly beside it. Right now it looks like his hands never reach past his torso when in reality they should never really go to far past his torso on the swing back.

[Blaze Enigma]

Another update on the race

- Played with the contrast levels of the skin, as well as shading a few places
- Increased the size of the tail as suggested.
- Have yet to change the head, but I will do so shortly

@Grimsane
I really like that edit, I will be sure to incorporate some of the ideas you have presented in my next update lol

@Mr. Fahrenheit
How so, I thought the strutting problem was no longer present as the perspective was fixed/As for the arms ascending past the torso, I presumed that was occurring, care to tell me which frames have said issue?




I have also recently updated the movement lol



If anyone cares to see an in-game screenshot I have linked a image, the image is quite large hence I didn't add it in a format
http://i50.tinypic.com/t8oppe.png (It is a very experimental and new screenshot lol)

Apologizes for the large post <(^.^)>

[Grimsane]

he means to some extent this:
*tehwexxl0rz sprite and animation

and that grass tile isn't tiling the best, there is a very pronounced shape, mainly due to this thicker grass outline


and the upward walk still suffers from the exaggerated stride effect due to your colour choice on the legs, mainly the backmost  motion of the leg are too highlighted. and I think you've emphasised a different directional extreme on each angle, hope that makes sense, the downward animation looks like his legs are striding backward quite alot, and in the upward animation they is more emphasis on the opposing direction Ed:nah I think it's just animated too extremely, looks more like a front on leg walkcycle

tail looks more plausible but should obviously be darker when you do colour it, also he looks a bit bland without the elbow OR back fins etc, i think you should come up with something to set them widely apart from humans, more sharklike facial shape, or even going back to and improving some of what has been tried, I was rather digging the colour tones from earlier they looked more matte and shark-like but if you are going for a more cellshaded look then you should make sure you're shadowing is consistent with the highlights ei. decide how flat you want the shading. right now flat shadows/volumetric highlights

[pistachio]

Was working on this:




Bonus top-down RPG sprite (Note head-fins' drastic effects on silhouette, even small scale)

since earlier on in the thread. Design has progressed pretty well since but it can definitely be pushed further. Most problems have been pointed out by others in the thread however.

All these good refs and no one mentions the Zora from Zelda:OoT/MM (specifically Link's form, or that one with the fins)?! The fins here don't have to be as large as the fins there, not even in the same place, but should have more of an impact on the character's silhouette is what I'm saying.

Zora as an example, proficient swimmers that are aided by their arm-fins. As a result, said fins are pretty big, almost wing-like. Here, I ditched the shoes, figuring this guy swims with heavy use of his feet (but ankle-brace is still there, you see the symbol on it repeated a few times hopefully unifying the design.)

The palette/colorscheme (light blue to dark green) chosen here does bring up some interesting hue shifting and color conservation (10 colors). Also rimlighting, because rimlights are awesome, and in this instance, show the transparency of fish-guy's fins. So that's really a bonus, but you don't have to do this to demonstrate transparency if they're clearly fins. Both of these come down to a matter of choice.

With the face you have it just seems like a demon anime guy with aquatic features that could be more prominent, here it's more a cross between a primate and a dolphin/shark...with tusks...or something like that. Bit odd in retrospect but, point is, the face in its general form can afford to be a bit less humanoid.

With what I did here, defining w/shading more than line, I pretty much took a completely different rendering direction than what you were going for but this might give you ideas on design, lighting, correcting anatomy etc. Btw I would recommend straight cel-shading for your style, starting again from two contrasting shades (either in the light or it isn't) + lines and working a bit from there, not over-rendering.

Plan to rough out the desert outfit later, so keep an eye out for that, I'll be back for a while.

[Seiseki]

Mind.. blown..
And for the record I've been thinking about Zoras the entire time

[Daimoth]

Either make his mouth a little more carnivorous or remove it altogether. For some reason I think removing the mouth would look really good on him.

[Grimsane]

whoa pistachio that's frickin awesome, hopefully you've inspired him and not depressed him I thought of Zora quite a bit too,
honestly thought someone else would have mentioned it, also kinda figured he might've already been influenced by them to begin with.

damn I wanna play a game with that art direction/execution

[Blaze Enigma]

So many crits :O


@Grimsanea
So, I attempted to make the legs 'correct'

@Pistachio
That is amazing lol, although I am not doing a realistic style, I can definitely learn from a variety of elements in the edit I will be sure to do so when I update ^_^

[Bissle]

The human sprite looks very good as far as form, coloring, etc. goes. The walking animation from the front is a marked improvement. The back view animation lacks... "umph". The back itself needs more movement, and while flipping the front walking animation is a good start, the legs need to be tweaked more--as of now, it kind of looks like the character's legs are on backwards.

As far as your aquatic race, you are certainly moving in the right direction. From what you've said previously, too much realism would ruin what you're going for, so it's a matter of striking that balance.

Keep up the good work!

[f3dot]

The problem with the walk is that his trunks are not animated, so it looks like his hips are bending in half instead of moving from the hip joint (compare to your side view animation).

[Blaze Enigma]

My apologizes for not posting, I have been busy with constructing ideas with my programmer.
I didn't really know what to do to give the body lower rotation, so I attempted a simple animation lol

Although its very faint, its still there lol

Side by side comparison of were I started and were I am now lol

I also decide to experiment with some clothing styles, as well as NPCs, but the NPC is very WIP, simply leaving him here for reference to further progression

[BetaMan12]

I like it now, also I like the little monster thing

[Grimsane]

I think one thing that clashes slightly is the difference in the line on the pants waist and the pant legs, but not entirely sure here's a quick browser copy and paste ediy from the gif (so it picked a random frame or the 1st idk)


looking interesting, the outfit you've toyed with so far looks good and seems that you could come up with some interesting outfits at this resolution of sprite, that NPC design thus far is pretty interesting, got some reasonably done ideas but with an anime styled twist and it all looking like it's heading in an interesting direction overall. I don't think we see an awful lot of japanime style ~proportions game design in 2D even back in the 16 and 32 bit era most games veered toward SD (super deformed/massive heads/'chibi') styles. I'm interested in seeing how you go about rendering these environments and cities you've vaguely mentioned.

good luck with the project and hoping you keep the momentum and motivation going, and persist to a finished product (or atleast a playable one  )

Ed: okay was asked to further clarify what I meant so figured I'd post it here

[f3dot]

A whole one pixel motion for the pants might be too much at this size, so why not use shading?
Kind of like this:
The more perpendicular a surface is to the falling light, the brighter it becomes and vice versa. Same as you did for the rest of his legs and his arms.