General Maximus Muller's Mech

[Ryan Cordel]

First of all, sorry for the amount of threads and projects I never finished. (Largely loss of attention. I blame it on a syndrome I have but regardless.)
Right now I'm working on a mech that's greatly inspired by the Metal Slug series (Can't wait to play it.), directly down to using a sprite's pallete (I'm sorry.) for it. I got nice results, however, I want your opinion what else I could do with it or what I should fix on, I originally intended it to be a sort of walker mech, but I never got the legs to look right so I made it into a sort of floater mech. However, the cockpit is largely not how I imagined it but it should do atleast.

If all goes to worst, I might have to redesign it. Which troubles me, making detail on the metal is rather difficult, so it won't look plain. (Which is one part I hate.)

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[Doppleganger]

It's pretty sweet but I think that:

a.
it needs a more dynamic palette

b.
the cockpit doesn't really read as a cockpit

c.
it would be much sweeter if it had legs. And if not legs, something that makes more sense than the clumps of rock/metal at the base now.

Interestingly enough, the only things wrong with it are the things you didn't put much thought into or gave up on.

[Ryan Cordel]

Updated the mech, as displayed above. I looked at some cockpits for mechs and such (Drew inspiration from this: Inspirationness), and I really do think mine was bad as hell. However, I restarted and I like the result more. I'll have to come up with some detailing ideas soon or else this one will bite the dust too. Also, fixed some astray shading on the right side. I plan on remaking the cannon as seen above. I don't think a large.. fed-ex tube like thing would fit, so I'm fitting in a sort of chaingun. Mwaha.

[Arachne]

The first thing that struck me is how flat it looks. Everything is shaded the same way, so it seems to be on the same level. If you darken the more distant parts, it'll look like it has more volume. Here's a quick edit which I hope gets the point across.

[Ryan Cordel]

Thanks a lot, Arach'. Although I'm slightly disappointed I'll have to revise it a lot, I'll take the matter into my hands soon enough. Which reminds me, I'll have to fix the turret hole and reposition it soon.

[Franky G]

I hate to be critical, but i am having difficulty rocignising this. After studying a few references from the Metal Slug series (and from how i've worked in the past), my intuition tells me that this is being pieced together bit by bit. You're drawing a few pieces and then trying to attach them to the rest. I think this is the problem. heh, but please feel free to disagree with me if i'm incorrect.

With the MS style in mind, I think it is very important to have the whole picture in mind as this will allow you to give real depth. I think it should be kept simple for the moment. Focus on the general shapes and curves that make it. Add detail when the overall shape is down pat and i think it'll be effective.

Consider these references from Metal Slug 4 & 5 (Taken from Gamespy)


with the vehicles in mind, i think each are actually quite simple in design and this is where the Metal Slug art is Unique. Very basic shapes and curves pieced together with detail added. Take the first for example (the mech). While it looks complicated, The core of the mech is just a cube with two speres for shoulders. Arms added etc. Having it so simple i think is what makes it easy to angle and give depth to quite effectively and i think it can be seen in most other pieces.

[Ryan Cordel]

Upon reading your little post, I did see that you were right about the whole shape thing, and you were partially right about the piece thing. I started first on the little feet and worked my way up towards the boxy cockpit. I revised it several times until I came to this one. I tried to go more by plain shapes, but now I think it looks somewhat less closer to the game style than before (Must be how I've darkened the sides to give it a rounder feel.
Sorry if I seem to not be able to apply the criticism right, but the basic idea was still that the mech would still have to be of a walker type, not exactly a tank. The walker one was my original idea before I found out how deceptively tricky it is to make it on battlemechs. I went with the floater one then revised many things before going with this one.

Also, you could've posted somewhat better, pixel-perfect quality examples. JPEG never does good to any 2d game, ever, but it served as an example well enough.



EDIT: Modified it further by adding shadows as I recalled from that baby chubby dragon thread. Looks a bit anti-sluggishly inspired though..