Some characters

[fskn]

Oh, I totally thought that was a sorceress!
But yeah, like Sein says, you take what you like and discard what you dislike (or what is inappropriate according to your context). As I did those hands I was thinking exactly that: "Well, even if he doesn't use it here, he could use it in some other character in the future... or I could use it! )

As for your new characters, they all have super cool designs, and I like the way you've been rendering the different materials.

The trees could probably have subler animation, and just more frames. Making the leaves in the silhouette move ever so slightly as in the beginning. Also, making them move in different moments, and sometimes more, sometimes less...
Kind of like:


And if there's wind, then the clouds could be moving slowly to the left... Maybe?

That perfectly straight horizontal line just behind the trees seems odd, I kind of want it to be more sinuous like the hills in the far background, though not as much. Is there a reason for it to be so straight? It's almost like there's a painted wall there, or a big piece of fabric or canvas (if that's the case, by the way, it would be really cool if you could make it move with the wind too, but damn it would be tough to animate).

[cels]

Thanks!

Hm, yeah, I see what you mean by subtle animation on the trees. Right now they do look quite cartoonish. I will fix this when I add more frames, I just wanted a decent 18 frame cycle to build on before I go to 36 or 72 frames. It's my first big(ish) animation ever and I don't want to throw in dragons and fireworks until I have a good base. If I get to 72 frames, maybe I have enough frames for an overlapping cloud cycle.




Nice point about different speeds on the leaves. I will see if I can figure that out in Asesprite. Still figuring out this program.

The perfectly straight horizontal line is part of this image's silly hidden reference, which is only obvious to the most blessed of the 80's kids out there. (Spoiler HERE, HERE and HERE). But thinking about it now, the reference also works with a slightly more dynamic horizon.

[fskn]

Nice point about different speeds on the leaves. I will see if I can figure that out in Asesprite. Still figuring out this program.

Hm, yeah, I don't know how to do that in Aseprite... I turned your GIF into a video of sorts inside of Photoshop and edited it, which is way faster than trying to rearrange individual frames.

Cool animation you did there, by the way!

EDIT: Also, in Photoshop you could animate individual layers independently from one another, so you could, for instance, make loops for each of your knights, trees, and the clouds, arrange them in the animation timeline however you liked, then exported that video as a GIF. And yes, that would be pixel perfect.
I think you can do something similar in Aseprite, as it's very similar, as I recall, to Adobe Flash. But every program has its perks, so...

(Spoiler HERE, HERE and HERE).

OOooOOOooh! Very niiice! I wasn't one of those kids so I would've never guessed.

[cels]

I can animate different layers independently in Asesprite, but I think I'm stuck with manually adding or removing frames from the animation of individual layers in order to make them speed up or slow down.

On the top of my list right now is:
- Make the trees move more smoothly in the wind, less boxy / cartoonish animation.
- Improve the halberd pennant flowing in the wind, try to make it smoother.
- Maybe add an animation of wind blowing across the grass. Fuck it. Ain't nobody got time for dat.
- Maybe add some tiny ripples to the water. Done. Kind of.

Still very open to feedback regarding the water animation, characters, colors, textures - whatever, really. Also, I need to make this chest more wood-like and less chocolate-like.



EDIT:

Does this work? Or do the ripples give you a seizure? Apart from the uneven and glitchy movement, I mean.

36 frame version just to space out the loops a bit. Still the same issues tho.



EDIT: Less chocolate. Is it wood though?

[fskn]

- Improve the halberd pennant flowing in the wind, try to make it smoother.

I think you should (let's see if I can describe this...) make it do its wave and whip the very end every time.
Also you could let it fall down for a bit, then blow in the wind again.

It all depends on how much time you want to spend on it adding subtle details. But I think it would all add to the piece in the end and make it that much better.

- Maybe add an animation of wind blowing across the grass. Fuck it. Ain't nobody got time for dat.

That would look super cool, though. Maybe something like a ripple or two...
The edges would probably need to be rough, I think, to sell it as grass... (big guess here)

Does this work? Or do the ripples give you a seizure? Apart from the uneven and glitchy movement, I mean.

Looks fine for me, I think...

EDIT: Less chocolate. Is it wood though?

Yeah, that looks a bit weird. Like it has some odd grooves now, kind of like if a rat went there and gnawed some of that wood to get what's inside. (yes, the treasure is not gold, but actually cheese. )

Perhaps something like giving a couple panels a different shade of brown, or just overall not adding that much detail.

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EDIT: Maybe..?

or

And they may need a handle to help them carry all of that cheese out of there once they're done taking their photo:



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Also, what do you think of making the tip of that sword a little rounder?



I know you don't *want* to add AA to anything (esp on the edges), but... it's just a couple of pixels... 

The glove/gauntlet could use some shading too.


A little less contrast on the highlights?

[cels]

Phew! Once again, thanks for taking the time! Here's what I've got:



- Tried to improve the pennant and get the whip action going. I may have gone too far? But I think it's ok.
- Didn't want to do the ripples because the perspective of the foreground is kind of a bit funky and I didn't want to draw attention to it. But now that I've done it, I actually like it and I feel like I learned something from it. So thanks for encouraging me. Unless it now looks ugly, in which case FML.
- Still need to fix the ripples.
- Great edit of the cheese chest! I immediately felt really stupid when I saw your edit. How did I not think of that, when I'd been looking at wood panels as a reference? Anyway, I love your edit and I think I've come as far as I can without 100% copy paste. Hard to avoid when there are so few pixels.
- Thanks for feedback on sword and gauntlet. I forgot all about that gauntlet.
- Softened the highlights on the top of the chest.

To do:
- Fix the trees.
- Fix the water ripples.
- Bring back the golden animation on the chest. (Btw, reference HERE  )
- Double the frames from 18 to 36 again in order to even out the knight's head movement. He looks really nervous now. Which is funny, but not intentional.
- Sleep, at some point. Maybe.

EDIT:

No sleep for me. Check, check and check. Trees are still a bit cartoony, but better.



EDIT2:

And here's another female commoner. I'm kind of struggling with how to do complex fabric folds at this scale without making it too noisy and harsh, and having too much banding. There are so many not-quite-parallel lines of shadow and highlight running down her dress to make the folds and layers. It ends up being either banding or noisy, I think.
Any advice, pixel smiths?

[fskn]

Hmm... I *think* that when that happens you're better off just throwing that into shadow or making all of that area a single flat color.
(other, more experienced guys may have a different opinion, though...)


This is what I would do:



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Although, y'know... You could use some of that gray down there too...

[SeDiceBisonte]

CELS, these are looking wonderful! I love your character designs. I can't believe how many you keep coming up with.

Regarding the commoner, I'm a less experienced guy, but I've also given it a go.


Googling Bavarian dress (the first thing I could think of with skirts that have the right sort of folds, such as these) suggested that less contrast might be desirable in the areas that are well lit, but I compensated by adding in more contrast at the top. Removing the darker parts of the skirt also got rid of half the banding, and expanding the mid-brown and AAing a bit with it got rid of some more. As ever, your mileage may vary.

I also mucked about with some other parts. I thought the shadow inside the red cape on the right didn't suggest anything that we could see the bottom of the cape doing, so I smoothed it out. I also fiddled with the gold and red band on her forehead to make the eyes more prominent. Her left shoulder (our right) looked too close to her neck to me, so I tried to move it further out. I think I messed up the hands a bit, though. Her left hand is in quite an awkward position and I don't have a hand model available at the moment (or a nearby mirror). Is she in the middle of lifting and throwing back her cape?

Oh, I also moved her feet apart. I assume from the original that she's meant to be walking towards us and a bit to our left, but it started to look less balanced to me as I was working on it so I shifted it to a standing pose. That was more for my benefit really but I think, if she is meant to be walking, it'd be good to use the folds of the dress to maybe show the knee/leg structure and add some movement that way. That's a very mild suggestion, though, as I'm not sure how I'd approach it and I don't think skirts like that really show much of what's going on beneath anyway.

[cels]

Thanks, guys! Super super helpful! I've tried to find a good compromise between your edits, my idea and the reference.


@fskn: You may be right about adding too much detail vs using larger clusters. I notice I'm gradually adding more and more detail, especially if my reference is fairly detailed. I don't think the grey on the bottom skirt works that well, at least not on my screen. Could be a calibration issue. Other than that, there's a lot of great changes in your edit. Btw, I totally forgot to fix the head of my queen before, which I've come back and done now. Totally slipped my mind.

@SeDiceBisonte: Well, I'm only coming up with some of these character designs. The rest I'm just copying from the internet and maybe changing a few colors. But that's ok - at this stage I need references in order to learn

Good idea to google Bavarian dress! I should have included my reference, you can find it HERE. It might explain some of my weird choices and possibly reveal my mistakes. I'm not sure that I've captured her leg position correctly.

You made a lot of great changes and as you can see below, I tried to incorporate several of them. Cheers!

I can't quite figure out how to make the gesture of the 'berzerker' with axe and sword look more powerful and determined, rather than agile and sneaky. I'm trying to do THIS and not getting it right. Partially perspective, but there's probably something else that I'm missing.

[fskn]

I can't quite figure out how to make the gesture of the 'berzerker' with axe and sword look more powerful and determined, rather than agile and sneaky. I'm trying to do THIS and not getting it right. Partially perspective, but there's probably something else that I'm missing.

https://i.imgur.com/4QDEn4S.png

I think most of it is in two things:
1) The shoulders
2) The low camera angle.

You can't lower the camera angle as you're doing like a roster of characters and so all of them have to be seen from the same camera angle... right? (I mean, you probably could put one of them in a pedestal or a throne or something up above the rest...)

But you could make the shoulders stronger and more prominent. And the whole figure heavier.


So something like this..?




Actually let's make that axe heavier as well.




Alternatively...