Uhm O_o spent about twice as much time on it.
Again....I think the old one was good enough to go...for the goals I had for it...I just felt like tinkering for the hell of it.
Evileye: I think that's a sign that it's time to stop working on it. if you're just making and scrapping versions over and over for no practical reason you're probably overthinking it...remember it's just an enemy sprite that has to look sufficiently good to represent it's adequate level of menace to the player and fit the themes of the game...no more. No need to be so picky on a simple enemy sprite, be this picky on the main character's design or the main gameplay mechanic or whatever.Forget what you wanted this sprite to become, this sprite becomes what it has to become...if you keep idealizing your original intention you'll end up with a mangled mess of inconsistency and end up frustrated anyway because art just doesnt turn out exactly like you want...and it doesnt even really matter that much...I find when I look back on pieces that I was this anal about I find them extremely neurotic and sort of nonsensical. You yourself said there's something you want to communicate that's "beyond the medium" wether that is the case or not we cant tell you, only you know exactly what you want and you feel you cant make that happen.....so just take it pretty close, make it give a sense of what you wanted to happen and let it go.
PS:
I know I said you should stop...but that's because I see you working directionless...I, as usual have a completely different direction I think you should take your sprite in....so I'm posting it here for the sake of education :p totally dont expect you to swallow this whole just chew it over and play with it in your mouth before you spit it out
hopefully it hits you like a bunch of coca leaves and next time you work on something you subconsciously follow my logic
I fear that your use of that black terminator shade was rather killing the depth because it's so ubiquitous...you did improve a bit by darkening his right arm BUT now that you've started using white on his legs you went one step forward and two step backwards cause it has gotten even flatter...I believe if you want to keep working on this you should forget about that idealized texture you have in your head, you should fix the posture and the depth...your posture looks quite unnatural.
here's some ref....and check the YT video on the last post...look at how the gorillas handle themselves, specially their butt ;p
I think you lost A LOT of composition goodness on the translation to sprite and this is usually the case in Pxtion...he feels like he doesnt really know wether he's moving or resting or what, mostly I chalk it up to the back leg being so static...it just doesnt seem a pose a gorilla would assume when walking...also his stomach and just all of his torso looks like it's some weird impossible shape as if you're trying too hard to make his pecs and his belly look a certain whay while forgetting about making him a coherent 3d figure. Maybe you should make a little clay model of him and test out wether you can make a symetric belly and take a photograph that looks like what you have...I wouldnt bet for ya if you did.
it doesnt help that your lighting is making his butt seem as if it's on the same plane as the shoulder...you can look at my version for my idea of a good distribution of lighting in that ambient of ubiquitous radiant light (maybe look at some polar bears which was what I had in mind).
Personally I believe in your first steps you should completely forget the sketch, first step is blocking out a sillouethe and pay attention to the basic shapes both negative and positive, just creating some interesting composition with a good dynamic feeling and fitting posture for the character. After that you block in with some 3-4 shades (I intented to post this step but I wrote over it) if everything is in it's own plane and it's got good volume stick to that general plan of lighting for the rest of your time on the piece. Otherwise you end up in lighting hell reworking each little knick knack in the sprite because you are indecisive about having a distinct lightness zone for each part OR making everything super clear and detailedv
(I noticed you are there because you just darkened that right arm even though that meant sacrificing some detail....you're not satisfied with your original lighting plan) it's like making a development hell out of a single sprite.
Once you have that blocked out add some buffer shades for the sake of texturing and proper coloring...but dont go batshit obsessive about it....just give a general sense of fur or whatever texture you have, the player doesnt really care wether you achieved the fluffy fur or the 50's fur and really when you're further into the project neither will you.
Aside from that I'd just tell you to integrate the guy into the game...I remember you have posted a few sprites before (I dont know if for the same project) and I think they each had a style that was fairly independent from the style of the last one...I believe you could get away with making this guy practically white by making him polar-ish(which is obviously what I would go for) just for the sake of integrating him with that pure white background...Ultimately it's your place to decide how much he should stick to the general atmosphere of the game and how much he should be tailored to this specifical BG but make sure you are thinking of him as a small part of the entire game and you are not overly focusing on some ideal quality you had in your head while drawing him.
