Wander from SotC

[Seven]

First of all, hi 
Guess you noticed I'm new here. Fast and deadly, here's one sprite I'd like you to rate for me:



For those who don't know him, he's Wander from Shadow of The Colossus (now you know how to search a reference for him and compare to the sprite). I've been playing it recently and liked his interesting design. So i tried to sprite him as similar as possible to the original. C+C?

[Helm]

Rate? We don't rate art here, we critique and comment on it. Hello. Welcome to Pixelopolis. About your sprite:

You could AA a lot of the detailwork on the fabrics and stuff if you so desired, I'd do it personally, 'cause there's a lot of jagginess going on. No more than one-point AA is needed, I think.

I feel the flesh shades go towards 'burned' orange a bit too much. Have you tried a more purple tint?

There's much accesorizing, which I guess is due to your reference material, but I feel this might make the sprite a bit too busy for it's own good.

Selout on sword overkill, I think.

This is perhaps a bit too sharp, without enough defined shadows. Edit follows.



Just a few ideas. I didn't fix the knee anatomy issue, because I'd have to change the clothes and I couldn't be bothered to look up reference from the game. I'll just say the knee/lower leg part needs redefinition. Knees too low, too little lower leg, while otherwise the anatomy is ok.

[nvision]

The design looks fairly close, but I think it may give more of an accurate feel if you desaturate the colours a but.  The visual trademark of the series is certainly the washed-out, etherial environments and characters.  You could also work a little on anti-aliasing, within the pattern in his poncho and his skirt, as Helm suggested. 

[Seven]

I expressed myself wrongly then. But I'll take note about not using "rate" anymore.

About the sprite, I didn't notice the knee problem, which was the main mistake on the sprite. I tried to fix it, and the funny part is that I didn't see the reference's knee at first. The colors are desatured as suggested (in fact, I was undecided in the very beggining about them), so is part of the shading and AA. Hope that it seems better now:

[Helm]

I've come to the conclusion the legs are severily in need of a remake. I missed the extent of the error first time around, but this is main crit number one now.



He's not the full 8 heads realistic human beings are supposed to be but that's not a big issue. 7+1/2 ish or so is good enough for young, manga-influenced silent swordsman. whatever. I eyeballed the knee position given that he's not made of 8 heads to what you see in the rough edit. I think the feet stand to benefit from the approach in the edit. I didn't check for reference again so I don't know how short the shorts are but I guessed about 5 cm over the knee was the desired thing.

As illustrated by the navel to groin thing, his got kind of a short torso now 2 and a half heads from top of the head to navel, but this isn't really a great big deal I think.

edit: I just noticed also that the angle of the hand grasping the sword sheath seems to suggest a 90 degree joint from the forehead to the lower arm, where it is obstructed by the fabric, yet at the exit from the shoulderpad armor, it seems to suggest the arm goes straight down. I'd fix this by changing the angle on the shoulderpad exit, not the hand, as the grip looks good. Right now, the hand is implied to be in an impossible angle.



this is what I mean

[Seven]

Well, this might help for the heigt problem:

Comparison Sprite-reference

The proportion does not match at all (as you can see by the heads shape and shoulders width), but the height is almost the same. And as you can see I fixed that problem with the shoulder pad along with the arm. It is at least weird because when I first made the sprite, I made it without the fabric and the arm really seemed OK.

[Helm]

yeah, he's 7ish heads tall. Note that half of the foot is submerged in the polygonal ground, however. I guess the designers were going for frail girly-looking protagonist, not strong man with a sword. At 8 head models, the knee is at the end of the sixth head from the top, here it is at the beginning of it. As is in my edit of your sprite.

[Darion]

I pretty second of all what Helm is saying, but if this is supposed to be an exact copy, and not influenced by your own aesthetic, than you need to change his face. It is too anime-like, and "omg I can destroy everthing" for wander. In the game, he gave off a calm, fair presence ... I think. His animations were very clumbsy and jerky, also. He seemed more of an amature. I feel like you are turning him into one of those anime characters that is the strongest, most perfect character, but if that is your intention: oops.

Even though Helm desaturated the colors, I think they could be took down even further. Your tones are everywhere. :s

Its good as is, just not my thing. Nice job, though.

[Seven]

In fact, I was working on another version of it, one that would make him seem more 'real'. And I really liked, so I changed it definetely.

As for your impression, Darion, maybe it's the fact he's holding his Ancient Sword out of the sheath (which is just an excuse to try and sprite it), or the wind effect on his hair and fabric. But see, the inspiration for the sprite really came after I was fooling around SoTC lands and this wind came and made the hair and fabric flow with it. Although, I tried to make he seems less "Behold!" graphically, changing his expression and shoulders width.

Oh and colors, I think now I'm satisfied with them.

The edit is below, next to the earlier version:

[Conzeit]

Ok, just an oppinion here, not some bigass self important crit or anything.

I think you got something going on with the head, but I really belive it is a pointless excersise if the whole sprite doesnt communicate a SotC feeling, I'd dump any outlines and harsh contrast that defines fine detail, SotC is all about smoothness and foggyness.

that's it, I think you got a talent for this, that is why I comment, so...if you disagree then rock on, I just think this style is much more fit for a completly different type of character, closer to the builds of the average fighter sprite.