[WIP] Caterpillar Mech

[JessBowers]

Here is my "Work In Progress" for a caterpillar mech. I'm struggling a bit with drawing the upper thigh (so it's removed from the current animation).



The mech will tranform from a caterpillar form:



This sprite is for a game I'm working on... a freeware retro platform shooter in the style of early nineties shareware games from Apogee/Epic/ID. (Duke Nukem, Halloween Harry, etc.)

My problems right now:
1. Drawing a good thigh that "looks right" with the rest of the mech. Not too large (so that it makes the lower boot seem small) and not so small that it doesn't appear to hold his weight.
2. Keeping the mech "near" this height. If the mech gets too much taller, then the rifle fires bullets at a height over the main character sprite's head. (I know... bad planning on my part).

Advice and C+C welcome! Thanks!

[Olothontor]

Hmmm. An interesting conundrum.

I'd say check out some of the robot and mecha gallerys on sites like Flickr. Concept art from other games is also great for this kind of thing, whether you need an entire mech or simply some detail. I'm sure you could find some good rotary thigh bits with a minimum of rummaging.

Beyond that, cool concept, looking good. I'd like to see it not zoomed, though.

[Rollerkingdom]

idk but i think adding instead something like a powered air would look good, i really like the animation very smooth, since it's a robot maybe it doesn't even need a thigh

[Olothontor]

Oh, also, I don't know, but perhaps go for an outline that isn't flat black. Outline a darker version of the color of the body it contains. I think it would look much better, unless black outline is part of the style.

[JessBowers]

Thanks, everyone, for responing.

@ Olothontor

• Flikr. Thanks for the recommendation about Flikr. Do you know of any specific galeries I should look at? I'm afraid I'm not very familiar with Flikr. I will go and check it out, though.
• Concept Art. I'll do a search on Google for concept art. The rotary thigh thing sounds cool.
• Black Outline. Yeah, I know the black outline is probably a big "no-no" nowadays. But, the games I'm emulating from the early nineties (specifically the original Duke Nukm and Halloween Harry) used those outlines for their characters. It gave things a slightly more "cartoony" feel about everything.
• Zoomed. Sorry about the zoom. I didn't even think about that. The game will be run at 2x resoltion so that's the reason I posed the sprite that way. When I get home I'll repost the sprite at actual size.

@ VEGET - Thanks!

@ Rollerkingdom - Cool idea on the powered air. I'm going to try to do actual thighs first - just to see if I can make it work.

[iggybork]

For me, the problem is context. When I first looked at this animation, which looks fantastic, I was helping someone on Pixel Joint perfect a profile view catwalk animation. I opened this topic and my immediate thought was "robo-catwalk!" Now it's all I see.

It might not matter to you, because nobody else seemed to notice it, but if you see the similarity, I think the problem is that the head/upper body is moving from side to side too much.

[Olothontor]

Here, just to be a friendly nit-picker: the gun seems to disappear in the mech's armpit. Perhaps define the curve some more or add a few details so it's easier to see where it ends (or where it should end).

[chrisgoldie]

I like it!  When I first saw it I thought the missing thigh was a design feature.
Could you reduce the legs to boots only and use electricity to join the boots to the hip?