Ailit's Metroid sprite project

[Ailit]

I delivered. Tell me how it tastes!

What I have done: I removed the weird shading from the shoulders. Couldn't get it to mesh well with the rest of the animation so I dropped it.
I also tweaked all the sprites and I'm really liking how they are all looking now.







Also, while I was trying to upload the images to imgur I forgot what I was doing twice and started just browsing the pictures.. made the process take 28 minutes more than it should have.

Critiques please!

[Ton]

Hey, looking good! I like the angled-up sprite in particular.

[Ailit]

Quick update, here is the up angle position animated.



Any comments? If none I'll move on to do the last two frames and then the left facing side.

[Ton]

Maybe add some kind of glimmer to the cannon? Or have the buttons light up?

[Ailit]

I'm alive! Sorry guys other things have been taking over this project, can you believe it! I have another project I'm working on (an indie game) and I got a job. Don't know if the latter is good news for the projects but we'll find out! This is why I haven't been able to keep up with updates.

I've completed a first draft of the left facing sprites. I'm still working on the animations (I want it to look really nice). Please comment on the sprites, even if you don't have anything to critic it still motivates me to know people want me to finish. Thanks



I know there are things to polish. For example I don't like how the shoulders look for the left facing sprites.

[Kirbyfan]

It's looking great, man!

As you said, the shoulders on the left-facing sprites could use a bit of toning.
The down-angle, left-facing sprite appears to be leaning back more than it's right-facing one. Maybe it's the shoulder that causes this; I really don't know.

[Ton]

I'm always glad to see any progress at all!
Do you think you'll eventually do the Varia/Gravity suits too? That would be a lot of editing!

[Gors]

ahh, that's the thing I hate the most in spriting characters: power-up edits. I'd rather make a full sheet of another character than revising the same sheet with edits.

Though in this case it's necessary, so I wish you luck. The power suit sprites look nice, I look forward to it.

[Koopaul]

I'm interested how you're going to approach weapon beams. Oddly enough I have a hard time with non-solid energy stuff.

[Ailit]

Ton, my original plan was to make ALL suits and some NPC characters from the newer Metroid games. I'd still like to do just that.

ahh, that's the thing I hate the most in spriting characters: power-up edits. I'd rather make a full sheet of another character than revising the same sheet with edits.

Though in this case it's necessary, so I wish you luck. The power suit sprites look nice, I look forward to it.

I know what you mean. I think after I make the Chozodian Varia suit, a simple recolor and I'll have the Gravity and Phazon suits done as well.

I'm interested how you're going to approach weapon beams. Oddly enough I have a hard time with non-solid energy stuff.

I get the feeling they won't be too hard to do but not because I've actually tried. Like this whole adventure, when I start working on beams and tiles I'm counting on all of your feedback to learn how to do it. I had never sprited before in my life before this project. I had never animated anything in my life before that running animation. It isn't good because I'm talented. It's good because of feedback.

Maybe I'll take a break from working on Samus and go work on some tiles or beams. I think I may need it.

On another note.

I declined the job offer. Short of it is that this means more time to work on these sprites!

[Ton]

Wow, quite an undertaking! I can't wait!
Also, it made me laugh that "I turned down the job!" is "Good news, everyone!"

[Ailit]

Hi all! It's been a while hasn't it?
I'm sorry for the delay, I've been working as much as I could on this project and my side project as well.

To clear up Ton as to why I declined, the company was trying to low-ball me an hourly rate which did not match my experiences nor my resume. Also for the kind of work I would have been doing, the rate they were offering was no where near the amount others were getting paid. But hey, live and learn, next time I'll do more research.

Anyway I've modified the idle stances to be a bit more natural. The left facing sprites have had their cannons shaded and their shoulders have been fixed. I feel everything looks much more standard now.



Your comments and critics fuel this project so don't stop!

I don't know when I'll be able to release another update because from here forward I'm going to really stick my head down and focus on my game (going ostrich on this bitch) because honestly, as much as I love Metroid and these sprites, the IP isn't mine and it can be taken away from the community whenever Nintendo wants. I need to work on something that can potentially put some much needed money in my pocket.

Thanks everyone for the help so far!

[Ton]

Good luck! You seem to be churning these out fairly quickly, so I have no doubt that you can do it!

[Kelvin]

I think I'm pretty much done with the ship..
I'll come back to it later but I really need to get working on the running
animation recolor and some tiles to at least get a basic set going.

The problem I have with this ship is that the window and the hull are very similar, so they blend together and make it hard to tell them apart at first glance. When I looked again, I could tell the difference between the green and the light orange (I'm partially colorblind, so I have trouble telling the difference between similar colors of certain shades). I dunno if it's easier for you to tell the difference or not, but consider it maybe an accessibility thing, and try using a darker/bolder orange for the hull, perhaps something closer to red, so it stands out better against the green.