Atelier Iocus

[Iocus]

I'll show sprites for a change.


From left to right: Emeline (Em), Liliana (Lilia), Chloe, "Winter", Ravi, Penelope (Pen), Henrik, Macario (Brand), Amber, Blake, Cassius and Kettelica (Cass & Kettle /Casket)
These were for a fighting game project about the afterlife. Unfortunately, it's on hiatus due to my inability to animate, among other problems. The little girl's design has been changed and will be updated sooner or later. Clearly, I had a bit of trouble with the guy on the far right...

Progress of the sprites. Forgive me for the large size, clearly, they have a lot of history.
http://i.imgur.com/CtOadyq.png
http://i.imgur.com/vZTwcda.png


I'll add this too while I'm at it, Esther the alchemist, protagonist of another short-lived project. The scale is similar to that of the previous bunch.

Fire at will!

[-Ash-]

These look really really familiar...especially the female redhead with the sword. I swear i've seen these before somewhere.

[Iocus]

Well, that's strange...I don't think I've ever posted these anywhere before.

I can assure you these are of my own creation, though. I even had a couple of animations in the works:

[Terminal Devastation]

Well, that's strange...I don't think I've ever posted these anywhere before.

I have to agree with AshuraAlchemist, I think you might have posted that female knight some where before. Because it looks really familiar to me as well.

Did you have a larger version of it once?

[Iocus]

Oh, yeah, you may be referring to this abomination: http://www.pixeljoint.com/pixelart/68528.htm#

I guess I did put that up, but since AshuraAlchemist said "these", I figured he was referring to the particular batch of sprites on the first post.

That said, this topic is not about that large sprite, yeah?

[Gors]

So I really knew you from somewhere! Glad to see you again!

I really like your sprites, and I am fond of the colors, though I have some notes:

First of all, the hooded man. The way his hood is drawn is weird, because it looks like his head is unusually small. I had made this edit here to explain it better:



The leftmost sample is original; I made an hypothetical full head vision of him, and overlapped it with the source. As you can see, the hood is small to accommodate the head well. I think you could shuffle some pixels there to fix that. Never forget that beneath the clothes, there's the body! Sometimes we accidentally draw the clothes first without taking the shape of the human body into account, and the results can be disastrous.

Second, In the same character, I don't really like the skull. So I made my version:



Your skull was fine as a drawing, but it looked quite cartoony compared to the rest of the characters, who are full of detail. So I opened up a reference of skull and pixelled it. DO NOT BE AFRAID OR UNDERESTIMATE REFERENCES. They are really useful even if you think you already know how to draw a skull. I mean come on I even have to look up for references for 'welcome' carpets once, there's no problem in it



The fencing guy's pose looks weird, like... Do you know those egyptian drawings? It's kinda like that: the body is almost frontal, head is perfectly profile. This is also seen in the first girl with the lance. Try giving a little more perspective to the bodies perhaps. The calves look a little short too, as they're about the same length of the thighs.

and the tallest man has short legs compared to the body imo. You may want to look it later, but overall, nice sprites!

[Iocus]

Well, I'm not quite done applying all the changes, but I don't want it to seem as if I totally disregarded Gors' helpful advice, so I'll post this in the meantime:



The red rectangles enclose the things I've changed or added. I edited the necromancer's hood and his skull staff based on Gors' critique. I redesigned and resprited the little girl, since the project leader wanted a more 'mage-like' design.
I am working on reworking the fencer, and I did some minor changes to the blonde.
To be honest, I liked that one plenty, so I'm hesitant about changing it, but I'll do so if it's for the sake of improvement.
I haven't done anything with the tall guy yet, I'm afraid...

Oh, I added a new character, but I'm afraid it's not up to snuff, so criticism is welcome.

On a related note, I had a lapse of judgment and apparently thought making a portrait at this scale was a good idea:
http://i.imgur.com/PnsnXKk.png (leftmost is a much older portrait used to compare how less bad the new one is!)
I was trying to borrow elements from Alphonse Mucha's style, though I'm pretty stumped on the hair.
I also struggled with the left cheek, so I'm up for suggestions on that.


Oh, I also had this lying around.
I intended to participate on the current competition (is it still running..?), but I kind of freaked out at the thought of doing backgrounds and left it halfway.
Maybe I'll finish it someday..? (progress)
My entry was going to be a revamp of SchAlternate's entry.

[Level 1]

Really great and impressive work here, I have to say that the fencing character has an awkward position, mostly because of it's arms.
This might be able to help out a bit as a reference.

[Iocus]

Really great and impressive work here, I have to say that the fencing character has an awkward position, mostly because of it's arms.
This might be able to help out a bit as a reference.

Are you refererring to the previous revision (the fully colored one) or the latest revision (shown at the right of the blue lord guy in the latest picture)?

[Level 1]

Really great and impressive work here, I have to say that the fencing character has an awkward position, mostly because of it's arms.
This might be able to help out a bit as a reference.

Are you refererring to the previous revision (the fully colored one) or the latest revision (shown at the right of the blue lord guy in the latest picture)?

I meant the last one, it's arms seem very..well loose, and I have friends that know fencing and have practiced it for years, and I have never seen that fencing position being used in actual combat, I may be corrected in that, but yeah.

[Iocus]

Although I kind of lean towards keeping the hand on the hip, I've tried editing it so it follows a more conventional fencing stance. What do you think?

[Level 1]

Although I kind of lean towards keeping the hand on the hip, I've tried editing it so it follows a more conventional fencing stance. What do you think?

Yeah the pose is much more appropriate to the actual sport of fencing, I say that it's good to go.

[Iocus]

So I came up with an OC/personal character of sorts...


The idea was to make him a cyberpunk-ish detective, but I'm not sure that worked out. I made this sketch first, but I really dislike how rigid and unexpressive it looks. I might have gone a little overboard with the embroidery too, which is why I made an alternative, no-decoration sprite. I also was conflicted on whether to give him a mask, and if so, whether to make his arms metal too. The pose on this sprite wasn't all that well thought out, so it might a little rigid too.

On that note, I made this:


Sheet: http://i.imgur.com/1T6cGUG.png
I-it's not like I want to be a part of your stupid fighting game or anything..!
This should have all the actions necessary for an assist, I haven't made the effects or anything though, so I might post it on the TFR topic after that.
Seriously, how do you special fx

[Level 1]

Oh man your character fits the game well, the colors are well chosen, and I have to say the concept is pretty unique in it's way, good job. I do have to say though, during the spinning animation, you could do a motion blur to add to the spirit of the game.

[StarSock64]

Hah, that animation is cute.

I'd suggest not making the arms metal, or at least making them a very different type of color metal ("tan gray" as opposed to "blue gray," for example) so that they stand out more against the body.

The mask is pretty hard to read. Put your face a comfortable distance from the monitor (the internet says 18-30 inches) and pretend like you didn't know what your own intentions were. I know that's difficult, but...

the colors and shapes just meld together way too much unless you put your face up against the screen.