Atelier Iocus

[Gwen]

I don't know Angie, it seems pretty clear to me, we're talking about the visor lens right?

[StarSock64]

No no, the full face mask, not the eye visor thingy

[Level 1]

At first I thought it was a gas mask, but now that you point it out, yeah I can't really tell anymore.

[Ran Master 27]

Looking good!

To make Special FX, you kind of have to mess around with what floats your boat.
I look at fighter games in general to get a good idea, mostly capcom stuff.
Like hit stars, burst, slashes, motion blurs, and etc.

...
Seriously, how do you special fx

But in relations to TFR style, I would stick to 2 shaded SFX's at the most.

[Iocus]

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...

I was afraid of this, thanks for pointing it out. I had a sketch of it on paper (guess I never scanned it...), but maybe it was a little too complicated for such a small scale. I might try simplifying it or just keeping the visor.

I do have to say though, during the spinning animation, you could do a motion blur to add to the spirit of the game.

Didn't think of that, I'm not sure if it requires that much dynamism, but I'll try it out and see how it goes. Thanks!


@RanMaster27: Yeah, I'll make sure to study some of those closely, though it's entirely new to me so we'll see how it goes.

[Zadaben]

As far as the tFR guy goes, yes you'll probably want to make it as dynamic as possible, remember that the game has a very cartoonish style, and everything is exaggerated, even smaller motions are often accompanied by some degree of blur.
---
I would actually argue that your other sprites could use some more dynamic poses as well, it's great that you have them all doing something unique, and not standing idly with their arms at their sides, but I think you're capable of doing more with them.
The primary offenders are the spear gal, super buff dude with WIP arms, and to a lesser extent most of the rest of them, save necromancer man and gas mask guy.
I dont have the artistic skill necessary to edit them in demonstration, so 'll show you some examples

(This is really big oops)
See how Balrog is crouched over, and his knees are drastically bent? That's sort of the effect I feel the super buff guy is trying to convey, but not fully getting across. Note that he isn't super duper hunched, but his neck and shoulders are forwards, and he is at a slight angle.
The same goes for spear gal, who is already sort of doing this, but I feel she needs to lean at a slightly steeper angle, and her back leg should be further back to better convey gravity.
This image is nice because it has those red arrows, which show the flow that the knee bend helps create. In addition to that, it's a good general example of what to aim for, which is really drastic angles, body positions that appear "heavy" to show gravity, and motion curves. Most of your characters have these things to some extent, but I believe they could use a tad more.

[Iocus]

Okay, I updated the first page with an up-to-date line up, and I listed their names below (as well as the nicknames I generally use with the dev team) because it's getting a little awkward making reference to the characters at this point

I also added a couple of other characters that I sprited while I was in an artist's block-- They're almost scrap material, but maybe you guys can help me bring some life into them.

You bring up a good point! I must admit, dynamism is still a bit mysterious to me.

And I agree about Brand (the buff guy) needing a more dramatic posing. In fact, despite only his arms seeming WIP-ish, I have been planning on reworking him for a while, but I kind of keep postponing it.

Now that you showed me that reference (a pretty good one I must say!), I do think Em could be a little more battle-ready. I'll see to editing her sometime soon, as well as restarting Brand.

[Chris2Balls [:B]]

I like your characters, but they're all very thin.

I made him a bit thicker, and I tried getting that skull to be more readable. I found there was a lot of possible variations for the nose, which could help him look a bit more unique compared to the rest.
Looking forward to more progress

[Iocus]

So I grew increasingly displeased with my older sprites, and wanted to try something new.

Aside from the object scale change, I made the palette a bit more SF3-ish (More vibrant colors), tried to make the pose more dynamic, and made the outline less harsh.

I probably should spike up the contrast on the blue, but I wanted to get some opinions before working more on it. It's a WIP, of course.

[Iocus]

Slowly but surely... still got some details to add, then the coat.

[Virtuaboy123]

Hmm the shoulders and hand look off. I think too high?(for the position he's trying to pull off)

Shading looks great but the foot also looked strangely curved. So I changed that slightly as well.