tokumaru wrote:
- The fence on the far right and the bottom of the grass are not outlined in black.
Actually the problem is that the tree is outlined in black. I honestly don't know why I did that. My intent was only to use black outlines on things the player can touch. Looking closely I think I tried to get away with using a thinner line. Thoughts? Thin/thick lines vs black/non-black lines?
(Fun fact: Also that fence isn't actually supposed to be there. I was testing some art assets and accidentally saved them in the level and never got around to deleting them. Just off-screen there's also a spire of skulls. They were for the spooky level.)
tokumaru wrote:
- Only the 3 humanoid characters and the tree have shadows. Since everything is in the same environment, it would make more sense if the snake was shaded in a similar way. The rest of the background, such as the grass, could use some shading too.
Hmmm... Nnnnghhh... Oh alright fine, I'll draw shadows on the snake.
tokumaru wrote:
Speaking of shadows, the placement the shadow is backwards on the magician's right arm.
I missed that; thank you.
tokumaru wrote:
My next criticism is that the background looks pretty dull. The tree could use a little texturing (like a few streaks using the shadow's color to break the flatness), the grass could be a little thicker and have much more volume... like, add the black outline on the bottom and have it cast a shadow on the dirt, while also shading the grass itself. Maybe add a little highlight (yellow is great for highlighting green!). Another thing you can do is add some reflections to the fence and the scythe, some basic black and white lines should already improve their look a lot.
I was really going for a softer, somewhat "flat-cartoony" look. Although honestly, everything other than the characters is more-or-less an "older version," I was struggling with some of the designs and finally thought "You know what, I already know I need to revise the main character sprites. I should create some final versions of them so I can center the rest of my art/etc around them." (This is why there are no shadows on the snake; at the time I figured I wouldn't add shading to sprites to make animation easier.)
So yeah, with that in mind, if you think the world needs to be revised to better match the characters, that's something I need to take into consideration.
tokumaru wrote:
(Character revisions)
Hmm, yeah, you are definitely right about the hands. I'll rework them. I think I tried to make them more cartoony so I went with simpler shapes, but yeah, that looks a lot better.
But I really disagree about the eyes. I might be able to get away with pulling them a little further apart, but the sample you made makes them look WAY off, with weirdly distorted faces.
Part of the problems is that we're really dealing with one of those bizarre artistic distortions where things look better when they don't look right. (Like how we have to portray the ground when we're looking at it from the side, where we should be utterly incapable of seeing the ground.) If things were completely naturalistic, the characters would be completely viewed from the side. But they are twisted in an odd manner to be able to show expression and detail. They're kind-of a side view, kind-of an angled view, but not a 3/4 view. They really need to be tweaked on an individual basis.
By way of comparison, here are several other cartoonish side-scrolling characters:
Not one of these has more than one pixel between the eyes, and said eyes are all at least two pixels wide, with the more cartoony ones being even bigger.
As for my art, I feel like I am fighting witht he side of the head to move them as far as you did.
I could probably move the mouths to the side a bit, but moving them up looks weird to me.
Jeroen wrote:
One thing that immediately stood out to me is that everything seems to be a bit "stiff". I'm not very good at these things, so the best example I can give of this is the bunny girls ears. They just stick straight up. A bit of "slack" in them would make it all appear a bit more natural I think.
Myask wrote:
^^^ yeah, ears should be at an angle, not parallel. Should have more folded length.
Okay; those ears are one of the things I had mixed feelings on and wanted to see if people said anything without my prodding.
What about her hair?
Myask wrote:
She can't usefully swing the blade of the scythe with it turned backwards. Granted, it's an
unlikely weapon anyway, but outside the character-select screen she should carry it blade-forward. This would also reduce the injury if she tripped.
I think I'm going to keep it turned that way to keep down memory costs.
Also I think it looks better aesthetically.
Myask wrote:
It is a nice touch that she's sinister(left-handed), though.
Only when she's facing right, I'm afraid.
Myask wrote:
Large, clothing-emphasized-bust + no pants, VICTORIAN COVERED NECK TO TOE NO EYECANDY, large clothing-emphasized-bust + no pants. One of these things is not like the others…♪
This isn't even his final form.
Myask wrote:
(Which means, really, he should be wearing white kid gloves.)
Hmmm... Good point, actually. That would better fit the motif.
Myask wrote:
The snake's cartoonishly-short right now. If it's moving other times, then that's fine. If he never moves, then give it some respectable length coiled under it for stability.
He pretty much slithers around just like that. The "walking" animation is just a little bit of sway and head bob.
Myask wrote:
It looks kind of like a "HD remake of 8-bit (/early 16-bit) game" in style.
SUCCESS!