eharper's Graphics Workshop [Graphics Heavy!]

[eharper256]

eharper 256's The Enemy Within Graphics Workshop
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I know its anal, but its got to be said: The graphics here are PROTOTYPES for my game; The Enemy Within, and are created or edited by me.
So Please DON'T Leech/Use without asking me first! Thanks :thumb:
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I'm sure you can tell that my so called 'style' is heavily influenced by Naramura; and that I often use parts of his excellent work in contributing to my sprites, except that I use alot more outlining. So he deserves the credit just as much as me for creating sprites for T.E.W.
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Yeah, I suppose I'll take requests. But I'm a terribly busy guy with semi-active internet habits (sometimes I'll just dissappear), so if you do request, please don't expect thats its 100% certain that the jobs gonna be done. Sorry... :dead:
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Hey guys; as I noted (without reply... :'( ) on my project topic, I've finally got back into the swing of things for The Enemy Within. As part of the features of the new version ( 0.8 ), I'll be updating alot of the graphical work even further. However, I am daunted by the prospect of my new battle animation idea; mainly because there's SO much that needs to be done (at least 8 frames of animation x 3 weapons x 4 classes for each character = 96 highly detailed frames...). Therefore, the purpose of this topic is get feedback on my work, and also, hopefully, to act as further inspiration for myself.

Anyhow, firstly, I redid the class change system slightly; allowing 3 potential choices for the player (for each character) once they reach a certain plot point whereupon they can use an artifact of a past hero or accomplishment as a focus for the test of the silvered rose. Of course, this has meant lots of new sprites and battlers, so, I'll ask everyone's opinion on these first. Without further ado, the progression charts:
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Jeanette
Re-Revised (Again!) 03/04/09. Well, actually, I lost the below sprites of Jeanette in the recent HD crash, so I had to re-do her yet again. However, this has probably benefited her, since I got to rebuild her jawbone (which ~was~ a little odd before), as well as fixing her shirt and knees and her apparent jaundice. I'll do a new prog chart for her soon, but for now heres the newer version (with mace):

Here's the older versions:

Re-Revised 10/09/08. Her base druid sprite got basically recreated from scratch. Because, hey, her face was also squashed before, like Fortinbras', in my opinion. Because of that it was difficult to edit her eyes to match the others. The legs are basically the same, as are bits of hair, but almost everything else is new. The scarf has been made much smaller so you can actually see her chest (saucy!). The shoulderpads of a different design, matching her sketch version. She has shorter, puffier sleeves, again to match the sketch. The hanging decorative waist thing has also reduced in size. The cape is less billowing. Her face is bigger with less hair covering it. So alot of alterations...really...
The other class sprites were also updated with the new head, face and shoulders. I think it makes them look better, but then of course I'm gonna be biased.


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Tomlyn

Revised 17/06/08. Tomlyn has had much less change, though the Monk sprite is totally new, and the Paladin has gone through a couple of revisions. I'm not entirely sure about the Bishops staff; it might need rotating a bit. Also, since its not keeping with the others, I'm wondering whether or not to give the monk the bronze cross as well. The Sage also doesn't typically wield the staff until later in the game, but I've made him have one here for completeness sake.
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Risa

Revised 17/06/08. The Guardian sprite was previously the Cavalier, but I made a new, more appropriate Cavalier sprite (seeing as how getting this class ingame requires Risa to become Fortinbras' squire, I used a couple of parts from him and made them female sized). Though its a little smaller than the others, I do still like it, especially with the casual poleax slung over the shoulder look shes sporting. I redid the Ranger. This is her bow armed pose, as can be seen, but she can also continue to use spears and javelins as a ranger.
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Fortinbras

Revised 17/06/08. Fortinbras has had a total facelift, since I always thought had a weird crunched face before. I also no longer have to get irate about him not holding his shield up. The Knight Paragon properly looks like a 'knight in shining armour' stereotype now, mind, ROFL. But that forms an excellent contrast to the dark looking Duelist, so its all good. Speaking of the Duelist, I totally modified that too, and gave him a Katana by default (since that vicious looking Scimitar he had before is now used by Triela, and hey, being a Duelist means he gets trained by the Samurai of Tuskuru, so its correct.)

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Also recently done include:


The new portraits for the status screen
Risa, Jeanette and Hecate:

Fortinbras and Tomlyn:

I put a heck of alot of work into these. They're to go with my newly reshuffled and reprogrammed status screen in the menu. The old element wheel has gone, but it looks much nicer in general. Still need to do Prince Elijah.

Skeleton Battler

A new skelly- I didn't like how blasted big the previous skeleton battler was before- he looked like the skeleton of a troll or something.

Skeleton Charset

Resized and Retouched Skelly Characterset to make him human-sized. To be used with the above.
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Prince Elijah & Princess Hecate

If you'd played the demo to the end, you'll know this is Prince Elijah and Princess Hecate. They're also some of Naramura's most popular characters, it seems; so I retouched them to make them slightly more unique for TEW.
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Slime Battler

Another one I got annoyed with. The base slime is too bouncy, and has that silly looking sword stuck in the middle. Reduced the elasticity, made it a sicklier colour, emphasised the outline, etc. A fairly minor, but important edit.

Aqua Hydra

Isn't he cute!!?

As you might tell, I modded the RTP hydra, removing the extra heads that seemed to come from nowhere, removed his acne problem, changed his colour scheme, and made him look a little slick with water.
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Tessalatorian Royal Guardsman

Yeah, I actually made several new guardsman. These are the elite ones that guard King Harper, Queen Leila, Prince Elijah, Princess Hecate, et al. and the palace; and appear in Chapter IV of the game. (Hence the gilded armour)
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Triela

Yup, if you've watched the promo video; you will have seen Triela. So I decided to post her battler here too. She appears in the new revised prologue, during the tutorial: some of the other recruits are badmouthing Risa for being late, and she defends Risa when she starts an argument with them. Then of course, Triela pops up to aid Risa against the Jeveneerian soldiers who storm the gatehouse (seen in the video). She also becomes Risa's squad sergeant, so now she'll be helping now during the troop management section of Chapter III (replacing the generic guy who was there before).

Jeveneerian Soldier

And to complete the prologue package, here's the battler for the Jeveneerian Troops; a modified soldier 1 sprite now with a spear, cape, better colouring et al.
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The Sketches from the Manual
You can already see these in the project topic, but whatever. My preliminary character sketches for Risa, Tomlyn, Fortinbras and Jeanette. Though each was made in like 20 minutes, I still think they're pretty good. (But then I'm always biased considering my own pencil sketches, LOL)

Added 6/6/08, And to finish: Princess Hecate's Sketch:

Isn't it amazing what you can do when you're bored at work?

 

[eharper256]

I'll use this post for charactersets and other miscellaneous trash.

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Battleanims:
Here's ze big update. The battleanimations I've been working on since what seems forever. Basically, I've made the code so that the battler dissapears during a normal attack; and basically 'reappears' (as an animation) on the field for the attack; rather than just showing sword slashes and the like.

To see a flash-video of these in action, click this:

(Keep in mind its pretty low res without any sound, but meh...)
Otherwise, scroll on!

Fortinbras' Sword and Curved Sword Set

The First animation set I completed (early preview is on the TEW topic). When animated in game, he slashes down-left diagonally, then follows up with a right horizontal.
New 6/6/08: I revised Fortee's anims. See the post below for details.

Jeanette's Knife, Mace and Staff Set

Updated 17/6/08: Since she had the most basic set before, and I was impressed with how well Risa's revised stuff turned out, I decided to rehash hers too and give her more jumpy-ness. In game, the animation sequence is 6>3>4>5>Repeat>6>1>Leap to Right>3>4>5>2 for Jump back, making for a total of 3 knife stabs. It looks cool. The mace is similar, but only goes for 2 clonks. The staff works a bit like Risa's Javelins; in that it replaces herself for the animation, she stands, hair and cape blowing around, and channels ether along the staff (sparklies!) shooting off some Magic Missiles.

Risa's Lance/Poleax/Javelin Throw Set

Risa's, on the other hand, was toughest to create, mainly because it is difficult to express the forward motion of a lance stab from a rear view perspective. I spent some time watching Halberdier animations in Fire emblem 10 to get into it. Same with the Javelins, though I obviously couldn't animate the funky little twirl that happens in FE. Still, the Javelin attack looks awesome, so it was worth the effort. Oh, and with a poleax, Risa just strikes once, which is fair enough considering its a big weapon. I also realised that in doing this anim, I've made Risa into a left handed switch hitter with her spear! Now thats some skill! :smile:
New 6/6/08: I revised Risa's anims. See the post below for details.

Tomlyn's Holy Strike Set

Yup, Tomlyn only has one attack, but it qualifies for being one of the coolest looking ones. In game, he holds the cross up, charges it with light energies, then gestures it forward to make a mini-explosion of light.

Triela Mizunoshi's and Princess Hecate's Sets

29/08/08- What's this, an update!? Yeah, blame 4th ed D&D and Romancing Saga 3 for eating away at my spare time. But anyhow, here I go again with new material. This is the long awaited (for me) animation sets for Triela and Hecate. Triela is primarily in the prologue at the moment, but can also join the party now temporarily in Chapter 6; and has a sidequest involving her. And, like many prominent characters, you can pair her up with the main player characters. :wink: Same with Hecate. After the cliche princess rescue scenario turns on its head (She saves the party, actually) she then joins for most of Chapter 5. And again, its probable you can add her again during Chapter 6 or 7.

As for the actual animations, Triela has a sort of blurring samurai slash which accompanies her dashing kind of attack. Which is befitting, considering her dad is from Tuskuru (the 'Japanese' country on my world). Hecate has a far less subtle leaping cleave followed by a secondary right follow up. Which also befits her and the regular 'Hecate Smash!' she manages.

Oh, however, the forum looks like it might chop a bit of the image off (its big, after all)
Direct links:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v487/ ... nimPro.png
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v487/ ... Swords.png
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v487/ ... avelin.png
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v487/ ... e-Anim.png
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v487/ ... eAnims.png

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Other stuff:
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Music:
Yeah, I did play around with Fruityloops for a little while. Not that I'm neccessarily that good...but here's some battle music which came out of it that doesn't sound too bad, actually...(and its here because I probably will leave them in TEW.)

http://rapidshare.com/files/19225089/eh ... hammer.mp3
Warhammer is probably my best piece. Its straight in your face; and is continually accompanied by a clanging, bludgeoning sound that I derived the title from. Its very 'metal' I suppose; and I probably should have called it 'Blacksmiths Hammer' or something. I'll probably use it for my Fire Caverns battle music. Though theres a limited number of actual riffs and such; the simplicity actually helps it, I believe...though perhaps the middle bit sometimes feels a little too empty considering how forcefully it begins.

http://rapidshare.com/files/19057973/eh ... h-Toll.mp3
My first reasonable piece. Its a battle piece, but it starts off trying to be a bit creepy; building up in intensity until the main bassline kicks off 0:52. I guess because of the slow start that its best for a boss fight. Somebody already commented once that I reminds them of something ripped from Bladerunner, and in retrospect, that's probably not too far off~ it certainly could be used for a sci-fi approach.
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[Grathea]

I like the class change thing. Keep it up!

 

[eharper256]

Added Fortinbras' class change schematic! Though I still haven't done the sprite for Knight Paragon.

 

[Despain]

These are surprisingly solid edits. My big suggestion: let's see some anti-aliazing on the outlines; they're too obviously pixelated and it's annoying. Other than that it's better than I expected, so nice job man.

PS. they weren't created entirely by you, I'd suggest you give some proper credit and change that disclaimer.

 

[eharper256]

These are surprisingly solid edits. My big suggestion: let's see some anti-aliazing on the outlines; they're too obviously pixelated and it's annoying. Other than that it's better than I expected, so nice job man.

PS. they weren't created entirely by you, I'd suggest you give some proper credit and change that disclaimer.

Yeah, can't you tell I hate Anti-aliasing? LOL. The big, obvious outlines are common among all of my sprites, and that is actually intentional. I think it makes them stand out from the background a little better~ and I'm not really going for full chock-on realism here...

As for credit; I did say at the end of my first post that its heavily based upon Naramura's stuff. Perhaps you missed it? I suppose you're right in that I should bold-ify or move that statement to the top though. Nevertheless, the disclaimer is still true- though the original work is all Naramura's, I have spent at least an hour or so on each sprite, often longer in many cases...

EDIT: There you go, I moved the bit at the bottom to the top... better?

EDIT2: Also, I added the Slime battler to the line up.

 

[iceplosion]

Sorceress and General look awesome but Knight-paragon is kinda funny looking.

 

[eharper256]

Sorceress and General look awesome but Knight-paragon is kinda funny looking.

Good to see you think so! Yeah, as I put in Fortinbras' notes, I certainly wonder a bit about the Knight-Paragon. I like his pose and all, but he's a bit short and his legs don't quite seem correct. I may replace them.

Also, added those pieces of battle music I made ages ago.

 

[Dark Koji]

Pretty solid battlers, I say.

I find Tomlyn's paladin battler a little weird in his pose though. He looks shorter, as compared to his other class versions. In my opinion, the way his legs were positioned make him look like he is slanting 5-degree clockwise, which is in a somewhat unnatural way.
Probably try extending his legs by a bit, and edit the right foot to make it look more like his body mass is actually weighing down on it; like how Risa's ranger does it.

And the cross for the monk? Maybe you can have it hanging around Tomlyn's neck. But then, you can't really show it since his folded arms will be in the way. =P

 

[eharper256]

Pretty solid battlers, I say.

I find Tomlyn's paladin battler a little weird in his pose though. He looks shorter, as compared to his other class versions. In my opinion, the way his legs were positioned make him look like he is slanting 5-degree clockwise, which is in a somewhat unnatural way.
Probably try extending his legs by a bit, and edit the right foot to make it look more like his body mass is actually weighing down on it; like how Risa's ranger does it.

And the cross for the monk? Maybe you can have it hanging around Tomlyn's neck. But then, you can't really show it since his folded arms will be in the way. =P

Thanks for your reply Dark Koji (And yay for the Sora avatar you have)

Woah, you know what; I actually didn't notice that about the Paladin. He does appear to standing slightly off-kilter! (All these holy types and their sacramental wine, I don't know... ^_^) But seriously; I'll look into altering that.

As for the cross, I was considering placing upon a chain; either around his waist or (perhaps more appropriately) as a bangle around one of his sleeves.

 

[Despain]

I know its anal, but its got to be said: The graphics here are PROTOTYPES for my game; The Enemy Within, and are created by me.

And I'd say that it's a bit more than "influence". You're frankenspriting pieces from his battlers and putting ugly jagged lines around them.

 

[eharper256]

I know its anal, but its got to be said: The graphics here are PROTOTYPES for my game; The Enemy Within, and are created by me.

And I'd say that it's a bit more than "influence". You're frankenspriting pieces from his battlers and putting ugly jagged lines around them.

Well sheesh; thats harsh...I'm a little offended Sure theres a chunk of frankenspriting going on; I've never claimed otherwise, but its not like my original work is catmeat. I'm no awesome artist; so I have to take advantage of the fact that I AM alright at using Photoshop for image manipulation. I do alot of touching up and that takes me quite some time, and if I people want to use them, thats fine, and I'd just like to know about it. Its not like I've just recoloured a sprites hair and suddenly claimed it as my own. Its not sheer plagerism or a set of two minute click jobs(I wouldn't post if it was), so it is "heavy influence". What other connotations express this as clearly?

Though you might think it looks crap; and you're entitled to that opinion, the whole outlining prospect is simply a stylistic choice intended to make them slightly different to the base. Why the aversion to jagglies anyway? Surely the purpose of RMXP games is to make them feel retro? As they're basically prettier SNES games and all that... frankly I'd prefer a nice pixelated line to a blurry mess any day. But then I'm weird and hate anti-aliasing in all its forms (I turn it off deliberately when playing Oblivion and other new-ish games: looks better, runs faster- a win-win for me)

 

[Venetia]

Well see ...

I agree with Despain in the fact that these aren't influenced by Naramura; they're direct edits of the Naramura battlers. You can only say something influenced you when you copied their idea or style, but did every little thing yourself. That's semantics for you.

That said, I'm not going to say these are bad. You put a lot of work into them and have provided visual examples of what a person can do to get around having little/no digital painting skills if they have a lasso tool and a lot of time for touch-ups.

Some of the faces which have been changed (i.e. Tomlin), however, feature a completely different, pixel-based style from the rest of the body, and that sticks out like a sore thumb. But I wouldn't say I hate the black outlines, because on a dark background it makes the sprite "pop" a little more, and look less fuzzy. I'm with you about anti-aliasing.

So yeah I think these could use more work, but practice makes perfect. Everyone's gotta start somewhere; the best way to learn is through mimicry :D

Don't be offended by the things people throw up here. People're entitled to their opinions--however blunt they may be--as long as they don't outright come off as a troller.

 

[eharper256]

Venetia: Thanks; I'm glad someone understands me on the anti-aliasing front. Frankly, I wouldn't mind if Despain was just making negative comments; I could theoretically learn from that. What I just found kinda strange was how he started saying they were fine in his first post; and then suddenly turned hostile when I said I probably wouldn't remove the outlines. AND that was after I made the whole 'its influenced by Naramura' MORE clear for everyone to see, following his other suggestion! I just don't get it... ???

But I wouldn't say I hate the black outlines, because on a dark background it makes the sprite "pop" a little more, and look less fuzzy

Yeah, they go on the dark maroon background of my windowskin; and look alright...

Some of the faces which have been changed (i.e. Tomlin), however, feature a completely different, pixel-based style from the rest of the body, and that sticks out like a sore thumb.

You mean on his eyes? I redrew them from the original since he looked a little bit too altruistic for my idea of Tomlyn. Perhaps I should redraw the others to match; I hadn't really thought about it.

You can only say something influenced you when you copied their idea or style, but did every little thing yourself.

That I would call 'Being inspired by', as in "My work is my own, but its inspired by M.C. Escher" or whatever. 'Influence' at least suggests theres another hand in my work; which there is: its not a subtle influence, true, but I guess in this case, Naramura is the 'Ghost writer' of my artwork. The bulk of the work is hence his influence, and I picked it up and polished it up for my own purposes.
Heck, I could go on about semantics for hours. But the end result will probably be nothing. So I won't.

 

[eharper256]

Yeah, I guess its nearly necroposting; but I've completed some of the new concept battleanimations!!!
Anyway, I've added them to second post. Please check them out and give feedback; they took me quite a while...
Oh, however, the forum looks like it might chop a bit of the images off (its big, after all)
Direct links:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v487/ ... nimPro.png
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v487/ ... Swords.png

 

[ze straw]

if i used them but i changed to text and take out the charset, would you still want to credit you?(i mean i will credit you if you want, i'm just asking)

EDIT: what type of fount are you useing?

 

[eharper256]

So I am right in thinking you want to use the battlers, then? Do keep in mind, however, that they might look out of place with others that don't use significant outlining like mine...

Well, yeah, the battlers probably involved the most work on my part, after all, so please credit if you'd like to use them. Also credit Naramura; as these are primarily frankensprited from his original work; with heavy edits by me.

Which ones were you interested in, by and the by? It amuses me to think Jeanette might be become a random villian in someone elses game. (Poor J-chan...) And if thats the case, I can give the originals rather than making you remove the sprites from the promotion charts.

The Font used here is the same one I use for the main text in my game; MagicMedieval. Which, interestingly enough, is the font used on most Magic: The Gathering cards. The game also uses Lucida Blackletter, and BD Renaissance. (The latter can be seen on the signature)

EDIT: Also added the Skelly charset, and the guardsman charset to the first post.

 

[ze straw]

ok thanks, i will credit both you and Naramura, i am interested in all of them. :smile:

 

[eharper256]

ze straw:
Nah, I meant which of the promotions would you like. Unless you're gonna use exactly the same characters for your main heroes I assume you're only going to need one copy of say, Risa or Tomlyn, right?

Theres also a slight space consideration, I mean, I can't exactly dump my entire graphics folder onto photobucket. So hence, which ones are your particularily interested in?

 

[___]

I think the issue with your outlines (I know this is going way back into history) is less a problem of their presence and more a problem to do with the way they vary in thickness, that's what's making them look awkward.  When you pick a style for your outlines you need to be very careful to make it consistent in thickness; a 1px outline should never overlap anywhere or you're going to get odd dark patches that stand out really badly, such as along the edge of Fontinbras-General's shield (and many other places but this is an easy one to see).  This means when doing corners use a \ rather than an L shape if that make sense to you; don't fill that corner pixel in.

Even at that, I argue that stylistically it does no fit.  You're going from smooth-shaded painted looking images to a pixel-art style border; if I were you I'd completely redo it in 4-6 color aliased palettes, then it would probably look brilliant and you'd also be more justified in saying "inspired by"   What you have here is what you would call in proper terminology a "derivative work".  I'm not big on the semantics argument either but "inspired by" does seem to imply it's an original work based strongly on another, rather than an edit of another.

They'd also benefit from a little bit of softening.  Professional sprites, if you look closely, do not use consistently one color in the outline; the value of the outline varies with the value of the part of the image it's outlining.  This makes your outlines look less harsh and jagged without actually doing any anti-aliasing or blending; the best of both worlds.

Anyway sorry to dredge up the old argument but I hope that's helpful to you.

Oh yeah, it's totally acceptable to necro your own thread, especially a workshop, as long as you're adding something significant to it.