The Three Deaths (description edit, pic edit coming soon)

[lo_res_man]

I made these for a MAGS game I never completed. they are.. The Three Deaths. Instead of just one grim reaper, three. The one on the left is the Death of Warrior, harvesting the souls who die mankinds wars. The one on the right is the Death of the Many, a catch all death for the multitudes. In his book is written every name assigned him, he guards it well. And in the middle, crying blood, is the comforter, the crib raider, the bringer of the quick peace. She carries away the children never born, those recently born, and mothers who die of childbirth. she is bone under her dress, though few see it. I worked on many thing I hadn't doen before for this one. The fabric folds and foreshortening I am especially proud of.
But what do you people think? I would like mature and well thought out criticism, if you can spare the time. Not "I like it  " or "Bad   " So if you are going to respond, please may I remind you it is your comments that drive me to improve my work and how. Thank you.

edit: Thank you for the long and detailed critique. monkey_05_06 I don't mind people liking my work, I just don't like a pat "I like it" post. I put a lot of thought into this, can one give the courtesy of doing the same when they critique the piec?. Evidently you have ,and I thank you for it. I will get to work right away.

edit: I  I will make this visually noticeable in the edit, but under her dress, she is just bone. should have mentioned it in the description. that is why she is so thin in the waist. And yes the Mass grim clothes are all one colour, I wanted him to have the effect of a walking silhouette or shadow. But I will try editing it for more 3D look, and see how it turns out.

[monkey0506]

Well, although you said not to, I really must say that I like the Warrior Grim and the General Grim.

As for the critiquing...

Warrior Grim
I would really like to see the warrior grim's scythe/sickle curved a bit...er...lot more on the inside. I'm thinking something like this:



Only, keep the sharp, pointy end. Other than that, the shading on his loincloth seems to blend with his skin color quite nicely. I would really suggest a different color here.

And also, he seems somewhat muscular, though his arms are rather thin and gangly. Perhaps just buff those up a bit?

General Grim

The first thing that I notice is his posture. It seems rather off, though it could be said he is compensating for the heavy book he is carrying so this is excusable. However, his clothes are almost entirely one color (if not entirely? even at 400% zoom I could only distinguish one color). This makes the sprite look very flat. You don't need a full outline, just some shading to help bring out the third dimension in this character.

Comforter Grim

Her posture, more so than the general grim's posture really bugs me. It seems as though she's sitting down on a bar stool, though the way her dress is hanging I'm more inclined to think she is actually floating. Another thing I notice is that her waistline is extremely narrow. It seems as if she's going to break in half simply due to the weight of her torso. I would like to see everything from the waist down reworked on this sprite.

The waist (IMO) should be wider, and based on the way she is holding her upper body, I think she would be better off standing than sitting on an invisible floating bar stool. Then of course you would have to rework the way that her dress would fall, so if you redo these things, you would have to do the dress as well.

One other thing, though this is completely just me and not necessarily a flaw in the sprite, I think she should have longer hair. I just kind of envision this character with long flowing hair billowing out behind her as she floats serenely over to the infantile corpse. Kind of morbid, but it's the grim reaper. I'm allowed to think morbidly.

I hope this gives you some ideas what can be worked on with these sprites. I also hope I haven't been too harsh. Just remember, this is just the opinion of a guy who can't sprite for crap. And besides...I did say I liked them.

edit: I know you didn't mean "don't say you like it". I was just trying to be sarcastic (about the "although you said not to" part). I definitely think these are a good start. In fact, I would even like to see some more grims specialized for other fields.