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I do think this last batch is a marked improvement. Making them even more still as caricatures would help, as would changing their postures to better emphasize personality.

Outstanding. The spiderweb walk is neat-o and the chest, much improved.

I SO want to play this game.

Oh -- when I said "off-putting" I meant more along the lines of "ugh. what am I looking at/ frustration" more so that "creepy/ disturbing". Sometimes when people realize that they're SUPPOSED to be looking at a face but can't really find it for sure, I think they can get that feeling.

After looking at it for a couple of seconds, I was able to probably figure out that the "goggles" were the face's eyes, but was still looking and wondering at the semi-circlish shape apve and the sideways pear shape below.

Loominous's edit helps that some for me for some reason, probably because it takes my eyes off that semi-circle above the goggles.

I'm personally not crazy about the way the foreground chest thing looks. I wasn't 100% sure what it was at first. More detail and a slightly lighter colour might help it, maybe? And I agree on ditching the tree background. If you DO want it there somehow, i think it'd be neater to have to appear once you step outside, to give players a little surpirise.

As for the door, I think that he'd do just fine crawing up the side of the apple. It's cartoony enough that I don't think a little apple worm's stickiness would be questioned all too much, especially if it crawls to the top of the apple on its own once exiting: it'd nicely and concisely present the player with the possibility of walking of surfaces that aren't horrizontal, I'd wager, even. And I think that'd be pretty cool.

Overall, awesome background! 

While this one is a lot better, I'm still finding it tough to tell just what I'm looking at for some parts.

I'm pretty sure I'm seeing what you're trying to convery this time an awful lot better though.

With this one, the major problem I had (or maybe have) looking at it is that there's confusion in the "face" which can be off-putting. Mostly, it's a bit difficult to tell at a glance what part the "eyes" are.

Nevertheless, I like the colours you used in this one a lot and it has an more painted look, which I find more successful that the harsh sketchy stye you'd used in that last one.

I'm not crazy with how the way the "fin" thing on the top of the head was shaded though, mostly because it doesn't seem to fit with the rest of the picture all that well.

Again, sorry if I'm sounding too harsh.

The tower's base is kinda' boring. It looks to me like a random texture thrown on there for the sake of having a texture. Some more descript might look better.

Also, if thisis about building muliple towers, maybe have another one or two off in the background, poking out of the tallgrass.

And as far as that goes, if I had such a tower, I'd be sure to somehow get rid of surrounding tallgrass, since it seems unlikely to do anything but put you at a disadvantage (harder to see enemies in tall grass and brush, even from a tower, I'd wager). Unless the grass is pre-mowed or it presents some sort of advantage to a watchtower builder, it seems sort of odd.

The tower doesn't look very tall, either -- more like a kiddie tree-fort. If this is to be an intro pic, I'd like to see one of the really COOL and tall tower upgrades that I'm going to be striving to get sometime down the road -- not the biggest and best, but something cool-looking, anyway.

Sorry if allof this seems harsh. Overall, it's nice enough (if a bit sparce), and I really do like the castle in the background and the clouds/ sky.

I do agree with the darker colours. In a war-like atmosphere, they seem to fitbetter -- the originals looked a bit on the happy side.

I really don't recognize that thing as a mirror at all.

Maybe consider changing it to one of those stand-up tall oval oval ones that are attached to a stand?

All I'm saying is that it'd be a more iconic depiction of a mirror.

Something like the picture below, which was the first image in Google Images in a search for "mirror":



Not that it being first means anything in this case, but still.

I find the front view's shoulders look too broad and square for the soft "personality" the sprite seems to have.

Hm. Well, I'm not sure how to improve or anything, but the drawing itself is a bit on the ambiguous side for some reason. I have a hard time telling what I'm looking t really. The grittyness of the style is probably a factor, but I think that maybe better shaping of the skull might help.

For some reason I get the impression more of an animal skull (like a bull's or something, or as you alluded to, perhaps a dog's or wolf's) that's extended toward the screen, but I can't put my finger on why exactly.

And going right along with that, I have a hard time seeing that drawing and the sprite being the same character. My mind's just not linking them up as being one and the same at all.

Actually, the more I think of it, the more I'm seeing some sort of Native shaman or something, wearing a longish flatish animal skull on his head, with bits of feather and possibly fur hanging off it.

BAH! I just decided to go for a do-over instead, and figured that to avoid the pitfalls of not being able to tell the SHAPE of the skulls so well, I went for a partly turned view, much like the sprite.



It wasn't terribly easy to do, mostly because I wasn't sure what all of the parts of the skull helmet were supposed to be... All things considered, it'd have to be BIG too (in order to fit someone else's head) and it doesn't fully look human in the sprite.

Sorry if all of this seemed harsh. Hope that something I said or did here is of some help.

EDIT: ALSO, in regards to the sprite, the helmet is really awkward -- if the helmet's skull eye holes are to be the area wher ethe person sees through, either they're low, or the top of the helmet thing is unusually high.

The sandpeople/ Tusken Raiders from Star Wars look sort of like this:

http://www.vegatransports.com.au/AustralianStarwars/TRaider.jpg
http://www.anniescostumes.com/3149.jpg
http://www.starwars.com/episode-i/fun/snapshot/2000/07/img/24577_bg.jpg
http://web.ukonline.co.uk/bingo275/realANHtuskhead1.jpg
http://www.frontiermodels.co.uk/images/products/Tusk.jpg
http://images.art.com/images/products/regular/10204000/10204246.jpg
http://www.adukes.demon.co.uk/cards/bend-t.jpg
http://www.smithsonianmag.si.edu/smithsonian/issues97/nov97/images/tuskenraider.jpg
http://index.echostation.com/trilogy/raider.jpg

So yeah -- vague similarities, in colour especially. But other than that, it's not too much the same.

Really, he looks more like Kael: http://www.lepconnie.com/willow/archives/magroach.html

I have to say that "That Guy"  has a valid point though -- if Rockstar wasn't somehow "punished" for this (i.e., have the M rating put on the game), then it means that if a company WAS to release "Happy Fuzzy Bunny Quest" and the ESRB rated the accesible content as E (for everyone) but was to intentionally hide code that's easily hackable that reveals all kinds of content that would be rated anywhere above the age group it was rated for, then any company who wanted to would be able to just avoid the rules and slip such content into a game could.

Would it be okay for a company to release "Happy Fuzzy Bunny Quest", rated E, and more or less have a GTA clone in it (that SHOULD be rated Mature) that was easily accessible, JUST so they could get their game on to Wal-mart shelves? THEN the ESRB would be entirely pointless, since young kids that are somewhat tech-savvy could learn how to do the hack and got to WalMart and buy a game that REALLY should be rater higher.

Yeah, it's silly to dispute it when it's extreme violence vs. sex and a difference of one year of age, but that's not the point. The point is that the people making video games shouldn't be alowed to sneak potentially "innapropriate" content into games that the ratings can't touch. In that way, I can SORT OF see why that old lady has a beef -- she's more or less trying to get them on false advertising.

First off, I think it's a great sprite. If it was mine though, I'd eliminate the "belt" looking thing in the back -- it's not appearing in the front, and even if it did, it'd start to look like a bathrobe/ housecoat.

I'm also not liking his hands from the back view... From the front view they're okay, but they may look better without the brownish part in the middle.

But as I said, I think it's a fantastic looking geeky scentist sprite! (heck, even the first rendition gwas pretty darn cool) GREAT job!

 :o Prog, that was awesome.  :o

I personally had thoughtthe same thing -- but I tried a few things and found it surpisingly hard to unstraighten and still have it look "right", given so few pixels to play with. Then again, I'm frikkin' horrible with smallish sprites.

At a glance, I do hope that there'll be some animating to that smoke in-game.

I don't mean that at all (sorry for the confusion). I guess what i was trying to say is that depending on how the ratings board wording of things and how it could be interpreted, then maybe they're caught on a dumb technicality, thus not wanting to press the matter further. As I said though -- this information is hearsay anyway, and may be altogether false.  More than anything I threw it out there to see if anyone else had heard anything of the same ilk.

"The ratings on the box refer to the elements you encounter in the gameplay, not everything that's technically in the game."

Though I have no evidence to back it up, I've heard at least a couple of times when people were talking about this case that the ESRB (or whatever they're called) is supposed to be presented with EVERYTHING that is shipped with the game, including any hidden code. I have a feeling that Rockstar knows this all too well, thus why they're not putting up more of a stink over their game getting dropped from pretty much every major store around.

What *I* wonder though, is whether or not they'll succeed with the SIMS. If they do, it's pretty much open season on games. I can't imagine, though: even IF someone in the world think they have a case against the game, EA has some mighty deep pockets. I'm surprised they're going after them at all. To me, it shows not only ignorance of the game's content, but ignorance of who they're actually up against.

Well, just for the record, my brother animates for a living and uses the smaller-than-Intuos Wacom Graphire 3 and does just fine. I use a Graphire 2 and do alright.

But yeah, an Intuos might be nice.

Indeed -- with all the emphasis being on upper body movement, he looks to be dancing. You may want to try raising the feet a bit more, bending his knee on the back swing and showing the bottom of his shoe a touch on the front swing.

At least, that's what I'd try.

I'm also JUST noticing the grey on his face, despite having looked at thje sprite several times. If you want the "5-o'clock shawdow" to be a bit more obvious, it should probably be darkened up a bit.

Furthermore, the top of the hat does bug me. Take a peek at the film noir hat pics that were presented and you'll see that those hats' tops are more square than round.

BAH! I just went ahead and did an edit:



-shortened and "squared" hat a bit, and gave it a dent on the top
-dropped the belt a bit
-darkened stubble
-made a dark line under hat brim -- meant to be a shaded area from the hat, but it wasn't working out all that well...
-simplified/ flattened colours a bit here and there
-messed around with his arms/ the edges of his torso, making his toso look more tapered
-added cuffs to his sleeves
-re-did hands in a very simple way, since you didn't like yours -- they're simple, but they may just work, especially at this size
-shifted his skin colour toward red a bit
-rounded his shoulders a bit
-lengthened the coat a touch

I might have done more... I'm not sure.

mats, on the front leg's back swing, I think it might be worthwhile to better outline the upper part of his leg, so that one can more easily follow it's movement. The way you have it now, I find it's just getting lost in his fur, and it muddies up the motion.

Also, dg's edit's motion on the backswing doesn't go nearly as far -- yours goes back a bit too far, IMO, making it look like he's REALLY shoving off to me.