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[Wannabehero]

Oab, as always, your sprites are simply wonderful and I can't wait to try out the completed set.

These are absolutely gorgeous, and you have really nailed the direct level front perspective, which I know is a particularly difficult perspective to work with while retaining good composition and distinctive detail, which you have accomplished swimmingly. The perspective, along with your clean color palettes and even cleaner highlight/shade work, really sets your style apart from all the rest. I'm going to fanboy just a little bit more, just so other's can appreciate how great your composition really is.  Your decisions on feature exaggeration are spot on, emphasis on heads/faces followed by key body feature and posture dominating each sprite to make them immediately recognizable. I'm super jealous of your skill here.

Oh, and the result of the modular dwarves is awesome.

As to the questions:

• I think your current Rutherer sprite is pretty good, it just needs shaggier hair, possibly hanging down.  The current sprite looks like its fuzzy.
• I've always pictured (in my head) draltha as looking kinda like the extinct giant sloth, but with wide feet instead of sloth claws, and way shaggier.
• DF elves are kinda like Tolkien elves, but not pretty or mystical at all, more like savage plant-and-war-loving hippies.  I imagine war paint, animal skins, feathers and bones being a prominent part of their sprite design would be appropriate (an you know, wood, they love their grown wood).
• The three helmets pictured on the dwarves are pretty aces already, with a strong medieval european feel.  A "winged" helmet design, or a "horse-tail" design for champions or commanders might be a nice distinctive flair.  Possibly human helmets could be more greek or roman inspired to help differentiate styles, or maybe modeled after more eastern styles.  For elves, I like the idea of head-dresses or masks.
• For reanimated, I think a recolor with bigger red eyes outlined strongly in black, would help make them distinctive visually.  You could also add "stink lines" or a haze around the creature profile.
• Could it be a skull over two crossed bones?  That would be awesome.
• Let me get back to you on this, I've done some digging for my own set, might be able to send you some examples.

And again, keep it up Oab!  These are really great!

[Meph]

I PM'd you.

[Oab]

@wannabehero: Thanks! I appreciate your very generous analysis. I’m a harsh critic of my work so this is really helpful for me to hear.

The feedback is super helpful; I like your ideas. I will try doing what you suggest when I get to those sprites again.

Don’t hesitate to offer any more feedback. I am very open and interested in hearing criticism; good or bad. 

@Meph: Thanks!

[Meph]

In case you want to play around with it. It's not for Df, but it's a sheet similar to the end result you'd need for dwarves.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[DerMeister]

When you finish subterranean creatures, evil creatures, good creatures, semimegabeasts and megabeasts, please upload this version. I play without tilesets, but really want see images.

[Oab]

@Meph: I actually have a similar setup. If nose shapes and ears were also an option of the modular design I could make that work without too much effort.

For now I do different brows paired with hair and different noses with moustaches. I have three eye possibilities; brows covering them, half covered, or fully open.

If it gets added for randomly generated creatures I think this system shows a lot of promise. I hope to get some mockups done to test feasibility for it this winter.

@DerMeister: Most of those are pretty much done. I just need to finalize a few of their color palettes and fix a few minor issues I’ve noticed. It’s not organized for an upload yet so that will take some time.

I may post some more stuff this coming week if I have time. Just leave me feedback if you have any when I do.

[Oab]

Here are the Subterranean creatures, Mega beasts, and Semi Mega beasts as requested.

I didn't have a chance to do the minor edits so many of these aren't quite done. A few of them may get a redesign.

I also added my new goblin design showing all the possible skin tones. Still a WIP. I am in the process of roughing out facial variants to get more variety out of them similar to how I did dwarfs.

At the bottom of the image is an example of how I am doing the animal people.

I am using at least 3 sizes for all types of creatures based on their raw size values.  Some of these share the same base body as ogres, trolls, humans, goblins, etc. This will reduce the amount of clothing to a manageable amount.

Most of the bodies are already done, so it's just a matter of painting the unique heads and color palettes for each.

In the example I have small hoofed body shown as the gazelle man, medium - deer man, Large - elk man. There is also a fourth size for hoofed; giraffe men would be an example of that.

Avians; small - cardinal man and medium - emu man.

There will also be a few outliers that will have unique sprites or only be shared by a few like the Alligator man in the example.

Unfortunately, I've been busy and will continue to be so for the new few months. I should be back at it in full for the winter months.

[Wannabehero]

These are amazing.  Please never stop Oab.

[jecowa]

I made some adjustments to Oab version 2.03 (2018-12-20 build). I fixed an issue in domestic.png with the baby turkey and baby bunny being at the wrong tile coordinates and fixed file name references to work on case-sensitive system. Also, since most Oab creatures don't have undead variants, I made a version edited to use Meph's undead sprites for those creatuers when they raise from the dead.

Download normal version

Download version edited to use Meph's undead

Installation: Unzip and place the content into your /raw/graphics/ folder. If using a Lazy Newb Pack, put it in the /raw/graphics/ folder of Meph's graphics pack (in the /LNP/Graphics/ folder), and then use the LNP software to install it into your save files.

If you aren't using the version edited to work with Meph's undead, then you will also need to delete these text files from the /raw/graphics/ folder after installation to make sure it uses Oab's version instead of Meph's version (if some of these don't exist, don't worry about it):

• graphics_domestic.txt
• graphics_dwarves.txt
• graphics_elves.txt
• graphics_humans.txt
• graphics_large_mountain.txt
• graphics_Meph_dwarves.txt
• graphics_Meph_goblins.txt
• graphics_Meph_kobolds.txt
• graphics_next_underground.txt
• graphics_standard.txt
• graphics_subterranean.txt
• graphics_Vordak_dwarves.txt
• graphics_Vordak_goblins.txt
• graphics_Vordak_kobolds.txt

[Mike Mayday]

Wow, these are great! You seem to have great skill in building the sprite around just the right amount of detail to make each sprite unique and full of character. Inspiring!

[jecowa]

Here's altered versions of "Meph_32x32-bg.png" and "Meph_32x32.png" from Meph v5.4 that use Oab's Dwarves, Elf, Kobold, and Goblin:

Spoiler: Meph_32x32.png (click to show/hide)

Spoiler: Meph_32x32-bg.png (click to show/hide)

Rename these and use them to replace the versions in your /data/art/ folder. No changes are needed for the "-top" version of the png.

[Oab]

Thanks Mike! I really appreciate the feedback.

Thanks for that Jecowa.

I apologize for the lack of updates lately, I haven’t stopped.

As for an update, I just began working on it again recently after not being able to do anything with it since last fall.

I am currently working on downsizing everything to look better in game. The taller sprites have overlap issues in my mockups. This limits proportion differences between characters, but for gameplay reasons it’s a must.

The currently released version of my graphics is extremely outdated and quite bad now compared to my new stuff. Once I am complete with downsizing some of the dwarf assets I will put together a new dwarf release. Most of it is already good to go, so it won’t be too difficult to put something together. It’s just a time consuming process.

Here are some things I’ve been working on that are a bit more recent.

[jecowa]

Wow, 64x64 creatures. These look good.