The Mana World Forums

Perhaps a shiny metallic texture and more rounded form might help. Also you might want to remove the dithering from the wings

The wings need more detail. Do you picture them more insect-like, bird-like or bat-like?

The shading of the head could also be improved.

I was thinking of hard, fast, insect-like wings, like the ones from a dragonfly. I'd go for anything else that looks better though. I had to drop the transparency on wings because it was messing up the coloration on parts of the body.
Thanks Len, i'm working on the shiny texture, it should look much better. Here's the animation of the body without wings, back view.

Regarding the shading of the body and head: I would propose to take a look at our scorpion monster and try to use the same shading style. It has a very similar surface.

Regarding the wings: When you are going for insect-like wings I would suggest to try to add the typical patterns you see on insect wings:

Or just motion trailing the animation enough to not have to bother with pesky details in a space where they really don't fit into.

If motion trailing involves using some transparency, i'm not sure i can use it. I've noticed some problems with transparency and dyeing.
I'll work on patterns for wings and all the shading after i've lockep up the shape of wings and their animation, which i still need to do. How do these shape and animation look?

arikel wrote:If motion trailing involves using some transparency, i'm not sure i can use it. I've noticed some problems with transparency and dyeing.
I'll work on patterns for wings and all the shading after i've lockep up the shape of wings and their animation, which i still need to do. How do these shape and animation look?

Dithering might do it. Dither one of the channels over the other and let the brain deal with the color mixing. Or use a third channel where the pre-mixed color can be put.

Wings should be larger by at least 50% - According to animal size and estimated mass.

Edit: I almost forgot - Very nice so far! ;P

bumble bee's don't follow those proportions...

Black Don wrote:bumble bee's don't follow those proportions...

yeaa... but it's more like dragonfly than wyvern or bumble bee.

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wyvern
• http://images.google.pl/images?q=Wyvern

Which IMO should look like:

• http://www.elfwood.com/~abydell/Wyvern- ... 80058.html
• http://www.creativeuncut.com/gallery-07 ... -dtok.html

I'm just saying sticking to rigid ideas of how things should look based off of 'nature' can sometime stifle the creative process. Even 'god' breaks his own rules once in a while.

Black Don wrote:I'm just saying sticking to rigid ideas of how things should look based off of 'nature' can sometime stifle the creative process. Even 'god' breaks his own rules once in a while.

when did he broke his rule? Bumble beens simply fly cause they flap with their wings, producing a air draft next to their body lifting the bumble been in the air.
So it is perfectly fine that they fly and none has to complain about how long the wings of the snake have to be. (unless that chitinous exoskeleton is made of metal)

Back to topic: promising side view. I really like the dynamics of it. Our chosen perspective is not gentle on the front view.

People are free to have opinions, but the artist in question is actually making the sprite. Ultimately up to him/her to decide whether to take your input here.

I'd change anything that actually makes it look better. I'll try bigger wings and we'll see how that goes. Here's my concern about wing size, though : that sprite is already being drawn on 80*80 pixels frames. Making bigger wings implies either :
- reducing the size of the body, and losing texture details (if the black outline has to be kept)
- or expanding the size of the wings while keeping the same body size, which will start to make a huge sprite.
What would be the best way to go?
And is the last shape of the wings i posted ok?

Huge sprites are not an issue.