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This is a tutorial on using excisting Dom3 graphics to make new units. If one has artistic talent, he probably is able to create good looking sprites from scratch (see some mods by Amos, for example), but the rest of us will have to do with what we have got. When I first started modding and tried doing my own artwork, the results were.. not too encouraging. Then I decided to take a easier route and even managed to get some compliments for my artwork. In this tutorial, I'll show step-by-step on how I edit the humble Peasant into a fierce Rabble Rouser.
I use GIMP. So if you prefer some other image edit program, you might have difficulties following on what tools I exactly use. However the stuff I do is quite basic and should be able to be reproduced in all-image altering programs. There are some things you should have done before starting to make a unit. 1)Have the spritedumps. If you don't have them, you can load them from this post (they're in the Spritedumps3.21.zip) They are large pictures which contain most unit sprites in the game. They are a must-have tool when editing, allowing you to easily skim large amount of graphics for intresting poses and equipment. Organized sprites are also a must have. Orginally done by EricM and expanded by other users. I've added the combined download to this post. 2)Have a clear picture on what kind of unit you are making and how it will look like. You'll notice that not having a proper plan cost me some extra work in the making of the Rabble Rouser. 3)Be prepared to quickly view the unit ingame. Use a modded SP game and alter one of the mods so that you'll replace some unit graphic with your own. So the we'll be making today is a Rabble Rouser for my Holy War mod. Thematically speaking, he is a charismatic and religious peasant, able to recruit fellow peasants into the service of the awakening god by their immense charisma and fiery speeches alone. Artistically speaking this means that he is dressed like a peasant, unarmored, but he will have an inspiring pose. I decide that the attack sprite of the regular dom3 Peasant will work as our base. Why the attack sprite? Well, this guy will be summoning regular peasants and thus be often seen with them ingame. It will help to differentiate him from regular peasant if he has different pose. The regular attack pose isn't too inspiring though, so we'll use a random guy I found in a spritedump as a help. Step 1 http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/pictu...&pictureid=228 Our starting point. When doing size 2 troops, I usually use a 64x64 canvas. The extra space is useful, especially when using parts from several sprites. Let's start by ”removing” the pitchfork. He'll have a pitchfork, but he won't be holding it like that! Since I'm going to need the Pitchfork for later use, I first select it by lasso and copy paste it for later use. Then I remove the pitchfork with black pen (expect on the parts where it overlaps with the guy). Step 2 http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/pictu...&pictureid=229 Now let's put that random guy to use. I'm actually only intrested in his left hand, so I select it and fuse it with our peasant. After removing the peasants orginal left arm, we have a lot more inspiring pose, with slight miscolorings. Step 3 http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/pictu...&pictureid=230 Now were going to start recoloring the new arm. I first pick the lightest shade of white in the arm and do a box of it. Then I take the second lightest shade and make a box of it right next to the old one. Repeat until you have done a box with the darkest shade. This will give us a nice thick line of showing us the the different shades in the white arm. Now, since we will recolor the arm to the ”Peasant Brown”, I'll create a same kind of line but it will feature the shades of brown from the peasant garb. This line will be placed exactly beneath the old one. Step 4 http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/pictu...&pictureid=231 Okay, we have lines. What now? We can use the lines to easily view which white colors will be replaced by which brown colors. This way we can recolor it and still have the advantage of the shading in the orginal work! I usually fasten the job by using ”select by color” and ”fill with color” tools. Let's see how the arm looks after we have replaced 3 lightest shades of white in the arm with the 3 lightest shades of brown from the garb. Step 5 http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/pictu...&pictureid=232 See the difference? Let's go all the way baby! Step 6 http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/pictu...&pictureid=233 Done! There are some pixels untouched, but we'll get to those later. When I stated doing sprite works I constantly used this ”boxing” method and slowly got the hang of shading by seeing how KO had done it. Enough rambling, onwards! Let's finish his pose and outlook. That Pitchfork has been laying around for too long. Let's give it back. I select it and rotate by 90 degrees. Step 7 http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/pictu...&pictureid=234 Ta-Daa! The pitchfork still has the fists of the orginal peasant sprite, but we will tackle that later. This guy still looks a tad too much alike the orginal peasant. Beard will be a good way give him some authority. There are many well-haired inviduals in Dom3, but after some pondering I decided to use... * drumroll * Step 8 http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/pictu...&pictureid=235 But, look! It's your friendly neighborhood EA Philosopher. Let's take his head before he starts to wonder where his legs went.. Step 9 http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/pictu...&pictureid=236 Just in the spot! Remember, with beard comes great authority. You're probably wondering about that torso of an Rhuax Anointed. To tell the truth we are not intrested in the guy itself, just his flaming fist. You see, the pitchforks and torches are clishee weapons of your average angry peasant mob. Making this guy wield both at the same time will give him ”the champion of peasants” look we are going for. So what we do is make a makesift shaft and put the Spenta's flaming fist (after mirroring it) on top of it. Step 10 http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/pictu...&pictureid=237 Look at that, it worked! The shaft is a tad too long, but we'll fix that later. That peasant head is there to provide his hat back (which I accidentally lost when replacing his head). Step 11 http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/pictu...&pictureid=238 Hatless man no more, our Rabble Rouser is starting to shape up. There a numerous clitches on him thought. Let's start to fix those. Let's remove the extra fists from the Pitchfork and give him a proper grip on his large tool. Step 12 http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/pictu...&pictureid=239 Now that he is wielding his trusty pitchfork, our trusty (a)Rouser will be safe from any nearby Igors. His right hand looks odd thought. Probably because it still has part of the orginal horizontal pitchfork shaft on it. Let's draw some peasant brown on top of it.. Step 13 http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/pictu...&pictureid=240 His right arm is okay now. But the shaft of the old pitchfork still haunts us! His waist has that odd dark line because of it. Let's draw some brown on top it.. Step 14 http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/pictu...&pictureid=241 Waist? Check. Remember how me missed some spots when recoloring his arm from white to brown? Let's fix that now. Step 15 http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/pictu...&pictureid=242 Now we are getting into fine detail, but he has that odd vertical dark line in his chest (it's from the orginal peasant sprite). Let's fix that. Step 16 http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/pictu...&pictureid=243 Now let's make that Torch more ”Torchy” by shortening it and giving some basic shading. We'll also fix the akward angle. Step 17 http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/pictu...&pictureid=244 Ok. All the minor clitches from our little game of ”mix & match” have been fixed. Let's see what we have created. Hmm.. This guy looks a bit too meek and orginal to be a charismatic leader. Those shorts look pretty redicilious on a old man. Let's try giving him a robe. I pondered on the possibilty of using the under-waist of an existing unit, but I'd also like to show some ”heavy” editing in this tutorial, so let's draw him a robe by expanding his under-waist areas. Let's start by recoloring his bare feet into peasant browns. Step 18 http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/pictu...&pictureid=245 Note that we could now easily go for leathry pants if we just erased his kilt. But I decided to do a robe and robe it shall be. He has that empty space between his legs. Let's fill that with dark brown. Step 19 http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/pictu...&pictureid=246 Much better. But as you can see, the shading is not quite right. That's because I used just a single shade of brown. I'll now improve the shades by using several shades of dark brown (the darkest shades are reserved for the middle and lighter shades to the edges of the are we just drew). Step 20 http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/pictu...&pictureid=247 Ok, he now has a robe. At this point he felt confident enough to view this unit in-game. I can't provide a screenshot thought, because my laptop has a problem with that. Graphically speaking, he looked okay, but.. He still doesn't look too charismatic. It's probably his white hair. Why won't those damned young chaps of today listen their elderly! In my time I remember... You see? Let's make him younger. But the Beard of Authority must stay. So let's just recolor his body hair. Ignoring Anime, we have 4 options for the color of facial hair. Black, Blonde, Brunette and Red. This guy is already too brown so brunette is out. And I'm not too hots on red hair myself. Black.. meh, he's not emo. So he'll be long beared blonde. Vikings for the win! ”Ok. You're going to make him blonde, but how will you know what colors to use in the recoloring? There are no blondes in the picture!” - Good Question. The anwser lies in the next pic. Step 21 http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/pictu...&pictureid=248 Our decapitated Ranger will provide us with his lustry long blonde hair. Using his hair as a palette, let's recolor the beard. Step 22 http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/pictu...&pictureid=249 Armed with the lustry blonde facial hair of a hero metal guitarist, our Rabble Rouser looks a lot more charismatic. But alas, his head looks a bit odd. Let's adjust it a bit.. Step 23 http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/pictu...&pictureid=250 A lot better don't you think? He's still hunching a bit (like the regular peasant we used as a base). But this rabble rouser is full of religious fury, he won't hunch! Let's make him a tad taller so that he can stand over his fellow Peasants. I select his torso and move it up by exactly 1 pixel. Step 24 http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/pictu...&pictureid=251 The path is clear! Let's clear that gap. Step 25 http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/pictu...&pictureid=252 Lot better. You just witnessed an easy way to make a sprite taller by couple pixels. The shading in his waist and chest looks a tad odd, thought. Let's address that. Step 26 http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/pictu...&pictureid=253 Now I viewed him in-game again and was happy with the results. Yipee! We're done! Call the dance orchestra! Let's paaarty! Oh right... He still needs an attack sprite. But trust me, those are easy. The attacksprite is only visible for 0,5 seconds at a time, so you can slack a bit while doing the details in it. No-one is going to notice if the shading is a bit wonky or pose slightly akward. It's enough that there is some movement and that the sprite is ”attacky”. We'll be using the basic Peasant pic as base. Let's go to business. Step a26 http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/pictu...&pictureid=254 When making attack sprites, it's good to put the units next to each other like this so that you can easily compare them. The peasant has the attackery pose but lacks the facial hair and robe of our Rabble Rouser. Let's do some copy-paste magic.. Step a27 http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/pictu...&pictureid=255 Ok. Let's ditch the pitchfork. Step a28 http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/pictu...&pictureid=256 Now that the hands are empty, we can give him something to hold on to. Step a29 http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/pictu...&pictureid=257 Torch? Check. Let's now give him his Pitchfork back. Step a30 http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/pictu...&pictureid=258 Ok, looking good. Let's do some fine-tuning thought. I'll select his torso and move it forward by couple pixels. Step a31 http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/pictu...&pictureid=259 Lot more aggressive, don't you think? Let's ditch the base sprite Step a32 http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/pictu...&pictureid=260 I viewed this in-game and was pleased. Remember to always test your sprites in-game. The different backround will usually reveal some graphical glitch that's hard to notice while editing the unit with a zoomed view. And here are all the steps in a single pic. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/pictu...&pictureid=261 Now that wasn't that hard, was it? If you feel like that was too hard, don't get depressed. When I started, I probably wouldn't have been able to make this kind of graphic, even with instructions from future me. Below are some pics of my earlier works and their base sprites. You can probably see how much simpler they are. I just wanted this tutorial to show lots of different tricks and perhaps even giving a tip or two to unit makers with some experience under their belts. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/pictu...&pictureid=262 As a finale here are some tips on sprite editing - The quality of KO's artwork has just gone up in the years. If you want especially high quality base sprites, aim to use sprites from newer nations, like Hinnom, Tir'na' Org, etc... - Watch the sprites you are editing closely. Sometimes, do not copy-paste things right on top of the pic. Just take expample from the piece and reproduce it by pen. I learned to do shading by taking example from KO's sprites. - From time to time, do small areas of sprites (arm, swords, jewelry) by yourself to hone your skills. Attack sprites are good for practice, since it won't matter too much even if it's not quite high quality. - Your fellow modders have also made numereous good sprites. Don't be afraid to use them as base sprites (it would probably be best if you ask them for permission first.) - Read all of this thread, there is some useful art discussion from page 2 and onwards. - If some part of a sprite is proving difficult, ponder on options: Can you 1)copy it somewhere? 2) cover it with something (shield?) 3) Change pose so that the difficult obcejct is no longer visible? 4) Just change the theme of the pic so that you delete the difficult item (head proves difficult? Why not give it a helmet? Long hair? Hood?) - If something just seem impossible and/or frustating, work on something else for a while to hone your skills and then try again. Try to keep it fun! I'll also show my hearthful support for you soon-to-be editers out there. If you post your pics to this thread, I'll give some comments on them. Besides, it will be useful to have lots of that kind of discussion in single thread. |
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You're a legend Burnsaber, that's a really excellent tutorial. It seems we use very much the same methods on the whole. I think that kind of systematic bit-at-a-time with lots of copying and comparison with existing sprites is definitely the way forward.
Once or twice I've made original sprites from scratch (like the Anubite in Tomb Kings, which is definitely not my best work but is tolerable). When I did that I simply drew something from scratch which was absolutely terrible, and then went through similar processes to those here to gradually converge on it being tolerable. Oh, one other thing. When you want to change the colour of something, you can just select it (using the select-by-colour or some other clever method in GIMP), and use Hue-Saturation (or Colourise for grey things). I use these loads, and might, for example, use them to make that grey arm brown. It generally takes a bit of messing around to match the colours correctly, but probably saves time. In simpler cases (e.g. I want this red robe to be blue) it saves loads of time. Actually all the options under "Colours" in GIMP get lots of time from me. I like Brightness-Contrast too. For example, when doing the skeletal horse in Nehekhara, I started by copying KO's skeletal horse, but it didn't have proper ribs. So I just drew the ribs in, using only two colours (light for rib, dark for in-between-rib). Then I needed to add shading, which could have been laborious. Instead I selected say the bottom four-fifths of the rib cage, and made it darker using Brightness-Contrast. Then I selected say the bottom three-fifths and did the same again. Then a few times more with smaller sections each time, so the very bottom bit got darkened quite a few times. I might then have decided that the back of the ribcage should be darker than the front, and darkened another couple of selections. By darkening regions in thsi iterative way it's easy to end up with really nice shading without too much work. |
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Actually maybe the horse ribcage was a bad example, because the shading there isn't especially complex. I guess I did that in maybe three selections-and-darkenings. I've been doing bigger sprites recently (for my forthcoming late-game summons mod), and shading them is rather more arduous.
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Man my methods are completely different from that. A cool tutorial though. Hopefully it will wean people away from copying resizing and pasting graphics from other places (which looks awful in my opinion).
I guess I could do a step by step for the next unit I do, though it wouldn't involve tool explanations since I doubt anyone else uses PSP. Would probably just be a series of graphics with comments. |
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Hmm, intriguing. I wonder what your methods are Sombre.
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Yeah, the constant copying also has the nice side-effect of making the finished sprite seem "dominionsy", easily fitting in with the rest dom3 graphics. Quote:
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I really don't use that "boxing" method I descripe in steps 4-7 anymore , but I remember that it was a great help to me when I was starting. I'm just a bit scared of the advanced GIMP tools. I remember completely spoiling some graphic of mine with the "smudge" tool. Since then, I've just been using my trusty Pen. You can't go wrong with Pen. But on the other hand, my biggest sprite is the Big Ape hero (size 4), so I haven't encoutered any super-large areas to shade. Quote:
I'm also intrested in hearing about your methods. |
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Excellent! I'm doing basically the same thing, except that I haven't tried to change the existing sprites that much.
This really should be put into a FAQ or something. P.S. Llama, your first post appeared twice. |
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Excellent tutorial Burnsaber. I have been wondering how to get into sprite making and this is the very thing, thanks very much!
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Hmm, I thanked, but seemed to forget to post. So, better late than never...
Absolutely excellent work, Burnsaber. As llamabeast said, legendary. The community owes you one for this. :D |
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I love your guide, might need to do things that way too, probably should actually.
my way of giving shades etc is that I just select the region I want shaded (usually select color and then a smallish value as treshold, I usually just try a few time and then decide which area I like best, goes very very quikcly) and then "brush" it with a lighter color on one side and a darker shade on the other side.. GIMP creates all sorts of inbetween shades that way. I think I mean that I use pressure sensitive coloring. reading back I guess it's a bit what llama means, Burnsaber has a point, you can completely ruin a pic by doing to much.. but luckily Gimp give the option to undo step by step soo you can go back to where it's still good. I also love doing bloodstains on weapons this way. other stuff I've learned the hard way: copy pasting from sprites = good rotating 90/180/270/360/inverting etc = good rotating it at any other angle = not good = ugly And while Sombre has a point that resizing will nearly never get near the quality of his artwork it might still be better than you can create yourself if you are less artistic.. and your wanted sprites don't resemble anything existing. Just mind the edges is a thing I've learned :D. |
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Thanks for all kind words. It really wasn't that hard, the graphic took about an hour + typing the comments, hosting the pics and combining the downloads took about 3 hours. 4 hours well spent, it seems.
There is still more to come thought. The Spritedumps are quite old (they have the old pics for pythium mages, lack all Hinnom + Bogarus + Fomoria stuff and have some other outdated stuff), so once I'm done with Holy War I'll probably update them. I'll also make a spritedump out of all my works and perhaps start to pester other modders to make their own. Having modder spritedumps will also be useful in the sense that they could act as a "permission" to use them, so that if someone wants to use your pic he can just take it from the dump without having to bother you for permission. IMHO, spritedumps are absolute necessity when working this method. Viewing the Organized Sprites is just time consuming and tedious. Since it seems that there are a lot beginners to sprite art ogling this method, I'd like to restate that if you post your pics in this thread, I'll be 100% sure to give feedback and suggestions. It should prove useful to have lots of art discussion in a single thread. http://xs538.xs.to/xs538/09140/preview498.jpg Oh, right. Almost forgot. I just happened to use our Rabble Rouser as base to another pic today, so I decided tobriefly show what I did. It's important to note that you can use pics made yourself as base too. So I recolored the robe, changed hair color, gave different weapons and some open wounds and we got Zealot (Flagnellant commander). The lower guy is Warrior Priest and I decided to show him just to demonstrate the power of small changes. Quote:
Yeah to that too, the rotation thing is annoying. Explanation to those who have idea what we are talking about: if you rotate an object in GIMP with angle other than 90 or 180, the GIMP will smudge the whole object. Really annoying. I've been digging the options to turn it off, but no luck. I still use it sometimes, althought the object needs *a lot* fixing afterwards. Dom3k is quite an odd beast of an mod. You might have trouble finding a base sprite in vanilla :p. |
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If you ever want to spark your imagination:
try doing a google for icons. There are tons of libraries of old simple icons (such as Win95 or win98 versions) which cover a nice range of subjects. Try googling for icons win98 fantasy Gandalf Parker -- I have a very fertile mind. Just ask mention something. I can fertilize anything. (wait, that didnt come out right) |
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yeah I usually lend pics from the net.. I've improved adapting them and even though Sombre would probably agree I think that quality wise a lot of them can stand up to about dom 3 standards (for ref, Sombre's I value higher). To be honest I don't care that much for graphs in this game anyway.
The styles of the graphics are lend of course and usually aren't very dom 3 like... and even within nations styles can clash.. I don't mind... I think Sombre would, well he can aford to be picky I guess :D (not sure he's seen the latest work or the polishing I did on the earlier ones though) Anyway.. I've totally stopped rotating any thing except 90/180 etc.. IMHO you can't even fix it up decently and trust me I've tried, if it doesn't even get to my standards it must mean it's really unusable :D Another option I really like is Colorize.. if you use it on your WHOLE pic it will ruin it.. if you select a color first (with a certain treshold) and the colorize that selection it makes for rapid changes in color and keep intact shading (mostly keeps it intact, if you use it and decide to use otehr color UNDO till before the first change. Colorize over colorize will give unicolorish results in the end) |
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Hey burn just letting you know thanks alot for this, it's inspired me to start doing unit, it's off to a alright start, I'm having fun, I'm not sure the lion tribe are enjoying my fashion makeover though :)
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DaveCG, those look pretty good. I really like the Orange/White + Black color theme. Nice contrast. I really couldn't find any flaws in the regular guys. Good job on those.
The pose on the (hero probably?) on the golden shield-guy* looks a bit.. epic? I mean that he has his back facing on the enemy and fighting backwards. If he's a hero or rare unit of some sort, I'd think that he's okay (rare units can look special), but if he's a recruitable of some sort**.. I also noted that his swords hilt is fully visible (meaning that he isn't actually holding it, since his fingers should be around the hilt). If you want to change the pose, I'd suggest you just select the head and mirror it vertically. Then he should be facing in the right direction. You have really good advantage on doing black-skinned units. Since those are quite rare in dom3, you could probably get away with just turning former white guys to black guys and changing their equipment a bit. If you need new mage pics, I'd suggest recoloring some Mictlan priest (the highest quality half-naked dudes). Also, easy alternative on the Sorcerer would be if he was holding his staff two-handed (you don't need to change his pose, just make him hold the staff vertically) * free tip: In the future, you should remember that "naming" the units in the pic are helpful reference points (example in this post http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showp...9&postcount=33) ** Note: This is just a personal preference. Poses like that probably have their fans. |
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Thanks for the tips! the golden shield guy is meant to be the king of what is to be a EA Machaka, a cap only special dealy type thing, I was playing Dr P EA Machaka mod and noticed he had a king unit, and I thought I'd try and make a sprite for it, then it got on to "Hell, I'll make an entire EA Machaka, based around lions and the sun (hence the orange deal)" and yeah, epic might be the right word there :)
As for the hilt thing, I'll be sure to tidy that up, could you tell me how to mirror in GIMP? I've worked out rotation thanks to you, but in the tutorial you said mirror as well, and for the life of me I can't find the button/thingy, is it possible to mirror in such a way that he strikes forward with his sword? or will it auto mirror him ingame? I've been meaning to set up a file to test them ingame, but I was having too much fun messing about... Thanks for the suggestion about Mictlan, I was sort of going for their head pieces anyway, might as well take their bodies too :P Anyway, like I said thanks for the tips and I'm going to keep trying, got too many ideas and not enough skill/time, I just made a horrible failure of a creature, spearmen riding lion don't look right, heheh. |
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First just select his head, then click on the icon that's third from top and third from right. It has this two-faced arrow on it.
On the lion rider, see if there are any quite naked riding units in the game(I can't think of any at the moment, but there must be some, amazons perhaps?). Just then pick the rider and recolor his skin (and give breast reduction surgery if they're amazons). |
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Cool thanks alot, I'll be sure to find me some naked folks to use...ermm..yeah.
Also, last question I swear, I think I've done something horribly wrong, I've started testing out my unit ingame and my kings normal sprite appears fine, but when they attack, it's the giant black box of doom, with purple shadow, attack sprite in the middle of all this, I'm guessing I coloured something in I shouldn't have? I've been round all of them filling it in black, just incase but I really have no idea about this sort of thing, any help would be great, and chances are I'll be back tomorrow with a couple more crimes against good taste. |
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I think you either chose a wrong color, or.. more likely since it's what I've done about a zillion times (as the dom 3 K crew can confirm) you've got an alpha channel in there.
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PS dave I love the sprites
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Thanks on both things Aezael!
I think there is an alpha channel in there somewhere, from combine layers maybe? I'm going to go check now, and then I'll post the minor touch up (they're still fashion disasters, but now they're slightly less disastery) and the couple of new units, complete with NAMES(dun dun dun). Anyway, thanks for all the help and support! EDIT Yeah, there's an alpha channel in there, but it seem like it won't let me delete it, am I boned? it's in the section with the RED/GREEN/BLUE and when I right click on it the delete channel button is greyed out, anyway ideas? or will I have to redo? EDIT2 Nevermind, just found it, online help for gimp is great! |
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Alright, first things first, sorry for the double post, bad internet form and all that.
Second, sofar2.jpeg is go! In order... A = Lion King (no, not mufasha) the capital city only king, boasting a epic fighting style and minor 'bling' I must admit I really like this one, being as it was the witch doctor sprite, and I butchered it. B = Great Hunter is a would be hero unit version of the half white toga folks, I'm not too happy with this one atm, I feel that the white is too white, and you can't really make out the gold bit on the head set, I might darkern him over all, but what does everyone else think? C = King Hero, sporting major bling and a royal purple plume (totally bad ***) I must admit I just went silly with this one, what I'd like to know is does the armour look too messy? should I tidy it up? if so what would you guy reccomend? I tried burning and dodging it to shade it, but I'm hopeless with shading. D = Lion Cubs, poor guys, just a orange-y toga recolour for you, oh well, you'll die in thousands. E = Generic witch doctor! I like this one, although I can never tell if it's a guy or not, if it is, it's got a hell of a chest... F = Sacred archers, otherwise know as huntsmen (hinting towards poisoned bows, the whole spider thing in the furture) I like this one, I think I've darkened the toga just right, I'd like to get the hero in line with this one. G = Lion Spears, Bog standard long spear guys. H = Lion Bows, Bog standard archer guys. I = Sacred warriors, something epic like "ROARING LIONS!" or something jazzy, fresh from stealing mictlan hats, this was the first one I did, I've got back and touched up the hat alittle, I quite like them. J = Lion Javs, bog standard one shot ranged guys, like a unsacred I. K = Woo, body choping, part Lion Cub, part marvini slinger! I'm happy with how this one turned out. And that's it, any comment would be great, I'm just so blinded by the lion heroes bling I can't see! |
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Dark colored sprites on a black background is a bad idea... ;)
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That's a good point, hmm, I've a cunning plan...
Nope, changing it to white was a bad idea, and so was shocking pink to be honest :) Joking aside, do you mean for working on? I've seen the odd sprite thing with white instead of black background, or do you mean for previewing? |
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Try dark green.
I have a comment, for both your and Burnsaber's sprites - the whites and yellows are significantly too bright. White clothing should be coloured actually grey, with highlights which approach pure white only at the very brightest points. In some points (the bottoms of folds and so forth), the white clothing should be really quite dark grey. I learned this with painting miniatures, it's very unintuitive but it's true, honestly! Try it. For gold, find some vanilla units (or else my Tomb Kings) as examples. I spent quite a while on the gold for my Kings (the ones who look like pharoahs). They're meant to be wearing ridiculously bright gold, so they should probably be an example of an upper limit of brightness. Mostly I think gold should be rather darker. I you think about it, gold is more shiny brown than shiny yellow. |
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Sorry, by the way, I think your sprites look excellent with the exception of the white and gold. I thought that in my head earlier on so I was imagining you obviously already knew that!
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Oh yeah, Burnsaber, the thing of yours I thought was too white was the crusader's shield, on post #13. The robe of your avatar is actually an excellent example of how I think white should be done. :)
Now I seem like some crazy white-and-gold obsessed nutter! |
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Thanks for the advice llama! funny enough I've been recolouring my guys, darking them up, and praticing shading, I'll keep at it untill I'm happy and then as long as noone minds I'll show them off again, thanks again!
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To Llamabeast: Oh right, the warrior priest. I used the same shades I used in templar shields, but it seems that the whitness really shows out without a logo on the shield. I'll make it darker and put a red X on it. |
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Alright folks, once more with SHADING DAAAAA!
Well, attempted shading, I don't know if it's alright or not, looks ok to me, but then again, my guys now look more "correct" than "good" I feel, oh well, can't have bright white outfits for everyone :) Alright from the top... A and B are just touched up from the last showing, abit darker with attemped shading on the skirt-thing between the legs. C is my new unit, the wiseman, although my main beef with this guy is that it took me ages tidying up his skirt, making it look nice and clear, that I couldn't be bothered to tidy up the attack sprite yet, it's on the "to do when I'm crazy bored and want to kill someone because OMG IT JUST WON'T BLEN-ARRRGH!" fun. D is polished up, with added shading on skirt. E is my first proper attempt at the select by colour lark you had in your tut, I think it's turned out well, a black giant, hey we have white ones, I thought it'd be cool to have some black ones too, very happy with how his skirt turned out as well, I couldn't do that with the select/etc button, so I did by brush/burning and I think it looks good, abit too dark for the nation maybe, but alright. F/tidy/shaded G/same H is HAH! my first attempt at real toga shading, I thought it went really well and I must admit, when it came to his attack sprite I sorta well "OH GOD NO" and thought of a lazy/AMAZING way do to his attack, keeping with his character of being the oldest wiseman/hero wiseman unit, I'm going to call the weapon 'Tree of souls' 'cause, let's be honest it's a giant red tree of lazy. I/see G/etc J MY FLAG! I'm really pleased with this, I thought it captured the nations feel really well, the hope sun aspect and the new dawn of the Early Age, needs some cleaning but I like the slightly tattered look. K my king unit, now with slight toned down colours on the idle sprite, I left the attafck sprite the same being as I'm quite lazy and..well...I love the shiny bling. L thanks to burnsabers suggestion I think I've managed to do the best I could with the armour, I really like it myself, and I'm keeping him shiny on purpose (not laziness) being as he's a king hero, I thought it'd add to his "I'm totally bad ***"-ness. M the Caveman King hero unit, although he's got some issues I've worked them out, but I hadn't updated the .jpeg, really liked the way his toga turned out, I think I've nicely shaded the fold in it, but then again I could be wrong... N not much done on witchy, looked fine I thought. O+P redone from base again, I wasn't happy with the other ones, the regular unit had the right tone of white/grey, but was really messy, and the hero(P) was clean but too bright, so I redid them and I'm very happy, although attack sprite whites are alittle off, I don't think anyone cares. Phew, that's it, comment are great as ever, and any suggestions for units would be cool too, I'm having a blast doing this, even if they're not the greatest in the world. Thanks again everyone! |
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Abit better quality picture! hope it's abit more clear and less blur-o-scope.
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Wow, that's a grand flag! :D
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Thanks very much endoperez! I must admit, I took alot of inspiration from zepaths amazing flags, also I really should stop doing this...sofar5.jpeg, with only new editions.
A is the lion-man, what I would think will be a summon for the nation, my first attempt at making a head from scratch, it's abit hard to tell where it's eyes are, but I'm happy with it, if I do managed to get better I'd certainly like to revist him. Below him is the lion-man spearman(lion?) just for something other than hand to claw chaff. And the last three fellows are my golden lions, top is the standard golden lion rider, I think these turned out really well, following burns advice I start trolling the sprite files, and lo and behold I had forgot about, spider riders! so I did abit of the old lasso and some joining and added a nice white skirt(naked is so pre early age) and blam o, quite nice I think, below him is the hero, riding the king of the golden lions, just jazzed the regular sprite up alittle, and then the last two are standard non-mounted golden lions, for summoning and jazz. Comment/crits/anything at all is great, it's almost time to start writing my .dm, just need a pretender now. |
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Whoa, Dave! You've been productive. I'll just equip my +5 monocle of criticism and be on my way. If I don't comment on unit, my opinion defaults to "it's awesome"
C: I really like the pose. He seems to be meditating/mourning. I'd remove some of those dark pixels in his armpit and backside, thought. His waist also looks a tad too dark, I can't really figure out where his stomach is. The skirt is too square as 90 decree angles are very rare in clothing. You also should probably copy-paste the same skirt to both attack sprite and base sprite. H: This pic probably got deformed in the "sofar"ing process. Is that thing his head? The toga is a bit too square in this one too. That "few dark lines" effect to create shading in the toga looks good. J: Remember how I said that my opinion defaults to awesome? I mention this Flag because it is awesome to the power of two. K: Oh. From your first pics I thought that his guy had a afro/ manly large cache of hair of sorts. Sad to see it gone, it looked pretty good. Like a lion mane. L: The armour looks a lot better now. Good job. The Lion-guys: You shouldn't worry about eyes. All size 2 troops on Dom3 do not have eyes at all. Just a 1x2 pixels white box with a tad darker colors. Those Lion riders look very good. Very nice choice of colors for the hair and mane. Looks majestic to the extreme. |
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Also thanks for the crits burn, I'll do some more work on them and show them off tomorrow, thanks for the help again! Oh, and burn I'm so going to make another hero with a afro now you've said that...maybe a young machaka prince with a afro whos father was killed infront of him, so he went to jomon(wrong age I know) to train in the samurai arts :) Hmm, next idea try to make a afro samurai mod, oh lordy... EDIT: about H, he's got a bowl of blood and a book in both hands, and his attack sprite is my attempt at making seem like the blood is forming souls (little head, two arms) to attack people, and then making it it's own weapon, called tree of souls or something jazzy, being as it sorta looks like a tree, it's not too clear, but I wanted to tie it to him history and junk, other than you just reading about it and not seeing it in action. |
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Alright, besides one tarzan, and maybe afro prince hero, I think I'm done for now, I mean I've got loads of ideas, but I don't think a single nation should have 30+ troops :)
Here's sofinished.jpeg for you gent to gander at, I might try making it smaller for better quality (sorry ich, no MCP ((multi cat party!?)) but for now, I think that's it, I'm going to try to make a decent tarzan, but for now explaining time, yay. A = Summons, featuring golden lions, and both types of lionmen and hopefully some white elephants, but I've got to fire off a message to juzzi asking if it's alright to use his elephant sprite without riders, don't want the first thing I ever do to contain a 'dick move'. B = Pretender(s) currently just lord of the golden plain, I know the head looks cheesy, but I quite like how the rest of him turned out, I tried following the shading from the original sprite, and it turned out pretty well. C = Heroes! all as normal expect one thing, both the wiseman and hero wiseman have had their togas MC Hammered, going for a sorta pantaloons style, I wasn't so sure on how to make them seem less 90o angle, so I thought I'd try this, lemme know if it's alright, or if I should go for more of a triangle look, classic robe style. D = My general army, recuitable everywhere, I wasn't so sure about putting the caveman there, but I can work things like that out later, one new guy is the tribal leader commander, mostly taken from MA Machaka, but with orangey toga thing, and darker red feathers. E = Cap only/sacreds lots I know, I'm going to work out the details later but for now this seems about right, I could maybe do with another non-cap mage, other than the witchy, but like I said, working out later, last new guy here is the bottom white guy, being a prince came out pretty well, although I feel his regular sprite is alittle light torso and up, any shading advice for that? All in all, very little left to do, I'm sort of dissapointed, I might keep adding to theses guys though, like I said, loads of ideas and stuff but nevermind for now, next on the list will proberly be my insane idea for a underwater blood nation... Yeah you heard! :P (will the blood slaves drown as soon as a battle starts if the command that has them 'equiped' doesn't have something like share water breathing?) |
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BTW, on topic, nice sprites :-) I especially like the "spirit tree" attack sprite, though I'm not sure how it'll look in situ considering the brevity of the attack animation. However, wrt/the Lion Head pretender, I think the head should move a bit lower down onto the torso, or else it looks like the neck is too long. |
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Also in other news, as I've been writing the .dm file I've realised something, I need a scout, a non cap mage, one more hero and two multi heroes...well, maybe not need on thoses hero parts but dammit I like heroes! |
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That's basically what I wanted to do, except them still being in the ocean and being forced to use blood as a sorta last resort type deal, but yeah, I think I'm going to go with pushed out the ocean and wanting back in at any cost, it just seems like a cool idea to me at least, just the matter of small land roster and large sea recruitment...but yeah, derailment! I know I've said it about 6 times now, but I have to give a huge thank you to burn for opening my eye to retooling standard dom3 sprites, I always wanted to make a nation, I can work my way round the .dm pretty easy (thanks to the modding guide and all the hard work by edi and co!) but I kept getting annoyed that I couldn't make sprites at all, and thanks to burn I can now at least get somewhere in the general area :) admittingly I'll never be anywhere as good as someone like Amos, but I think I can live with that now :p Anyway, like I said earlier I need to make a scout, another mage and 3 heroes, so if it alright I'll drop them by here for a quick glare-o-critique (tm) by burn and co, thanks again! |
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Well, glad to hear I could be of assistance. Remember to give yourself some credit too, thought.
Those sprites look pretty good. Can't wait to play the actual nation. I remember talking with someone about a LA oceania on IrC. IIRC the idea was about the nation revolving on volcanic themes. As Atlantis is pushed into the cold north, Oceania flees into the volcanic islands in south. That's an easy thematic way to go to blood slaves (The volcano gods are not pleased! Throw in the sacrifices!). You could search for some hawaijian/philippines/indonesian myths and work them in with some oceania twists. |
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Well, looks like this is it, the last sprites for now anyway, crits as are always welcome and after I finish off the last 30% or so of the .dm file I'll put my thread up, like I said before thanks for all the help guys, looking forward to your input when the nation needs balance and all that jazz.
A is the sorceress unit, just a nice happy recolour for her nothing major yet. B is the black spider unit, a scout with a blowpipe, I think I need to lighten him up alittle, he's kinda dark...well they're all 'dark' but you know what I mean. C is the assassin, I was thinking about making him a multihero, like the spider he's too dark I think. D is the afro hero, sporting a gi and the number 2 headband, along with a bad mofo afro and jazz, I really liked how this one turned out, the only downside is I got lazy with the attack sprite, once I'm more confident I'll be coming back to this one. E is the white elephant I was on about, I still haven't heard back off juzzi but once I do I'll add it in, chances are he's going to be a summon of somekind. Anyway, thanks in advance for any and all crit/comment/etc guys! |
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Well I'm gonna post the changes I've made from a few sprites too. I've started with A and B, the original pictures I've got no chance I'll ever be able to draw in my live.
Then I resized and touched the results up a bit (mostly working on the edges, which I forgot when I started but it's really important since a line for greyish/blackish of even 1 pixel around your sprite will annoy in the end) and gave the sprite the magenta shadow. I usually work on 400% size. starting with the shooting orc: after touching up I got to C. For the attack sprite I just added a fiery blast to the barrel. I did this with a brush of white, then yellow and then red in the middle. And I added blood to the blade , first a layer with darkish red also with a brush so it get's automatically different sorts of red and then in the middle of that a brighter red. A while later I did the flamer (E/F) first I removed the bladethingie and for E I added the gastanks to his back. I did that by selecting all the black, then reverse the selection so I just had the orc and I stored it somehwere. Then I just made a gas tank (it moves behind his back) a sort of long cilinder with a high sized pencil (sharp edges, not flowing out in different colors like the brush tool) and I added the light reflection to it with a brush and lighter red (very light) then I gave it a cap on top (greyish line) and a brownish line to the weapon (the gas goes through it) For the attack sprite I just added flames basicly, same as the barrel in the other sprite but I started with a red, brushing it out in the general shape then yellowish inside it and whitish near the barrel. The brush will create a whole range of different colors which on the edges will be nearly black, in game that will look like a black line around the flame and is not good. You usually need to remove most of that (paint over with pure black) and just leave a few variations of color on the edges (all of which should be pretty bright red or it will resemble the dreaded black line.) For G and H (shaman) I remove the chopper again and soemwhere in the process when I noticed I needed more room I scaled the canvass to 128x128. I'm not really sure what I did next but I think I drew a straight line and colored it with a think brown (the lighter color on the left) then I brushed over the right side with a darker brown. I drew the crossbeam by hand with same process, first light brown, then dark. Took me a while to get the angle and sizes right. Then I painted the skull, it's not perfect but on in game size it's decent I think. For the attack sprite I just copied the fiery barrel from an older sprite and put it in the right place. Ow and tehre are spaceversion with helmets of some of these too.. same process I'll tell about in the next sprite. B resizing to I, touching up borders , adding shadow etc. The attack sprite was a hell of a job, cutting the orc out, copying his weapon trying to rotate it in several posistion which always looked awfull. In the end I think I just turned it 90 degrees (so no deformation or rough edges and positioned the arm around it (I copied the distal part of his other arm, turned that around abit and then used some of those colors to touch up the edges) After that I added the blood in the way as described before (brushing with dark red, then adding a bit of brighter red on the edge.) For K (orc crafter (the one building ships and tanks) I took the light color the axe has and used that to draw the upper side of the hammerhead. THen I changed the color slightly and drew the other side, I brushed the upper side a little bit with this color too so it's not to uniform in color. Then a very dark color for the part he hits with. I think this worked out very nicely and even the dimensions and proportions worked out right for me in the first try L was just adding blood again M (orc rager) got a jumppack on his back (he has flying) Under his arm I created the pack first with grey no real science involved and then the fire red brush, orange brush and a touch of yellow in the middle. Ow and becuase he's a rager he got a bit more blood on the axes to start with. Personally I like N (rager attack sprite) a lot, I just copied and flipped the other arm and touched it up a bit. I think this one as rager attack sprite is nice compared to the regular attack sprite.. much more fierce as it should be. The attachment of the arm to the body was probelmatic. I put the layer with the new arm behind the rest of the orc and just added dots of color (copy form other arm) where needed. O-R are spaceform (forest form) sprites of the ones before (crafter doesn't get one since that sprite is only for a commander and they get spaceships in space) basicly adding a helmet. Selected a greenish color, and put a dot that fitted over the head as a new layer above it. Then I palyed with transparancy untill I thought it was right (face somewhat shining through but helmet still visible) after that I added the whitish reflection by brushing with white on the upperleft part and pressing firm on the most white part so it would become nice and white. That leaves the orcish war drum S-W. I first created the drummer, removing the heads of his weapons and adding a brown ball, which I gave a lil shine with a lighter brown on top. Then i created the drums. the result can be debated (I know it's far form perfect) but for something I created from nearly nothing with my art skills I'm satisfied. I drew an oval of the light brown, put the red head (copy, not original) in there then I extended the black thingies that come out of it and added the darker points of brown with a brush. THen I drew the oval again (actually I did this before filling it) and drew it as a line with another color the edge) and drew it again for the backside, just a lil lower and more to the right. I filled the back oval (layer behind the other with the darker brown you mostly see on the side of the drum and then use that color to fill all the space on the side) then I used a very dark brown to draw the lines on the side which connect to the (grey) nails on the front. I created the speakers about the same way and then just added the box with the switches and lights. THen I put a flipped copy of the drummer behind it. The drummers in the attack sprite have blood on the weapons and there are a few versions (first loose one drummer 2nd shape to drum + 1 durmmer then loose the other durmer and the immobile drum remains.) PM due to quality loss when saving the pics look a bit less nice than they really are (it really shows when I look at them on 400% size) |
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Wow aezeal that's pretty cool what you managed to do with thoses two source images! I really like the flame effect on F, looks like your dom3000will have to start gettin' orky! I also really like M and N, very cool.
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Well Dom 3K is already orcy.. orcs are probably one of the most finished races in there and have been for a while. You are very welcome to try the mod though, I can always use feedback and I'm pretty sure that once you are playing you will have fun and be surprised by what I've added in the mod. If you do use the new larger galaxy map which uses the new mod commands to give space provinces a spacy look.
Anyway I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks my sprites are decent. My mod has some fierce opponents but since this thread was about sprites n stuff I thought I'd show how I did my things. Most other races are just single sprites though not a string of sprites all derived from each other. Orcs just worked out well for me this way. |
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