CAP 8 CAP 8 - Part 15a - Sprite Submissions

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Wyverii: I love your sprites, they're always so well done! I just feel the pose isn't quite dynamic enough, though...
 
Absolutely fantastic, Wyveri, this really captures the bulky nature of the 'mon which I feel some of the other sprites do not have yet. The feet are fantastic, as is the shading. My only question would be about the furthermost right eye - it doesn't seem to have a black eyeball.

@ AgentLym
Nice design, but I think the cloud should be a bit more cloud-esque, id est fluffy. Also the feet look a bit puny, and I think the yellow of the heads is a bit too bright.

@ Chaoscrippler
I really, really like your pose here, but for some reason the sprite looks a little blurry and it's harder to distinguish the edges of the heads than on Wyveri's. Maybe a different yellow or shading? Still, I think this has great potential.

@Aytroki
An interesting pose, but it reminds me a bit too much of Dodrio, and just doesn't look so much like a lighting-bolt. Still, a very good sprite.
@DarthVader317
I like the pose, but the central cloud looks a little puny to me. The middle head is great, screeching to the stars.

@Kioku
I quite like where you are going with this, but I think that the heads are a bit too close together so it looks jumbled.

I have nothing but admiration for those of you who are able to create artwork or sprites, and every submission so far raises the bar. Keep going guys!
 


I'm not sure about the placement on the heads (and the colours are temp, since I just stole them from dragonz for now >>)

Oh and the outline is pure black atm, so that needs to change
The middle and the (our) right head look fine, although you might want to make that head a little bigger, or place the neck of the middle one a bit lower.

The left head is kinda killing the design's symmetry though, for all the symmetry a 3/4 has, so personally I'd replace it with a head that looks in the same direction as the other two instead of the "Hey look something shiny"-distracted head. That is a plainly aesthetic thing though, so if you actually like that, it's your sprite. But then I'd still let the beginning of the neck show, because there is just so much of a space between the middle-to-left and middle-to-right, even the angle doesn't justify it.

The legs and necks are... kinda inconsistent. The one is the straight classic, the other is the lightning bolt. For consistency's sake, I'd say go for one of the two. The classic solid would probably be better fit for this sprite. Also make the legs a bit thicker while you're at it, you don't want something that has skinnier legs than necks.

And last point of critique, you might want to enlarge the nails on it's forepaws a bit.

All in all, I really do like your take on it though. One of the best yet. Wyverii and you intimidate the shit outta me as spriters.
 
AgentLym's shinies made me shout "WHOA!" Those are freakin' awesome! I prefer the one with green, but that's just because I like the colour green.

EDIT: Doug looks like the new frontrunner!
 

DougJustDoug

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Here's my first draft of CAP 8:



I wanted this sprite to really look like an electric dragon. With many of the other sprites in this thread, I feel like the pokemon looks more like a three-headed bird, rather than a three-headed hydra. With the legs and the fluffy body, the overall effect of many other sprites is "electric ostrich", not "electric dragon", IMO. At best, the other sprites look too derivative of Altaria -- which is already a "cloud dragon". At worst, the sprites look like little yellow baby birds hatching out of a gray nest. I think everyone has stayed faithful to Cyzir's original art -- but for some reason, when those literal elements are shrunken down to sprite size, I think the design loses a lot of the "dragon-ness" that it has in the full-size drawing.

So, I stylized some of the base elements to try and bring out the dragon-ness in the sprite. I didn't originally intend to use a lot of artistic license when I sat down to sprite this thing. It just kind of happened that way. I stood the pokemon up taller, in more of a defensive "ready pose". I interpreted the clouds a bit differently than other spriters -- I tried to make the clouds look bulky, not cotton-like. I made the faces more angular, to try and get away from looking too bird-like. I may add some more curves to the faces later. Right now, I think they look very electric, but I'm curious what others think. Where the necks attach to the body, I interpreted Cyzir's lightning effect a bit differently than other spriters. I wanted the effect to look like crackling electricity (this pokemon does have Static, y'know).

My overall goal was to make this sprite feel more like a hydra, and less like an awkward bird. I'm interested to hear what others think of my interpretation.
 

Arkeis

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Welll, I made a new pose for my sprite, and I do like this one better.



The cloud parts are pretty unfinished now, but those will get resolved later.
 
Here's my first draft of CAP 8:



I wanted this sprite to really look like an electric dragon. With many of the other sprites in this thread, I feel like the pokemon looks more like a three-headed bird, rather than a three-headed hydra. With the legs and the fluffy body, the overall effect of many other sprites is "electric ostrich", not "electric dragon", IMO. At best, the other sprites look too derivative of Altaria -- which is already a "cloud dragon". At worst, the sprites look like little yellow baby birds hatching out of a gray nest. I think everyone has stayed faithful to Cyzir's original art -- but for some reason, when those literal elements are shrunken down to sprite size, I think the design loses a lot of the "dragon-ness" that it has in the full-size drawing.

So, I stylized some of the base elements to try and bring out the dragon-ness in the sprite. I didn't originally intend to use a lot of artistic license when I sat down to sprite this thing. It just kind of happened that way. I stood the pokemon up taller, in more of a defensive "ready pose". I interpreted the clouds a bit differently than other spriters -- I tried to make the clouds look bulky, not cotton-like. I made the faces more angular, to try and get away from looking too bird-like. I may add some more curves to the faces later. Right now, I think they look very electric, but I'm curious what others think. Where the necks attach to the body, I interpreted Cyzir's lightning effect a bit differently than other spriters. I wanted the effect to look like crackling electricity (this pokemon does have Static, y'know).

My overall goal was to make this sprite feel more like a hydra, and less like an awkward bird. I'm interested to hear what others think of my interpretation.
This is a pretty different looking CAP than the rest of them. Some problems I see with this is that the necks look really... misplaced and messy. I don't really like the appearance of it. Maybe make it a tad less "bolty" like. Especially the neck on the far right, it looks really weird. The legs look well done, but the one on the far right looks a bit fat and the knee I guess you could say seems a little misplaced, as if it's kneeling specifically on that foot. I'm not really going for the long cloudy body, it just doesn't look right. I like the big puff better, but that's just me.

Overall, it looks pretty good.
 
Doug, like a couple of other designs, I think that yours is suffering from solid neck syndrome. I believe that this problem probably arises from having too much contrast between the neck and its outline.
 
The two submissions i have chosen are pretty different in style but I think these are absolutely awesome.

Here's my first draft of CAP 8:

Doug i seriously think this is one of your best sprite submissions i have seen so far. I really like how you have taken the original submission and made it your own. I never really liked the submission i always voted for cartoons but this pose i can really get behind. I love the way it looks powerful and bulky most especially it seems to be dignified unlike the the lazy tyrant from Cartoons. Bringing out character as you can tell is one of the most important things when designing a pokemon's artwork. Anyway great job.


Quote:
Originally Posted by Fat Wyverii



This is my secong choice love it. Particularly like the texture of the clouds and the heads this is really cool. Also pink is clearly the coolest colour so this obviously gets my vote.

Anyway great job you two. Doug im sure you will get support for your submission soon.
 
At long last...



It is complete! I can't believe this thing took me upwards of 3 hours...

Any comments? What colour should the shinies be?
 
I like Wyverii's, Darth Vader317 and most notably AragronBird+.

Doug, try rounding the edges, in the original artwork the edges and corners are dulled, not sharp. I realy like the pose, it shows the long body.

Edit:

Chozlow: Realy like it, realy looks good, and the shading is awesome. Maybe show a little neck on the left head?
 

Korski

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@ DJD: I like the way your design stands out from the others. It looks really unique and cool, and I love the "ready-pose" with the cloud. However, even though it's an electric type, it looks too angular to me. The sharply-angled noses are more beak-like, and thus more bird-like than many of the others, imo, and the positioning of the heads (all up above the body, together), actually remind me more of Dodrio than the others. The necks are too jagged, too thin for how long they are, and are kind of all over the place. But still, cool sprite.

@ Aragornbird: The pose is fantastic. You've clearly taken into account the major criticisms people have had for the other designs thus far in terms of designing your sprite. I can't wait to see the coloring.

@ chomzloh: Way to put in the effort. Time spent is shown in your design, which is a more intimidating, "lunging" pose that I'm pretty sure is unique in terms of designs so far. I wonder what's up with that left head. Like, the other two are paying attention to the thing they're attacking, but the left one's like "hey, check out that butterfly" or something, which isn't bad. I actually kind of like the black sheep image of the left head, and I've noticed several designs that follow that idea. Good Job.

@ Wyverii: The revision is god. Still my favorite.

@ Atyroki: Thank you for still pushing the cute factor on CAP. I think there should be some more intricate shading on the cloud body and the heads should be shifted over in some way to give the left head more space.
 

DougJustDoug

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I changed the heads to be less sharp.

Old -->
New -->


I intentionally made them very angular at first. But after looking at my sprite for a while and hearing a little feedback, I decided that it really isn't helping achieve the overall effect that I want. By making the heads more rounded, I think it makes the pokemon look more like a dragon, and makes my sprite more conformant to Cyzir's original design.
 
They're all lookin' great so far. :3 Though, Doug, I do have one comment- the front legs on your sprite, the way you drew the lightning-jags of them, it make the front set look kinda bowlegged. X); Don't know if that was what you're going for.
 
I really like Wyverii's normal sprites, and right now it's still my favourite by a long shot, but I don't like the shiny colours at all. :|
 
<3 Atyroki's entry.
agreed, I like your pose the best atyroki. I'm no artist, but I can certainly say that yours is aesthetically pleasing to me.

Doug, your sprite seems a little "pokemon greenish" to me. I suspect it's cause the body isn't billowy and large enough compared to the others and the heads just look awkward in positioning to me. I'm not an artist at all, so I really can't help much, other than to say that it looks off.
 


Well, here's first attempt this time around. Any thoughts, suggestions? Any massively obvious errors that I've somehow missed? I'll get working on shiny and back sprites soon.
 

KoA

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Everyone is using like a really blinding yellow on their sprites. This makes it hard to look at key features on the heads. Try using a yellow off of an existing pokesprite.
 

DougJustDoug

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I made the heads on my sprite a little smaller. When I rounded them out, it made them a little bigger, and made the body look less bulky IMO. By sizing them down, I think it improves the overall proportions of the sprite.

I also heeded KOA's advice on the use of yellow. I agree that the bright yellows really wash out the details on all these sprites. To fix it, I pulled the colors from Pikachu and used that as a starting point for the yellows on my sprite. I was really surprised how bad my old color scheme looked by comparison. So I'm sticking with the "Pikachu palette" for the yellow fills and border colors.
 

KoA

Sorry, I thought anteaters were real
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Yeah doug, the Pikayellow is much better.

One thing about your sprite that nips at me though is that the heads strike me as rather wolfish and lupine. I think this can be attributed to how narrow you made them. If you perhaps widened the heads a bit, it might loose that fel and you could probably express their faces more.
 
Nice job making it look tall, as if its looking over the canopy of the clouds.
One thing I don't like about it is that the left and right necks, as well as the front left and front right arms, are completely symmetrical.
Much like snowflakes, no two lightningbolts are the same.
Perhaps a little irregularity to the limbs will further increase my interest. Unless you really are making them look life-like, then that would make sense, with animals actually having symmetrical frames.

Wyverii's sprite is also looking outstanding, as usual. =)
 
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