Character sprite concepts

[Memento]

When i thought it couldn't get any better...
Just one thing came in my mind...
i think his skin might get black as well. Look at the Julian he has blue mask and purple skin !?
I am personally fine with white skin.

Gold usually does look better on darker people imo, we could try it I wouldn't make his skin black though, but we could try one or 2 tints darker (light brown). White would be fine also

Apocalipsis, any chance you could try to do an edit to make this character perfect?^_^ I know you're not in here to actually sprite, but it would be great if you could help with the concept as this is the most important character in the story

[Gespenst]

Also, how would you explain General becoming bigger and bigger?
btw, that gold color makes him look like he is from Saint Seiya anime/manga and now he does not looks so evil. Yes, Gilgamesh from Fate series is pretty dark and evil person but it's his ego
As you know from a history, Gilgamesh is king of Uruk.
General needs color of dominance which is powerful. Red, dark red and brown with little brownish green id say. Black/grey is more fearful, little fighters have no fear of him since they are ready to kick his butt. And for a fearsome guy he has a lot of hope in his armor.
Without all that armor he does not looks so unique and I would not give him this title of General. Not only that there were some request to use more already made characters but now going with simplicity and not creative ways of doing stuff. Lets think, this design made him loose his weapon. Congratulations, another fist/leg fighter with few energy ball attacks, also mask gives supa powa but still, he should stand out more than any regular fighter. If you think that you will not be able to pull him off by spriting design made by me, resprite in little bit simplified version but leave the main details of his design. Take away his iron boots, leave armor that hangs on his torso. What so good armor that is the only armor. Like a police officer, minnion with some sort of armor so he could be protected. Why does he need just armor? Like Apocalipsis said, now armor stands out too much, because of colors yeah but if he had a little more armor then it would not stand out so much because there wont be just one metal scrap, there would be more creating balance which would make your eye to check out whole character, other parts now looks boring as this design was Simple looking fighter with just few details on boots and torso. Why dont leave his blade and shoulder pads from previous version and only discard his iron boots ?? By using Gads "almost like character generator" method this could be easily made, you just should not be lazy by drawing some details over and over.  Simplify it so you could have not problem drawing it. Taking over something different and making it is hard since methods are very different, mine and yours, very different methods, I go with many, and you go with another ones.
We should go with only two designs. How about adding some Aura instead of this super shredder like transformation (growing armor )
clicky

Look how much General changed. From the Furious to a Golden boy, sorry but realy, I had to say this in public (our little public)
it's like he have his thingy for gold.
Golden armor, then he gets golden mask. There could be a story about him that he needs mask so he could combine them and make it golden. There also should be explanation why his color brightnest is changing. Maybe make him no armor and when he gets mask he also gets armor as a bonus. Henshin!


Also, General is from the main enemy unit or completely different unit which does not belongs to Main villain?

Whatever final design you go with, this character needs more hair behind his ears:

Well, one of mine unposted design had some more hair as you edited in that edited sprite.

Magia mask (Julian's) - speed
Shadow mask (General's, 2nd form) - evasiveness

Also, how come evasiveness and speed are so different?
Both comes into speed I see the only different is that one is status and another is skill. Mask that gives skills, sounds nice.



Magia mask (Julian's) - speed
Frost mask (Wizard's) - stamina
Beast mask (Wolf's) - strenght
Shadow/Fear mask (General's, 2nd form) - evasiveness
Titan Mask (Main Villain's) - defence

Id say:

Magia mask - provides with great boost of mana/magic power. Julian got it and you seen what happened, he went berserk.

Elemental mask - mask does not have one specific power but it depends on the user, mask "understands" users true nature and based on that it give the power. Fire, Ice, Water and so on... There should be balance, having frost, we need flame, by having night we need day. And since Wizard was (you know the story) to guard this mask, thats why people think that this is mask of ice but its not.

Beast mask - I agree with this one, gives physical boost in strenght.

Titan mask - if General is going to have more armor on him after he equips mask, then this should be defence type mask he uses. Titan or Golem. Look. Take evasiveness mask and use a ton of golden armor, right, gives a little speed boost which was lost because of the heavy golden armor.

King's/Ruler's/God's mask - since the main villain wants it, then this should grant him some kind of power and. Power of the grand master, the one who rules and others bows before him. The mask should be strongest of them all ( many movie/books/cartoons logic shouts that out loud) This one would give him power of the God's hand. To create and destroy.






p.s if you took this too personaly, I can't help that you take things to deep into your heart. If you can't accept some harsh words then don't be angry on someone, not justifying myself, but if you only like hearing nice comments, then forget it. Can't hide my feelings just so I could make someone happy by saying not truth and being liar to myself.

[Marko]

Would you do quick edits to show how exactly you imagine him?

[Apocalipsis]

Apocalipsis, any chance you could try to do an edit to make this character perfect?^_^ I know you're not in here to actually sprite, but it would be great if you could help with the concept as this is the most important character in the story

I really like to revamp/edit other people sprites, but in this case I'm not really sure I can come up with an improvement, mostly because nothing is definite about him except his role on the history.

When you have to design a sprite, sometimes you picture the 'perfect' character immediatly, and sometimes you are never satisfied with what you're doing (and that's usually when you start recoloring things).

My opinion on current designs (Click to View)

This simpler design (with the brownish clothes, without any armor) looked like a desert soldier to me... something like this:

Yu-Gi-Oh's Scorpion Burglars (Click to View)

That is not bad for a first version: it will only make him look cooler in next encounters.



The design with only chest armor is not bad... but you either add more pieces of armor like Sänger suggested, or change its color so it fits the brownish-clothes better.


I honestly don't like this gold armor (or color palette) for this character. When I think about a character who wears gold, I usually expect that char to be calm and classy... but this char looks more cruel, ruthless and savage to me, from his expression and the scar.

If you ask me, I would go with this:
*First encounter: Something like the first design I just commented. Simple yet solid. Slow but strong character.
*Second encounter: Light armor or equipments, but no cape. He's considerably faster and more evasive than last version, but less powerful (because of the 'speed' mask).
*Third encounter: Badass heavy armor and cape. Quite more powerful and faster than first version (because of the 'ultimate' mask).

This will be a lot harder to sprite, but since he's the most important character and you'll have to fight him 3 times in one playthrough, I think you should give it a try.

[Ariel]

ahhh.. you made my day mono

[Memento]

Made some minor changes..





How can we get everybody to agree on a design for this character? What would it need for YOU (to make it either perfect; or just acceptable as final boss)?

For me: some less gold for the golden version (like I did in this last edit ^); other version is good for me. I don't prefer either the gold or the reddish version, both are fine with me. As for the 3 diffirent versions: It might be best if the 1st version doesn't have armor, other than that, the design shouldn't change much more.

[YinYin]

Personally don't like the gold for the same reasons as Apoc.

change its color so it fits the brownish-clothes better.

For this I see two good options:

Either make the armor bronze (keep brightness contrast - lower colour contrast),
or make it a dark low saturated green (lower brightness contrast - increased colour contrast).

[Memento]

Personally don't like the gold for the same reasons as Apoc.

change its color so it fits the brownish-clothes better.

For this I see two good options:
Either make the armor bronze (keep brightness contrast - lower colour contrast),
or make it a dark low saturated green (lower brightness contrast - increased colour contrast).

I like the green one

1st sprite is also fine. I don't like the color of the armor in the 2nd sprite though

Edit: it looked quite diffirent on my phone.. it is good, but I liked some of the other versions better still.

Another edit:

Before we hyped over the golden versions, we were discussing this:


It was acceptable, yet needed some finetuning, that was all. I think we should continue with these concepts and rework them.

We could keep the hair red, or make it dark



We can use the first sprite YinYin mentioned to make the armor look good on the first form, and add just some color to the other 2 as well.

If you ask me, I would go with this:
*First encounter: Something like the first design I just commented. Simple yet solid. Slow but strong character.
*Second encounter: Light armor or equipments, but no cape. He's considerably faster and more evasive than last version, but less powerful (because of the 'speed' mask).
*Third encounter: Badass heavy armor and cape. Quite more powerful and faster than first version (because of the 'ultimate' mask).

This will be a lot harder to sprite, but since he's the most important character and you'll have to fight him 3 times in one playthrough, I think you should give it a try.

I think the clothes in the 2nd and 3th version shouldn't be too diffirent, because in our story he steals the masks in stage 5-8 in his 2nd form, then you fight him in stage 5-9 in his 3th form. There is like 1 minute in between those events. Therefor, I think he should have the same armor and cape in both forms, except maybe a minor color twist and a destroyed cape in 3th form like Ariel suggested. I do agree that in his first form, without armor and without cape would probably be best.

About the hair changing with form: I think you are right about the size of the hair, I too think it shouldn't change too much. Having the hair become spikier would be cool

All in all, I'd say:
1st form: no armor, no cape, hair not very spikey (hair like in 2nd sprite, but a little less spikey)
2nd form: armor, cape, simple mask, hair like in 2nd sprite
3th form: armor, destroyed cape, ultimate mask (or whatever the name), spikey hair

[Memento]

In order to get the design for the general ready, vote for your favorites Try to visualize YOUR ideal look for the general and vote for the sprite elements that would be included in your perfect design. You can also name more than 1 option, in the end I will just count the amount of votes every sprite element got


1) Which armor do you prefer?

Spoiler (Click to View)

- #1
- #2
- #3
- #4


2) Should his hair grow with each transformation or should it always be the same size?
- Grow bigger
- Should always be the same size

3) Should the hair get spikier with each transformation?
- Yes
- No

4) Which haircut is best? (choose 1, in case we decide that his hairstyle doesn't get spikier on every transformation)

Spoiler (Click to View)

- #1
- #2
- #3

5) Which haircolor is best?

Spoiler (Click to View)

- #1
- #2
- #3
- #4
- #5

6) Should he have armor in his first form?
- Yes
- No

7) Should he grow bigger himself with each powerup?
- Yes
- No

It might turn out slightly diffirent in the end, as all sprite elements have to fit together.


*added questions about the cape and weapon*
When answering the following, keep in mind that time is an issue for the spriters as Ariel is leaving for army in a couple of months.
Therefor we shouldn't only question the import of a sprite element (cape, weapon) but also its scale.

8) Should he have a cape in 1st form?
- Yes, definately
- No
- Let the spriters (Arcane and Ariel) decide

9) Should he have a cape in 2nd form?
- Yes, definately
- No
- Let the spriters (Arcane and Ariel) decide

10) Should he have a cape in 3th form?
- Yes, definately
- No
- Let the spriters (Arcane and Ariel) decide

11) Should he have a weapon in 1st form?
- Yes, definately
- No
- Let the spriters (Arcane and Ariel) decide

12) Should he have a weapon in 2nd form?
- Yes, definately
- No
- Let the spriters (Arcane and Ariel) decide

13) Should he have a weapon in 3th form?
- Yes, definately
- No
- Let the spriters (Arcane and Ariel) decide

---

My votes:

Spoiler (Click to View)

1) Which armor do you prefer?

Spoiler (Click to View)

- #1
- #2 +1
- #3
- #4 +1


2) Should his hair grow with each transformation or should it always be the same size?
- Grow bigger
- Should always be the same size +1

3) Should the hair get spikier with each transformation?
- Yes +1
- No

4) Which haircut is best? (choose 1, in case we decide that his hairstyle doesn't get spikier on every transformation)

Spoiler (Click to View)

- #1
- #2 +1
- #3

5) Which haircolor is best?
- #1
- #2 +1
- #3 +1
- #4
- #5 +1

I voted for 3 diffirent haircolors, as I think it might be cool if the haircolor goes from red towards more black the further he transforms.

6) Should he have armor in his first form?
- Yes
- No +1

7) Should he grow bigger himself with each powerup?
- Yes +1
- No


8) Should he have a cape in 1st form?
- Yes, definately
- No +1
- Let the spriters (Arcane and Ariel) decide

9) Should he have a cape in 2nd form?
- Yes, definately +1
- No
- Let the spriters (Arcane and Ariel) decide

10) Should he have a cape in 3th form?
- Yes, definately +1
- No
- Let the spriters (Arcane and Ariel) decide

I'd say he should have it in both the 2nd and 3th form as there is only about 1 minute of time overlap.
Normal cape in 2nd and destroyed cape in 3th form.

11) Should he have a weapon in 1st form?
- Yes, definately
- No
- Let the spriters (Arcane and Ariel) decide +1

12) Should he have a weapon in 2nd form?
- Yes, definately
- No
- Let the spriters (Arcane and Ariel) decide +1

13) Should he have a weapon in 3th form?
- Yes, definately
- No
- Let the spriters (Arcane and Ariel) decide +1

I voted for 'let the spriters decide', as we took the weapon off to improve the chance of the sprites actually being finished in time! If time wouldn't have been an issue, I'd say he should have it in 1st and 2nd form only. In 3th, he's strong enough to handle everyone without using any weapon

[Gespenst]

I prefer him having a weapon on his arm
http://sketchtoy.com/64995754
No golden armor and no cape.

So

1) Which armor do you prefer?

#3 armor with no cape. Even after transformation.

2) Should his hair grow with each transformation or should it always be the same size?

No, except if the mask he puts on have additional hair on it.

3) Should the hair get spikier with each transformation?

No, if it will not grow up as I stated in question #2, then it dont, and as I said, if mask itself have some hair.

4) Which haircut is best? (choose 1, in case we decide that his hairstyle doesn't get spikier on every transformation)

#1

5) Which haircolor is best?

I would like to see #1 or maybe having having some orange color.

6) Should he have armor in his first form?

Yes and it should not change whats so ever.

7) Should he grow bigger himself with each powerup?

no, because how to explain his growth? Is it because of the mask, will he become smaller if he takes the mask off?

---

Would you do quick edits to show how exactly you imagine him?

Something like this