Frozen [Sieg's version]

[Siegvar]

Summary of progress:



As you can see... not much.

Long old post (Click to View)

So, its me again, and this time I'm going to try and make my own version of Frozen.
Prince_Freeza did a decent job with his version of Frozen, but it wasn't good enough for me(I'm an arsehole, yea).
So here I am, trying to do a "better" version.

With my version of Frozen, I'm going back to the original sketch by Steam, and doing my own interpretation of it.

Steam's original sketch (Huge Image) (Click to View)

My sprite:

Updated design(29th Aug):


For this character, comments and critiques from you guys are very important. Especially those people whom have been around since that sketch first started circulating around the ezboard forums about 10 years ago.(Its been that long huh, I feel like an old geezer now.)
Because this character, other than being meant to satisfy myself, is also meant to satisfy all those who've been yearning for this character for literally a decade now.
Now, I would hope to see most comments rooted in an individual's vision of what Frozen's personality would be, as that would be what distinguishes him from just another character commanding the powers of ice.

So, first things to help you guys along with comments that I might need help with on the character.
1. Colour Scheme.
Since Steam's sketch is in black and white, there is no "correct" colour scheme for him, so I wouldn't mind people giving suggestions on colour schemes for him, based on what you can imagine from the sketch.
I think Yinyin's chosen colour scheme is pretty good, and have decided to start off with that for now. (Changes I have made to his colour scheme: I've included a white bandage belt like in the sketch, rather than a black rope belt. I've made the pants the same colour as the shirt. I've also made the outfit sleeveless like in the sketch, rather than having sleeves of the same colour as the shirt in Yinyin's Frozen.)

2. Skin Colour
I use this skin colour by default for my characters, but it may be too warm and red for Frozen. What do you guys think?
Personally I prefer this healthier shade of red, as I think of Frozen as a quiet and calm outward personality, but beneath that lies an abundance of strength and energy, that would make his skin flush more healthily than say... Freeze who's completely cold and calm from inside out.
But again, my opinion is not the only one that matters here.

3. Anatomy and Proportions.
As Frozen ought to be part of the LF2 universe, I've tried to keep him as close as I can to the LF2 proportions and anatomical design, while fixing certain minor stuff that I've always felt to be an eyesore.
I want to continue to tweak this based on your inputs, to keep me from fixing the proportions too much that it doesn't fit in with the other lf2 characters.
Anyway since the different lf2 characters already have different proportions, I should be able to tweak Frozen's proportions without him not fitting in with the rest. The question lies in how far I can push it, and that's where I need you guys.
For now, I've as usual, slightly shrunk the head and hair, but I've kept it to be at least as big as the smallest head I can find among the lf2 characters, which is about Bat or Firen's head size (bat's hair is quite big though)
And as usual, I've made Frozen slightly taller and slimmer, but just barely. Again using as reference the thinnest characters I can find as the limit.

4. Skills.
This one is one BIG open category, and a really tricky aspect to balance.
I plan to do sketches first, and show it around here as I come up with ideas or test out ideas given by you guys.
How i decide what skill fits or does not fit... is based more on a discussion on what Frozen's personality should be like, rather than what moves would be cool or not cool, because that kind of discussions are really wayyyyyyyy too subjective and dependent on context.
So, by discussing his personality instead, we form a framework for a context for Frozen's fighting style, and develops moves based on that.
Therefore, we will also likely not be discussing individual moves too much, but rather his roster of moves in overview, and how they meld together into a fluid, stylish fighting style befitting of his personality

Proposed skill list: (Constantly updated)
1. some form of Ice Projectile (A staple move, basic illustration of his prowess over the ice element)
2. A melee combo (With those muscular arms, you can't expect him not to enjoy getting his hands dirty in a mud fight once in awhile eh?)
3. An ice mirage skill. (Probably kinda like Julian's DJA, except it leaves behind an ice sculpture of himself. Probably used as an advanced movement skill, as suggested by MH.)



One last thing, since this thread will inevitably be humongous should I be able to follow through with this community oriented approach to developing frozen, I would appreciate it if there are mods willing to occasionally help me prune and collate the replies in this thread.
Do the mods have that kind of control over threads? Like maybe concatenating sequential posts and posts that have group-able contents?

[Eddie]

I liked your interpretation sprite of Steam's picture - it actually looks really good. Good idea on the healthy red skin tone, complete differentiation from normal Ice users. Calm movements - don't make him too fast then, probably give him collectively powerful moves like putting his hand on the floor and freezing a ring around him - everyone in that ring get's frozen. As long as it makes him look 'effortless' and 'flawless' it should be fine.

I'd probably say the hair interpretation that you've done looks slightly odd. From what I think - the hair of the picture looks more like 'Duke's' (Go Hell_fighter). It should possibly come slightly more forwards . Well if that didn't make the sense - it points out the front a bit more.

Anyway good work Siegvar, hope you finish it

[Siegvar]

I get what you mean with the hair, though I made it this way coz it fits better with the sprite's face perspective. In the sketch Frozen is looking more to the right, while in the sprite Frozen is looking a relatively more forward. Pushing it too far to the right like in Duke's bends the perspective abit too much to me.
Also I wanted to give his hair more of a natural ruffled look... if its pushed too far out.. it looks like its abit gelled, if you get what I mean.

And I'll keep in mind the traits of Effortless and Flawless.
I've always been thinking more of powerful, panther-like movements, graceful and powerful but there's also a bit of fiery spirit to it. Slightly animalistic.

[MH-Razen]

1. Colour Scheme.
nah, no offence, but this sprite looks really cool to me - so I've nothing to add here...

2. Skin Colour
hm, looking at the sprite skin the first time I thought, wow, cool, quite a gray skin - fits perfect, then you said something about red and I had a closer look - ok true, there's a bit red in there, hm, I would put out a bit of the red make it more to grey... just my opinion for a frozen char

3. Anatomy and Proportions.
For me the char seems to be a bit smaller as the others, quite ... compact if you know what I mean, but I dont see any reason why you should change that...

4. Skills.
This one is one BIG open category, and a really tricky aspect to balance.
I plan to do sketches first, and show it around here as I come up with ideas or test out ideas given by you guys.

-> rofl, after your post I thought you'll never come to this point

ok, how's frozen like... hm.
The grey and frozen image reminds me on a slow and calm char with very high magic powers. He knows his weekness - that he's slow in person, so he learned how to disappear quickly and appear sopmewhere else. But he can also fight if necessary - and he using magic he's very skilled, very fast and very precice.

So: He might look like he's denenseless, but he can quickly move out of the death zone and attack with good magic spells - ice and wind attacks of course. Examples, hm...
I could imagine in case he disappear and somebody stands in front o imh this guy freeze and he appear like 300 px away and could attack. he should also have a icewhirlwind move which maybe comes from ground below the nearest enemy.
He could also freeze hisself, this icebox has a lil higher bedefend (maybe add 100) - and he heals in there but it can be broken.

Ok, some ideas I have right now, hope it helps



Do the mods have that kind of control over threads? Like maybe concatenating sequential posts and posts that have group-able contents?

-> just report posts as trash and we can do it

[dubbleD]

a random skill: wind storm - all enemies will be turned into ice (no damage). i accidently did this with freezes tornado skill one day so yeah

[betitngoan]

so cool
but i think it's HF style , not LF style

[Lauli]

If his clothes would be a bit more colourful, his hair a bit more spikey and his skin freeze-like pale, then he would look better in my opinion.

[Marshall]

on a practical side of view, the hair (or the sprite in general) looks too detailed. I like it very much btw, but you may not finish it if it's too detailed.

[Silverthorn]

Actually, I looked at the sketch before I started reading your post. In my opinion, the char could have some wind-like attacks. It's mainly because the ropes around his wrists are relatively loose. He appears to be calm but when ready, he can be a ferocious fighter; his hair-style would support me in this point (not spiked-up hair = calmer).

I'm not quite sure about the color theme you're using. The current one looks rather - I'd call it monotone. I could also imagine something like black pants and light-blue highlights on the jacket. You know, not anything flashy-bright but still something which accents the edges. To give it something vivid.

Skin might have a slightly too red tint. This is purely personal opinion, though, since I prefer characters with more yellow and/or gray skin. It'd undermine his personality then.

Anatomy is fine as it is. Changing it in any way isn't necessary.

I'll not go much into detail with the skills-deal; somehow, it has to fit to his personality and before that isn't completely set, skill suggestions are rather pointless.

Like MH said, just report anything which you want to be treated special. I'm pretty sure, a mod will get rid of any redundant posts.

[Siegvar]

on a practical side of view, the hair (or the sprite in general) looks too detailed. I like it very much btw, but you may not finish it if it's too detailed.

Aww... I was hoping you'd give me more comments than that. Your opinion is one of the most highly regarded in my books. Doubly so considering the fact that i think, other than me, you're the only other guy in LFE I know that was around when Steam's sketch of Frozen first started circulating in the old Ezboard forums.

As for the detail level, we'll see about that. You may be right. Lets just pray this doesn't turn into a Varinziel, where I pushed the character too far to the limits of my skill that it turned out so stiff I couldn't stand it.
But I've got a good track record recently with some other things I've been doing, so hopefully they'll spill over to Frozen.

A more likely consideration might be that the detail level on the hair may make it stand out too much from the other lf2 characters.

Actually, I looked at the sketch before I started reading your post. In my opinion, the char could have some wind-like attacks. It's mainly because the ropes around his wrists are relatively loose. He appears to be calm but when ready, he can be a ferocious fighter; his hair-style would support me in this point (not spiked-up hair = calmer).

I'm not quite sure about the color theme you're using. The current one looks rather - I'd call it monotone. I could also imagine something like black pants and light-blue highlights on the jacket. You know, not anything flashy-bright but still something which accents the edges. To give it something vivid.

Skin might have a slightly too red tint. This is purely personal opinion, though, since I prefer characters with more yellow and/or gray skin. It'd undermine his personality then.

Free hanging bandages around his wrist would be a REALLY BIG PAIN to animate, so I opted not to do that. But yea, wind attacks, very possible.

I also get the ferocious fighter bit, but it doesn't seem to be a common opinion among people. I find the poses his hands rather suggests that he may have a lot of pent up fury under that calm demeanor. Which is why I opted for a more reddish skin tone(other than the fact that that skin tone happens to be my default skin tone.). I find it a rather interesting contrast to explore. Cold ice, and hot blooded ferocity.

For me this is currently the central theme to Frozen's personality I am exploring. Calm demeanor hiding an explosive ferocity. Powers of ice fueled by a fiery spirit. Its contradictory, but that makes it interesting. Its almost like an internal struggle for him.

Anyway I'll try something with the clothing colour intensity. Normally in my experience, something pastel-looking like this works well, and it always doesn't look as good when its a single sprite, but gets better once you see it in action. Whereas the opposite is true with colourful sprites, it'd usually be more tolerable when its still a single sprite, but once you get started on the sheet it becomes an eyesore.
The real test I suppose, would be to put Frozen among the other LF2 characters, and on top of various lf2 backgrounds. To compare its colour intensity levels with the other characters and backgrounds.

However, I'm currently against having a black pants thingy, to me it feels like it makes the colours on the sprite lose balance. But this is purely a personal opinion. its very difficult to figure out what exactly works or doesn't work. On the flipside, you guys might find the current pants colour makes the sprite rather flat. I'll probably wait for more people to comment on this fact, whether they're fine with the current colour or more interested in a different colour.