The Quest for the Legends

So, well, since I pretty much finished what will probably be Thunderyu style on the minipage, it was time to move on to Volcaryu. And since Thunderyu style has a sprite trace (where I take a sprite, magnify it a lot, trace the outline in Illustrator and then color it in) of Thunderyu, it seems sensible for the other styles to have sprite traces of their respective dragons, too.

The problem is that I've never really liked the new Volcaryu sprite much, so I figured I'd fix a thing or two first. Primarily, it bothered me that its body was kind of triangular - the belly was widest at the very bottom rather than being properly rounded - and that the tail seemed too narrow and flimsy compared to the bulk of the body. I also thought the wings looked a little pasted on and a bit too small even for Volcaryu. So I tried to fix all that, creating this:



Basically, I moved its right leg (our left) and the nearest portion of its belly a couple of pixels to the right (with appropriate tweaks to get the belly to look smooth again, of course), thickened the base of the tail and lengthened it slightly, and moved the wing a couple of pixels to the right to make it appear a little bigger.

I ran this by a couple of people who said, and I agreed, that the wing looked like it was attached too low on the back. And since I'd never been that fond of that wing shape anyway, I figured, hey, what if I just draw a completely new wing - like if I make it folded or something? So I did that. And then I thought that the head had really always kind of bugged me too, or rather the neck: it seemed to bend too much. So I decided to move the head a little. But then surskitty said she thought it would look better if I actually made it face the other way. I tried that and saw it actually would look pretty good that way, so I flipped the head and reshaded it accordingly. And then she said it would look better with its mouth closed, so I did that too. And then I thought the near horn looked shorter than the other horn, so I lengthened it a bit.

So the result is really more of a "new Volcaryu sprite" than an "update of the old Volcaryu sprite", and looks like this (shiny included for the hell of it, just to show I made it):



Any last-minute comments before I go and trace it?

(Also, don't miss the previous Quest Blog entries: chapter 48 is up, and there is a discussion of birthday celebrations for the fic, since it will be seven years old this Friday.)

This is quite an improvement from the last sprite, if I might say so myself. I have two nit-picky problems with it (Which are actually very small and not very noticeable): I find that the belly still bulges out a teensy bit too much for my liking (I'd suggest retracting that last belly scale by a pixel or so) and that the horns don't seem as… ram-like, for lack of a better word, as before. I quite liked the shading on the previous sprite's horns, since the ends of it seemed to portrude out a bit.

Excuse me if I'm not making any sense/being too harsh :3

I agree with the shading of the horns being off, by the way.

It's head looks like it's pinned down to its neck, so I think you should raise that a bit. Also, I can't really tell where the leg is supposed to be attatched to the hip.

I like how it looks, but I've never been fond of Volcaryu anyway. Still, I could never make sprites like that ;) well done!

Am I the only one who can't see the new sprite unless I go to that link you gave me on MSN yesterday? D:

Anyway, I have a problem with the new sprite in that the arms don't look right on it any more. Previously, their Feraligatr-style positioning worked because the head was facing forwards too, but now that the head is facing a different direction, the way its arms are sticking forwards like that just looks weird. It looks like it's dancing or something. >.<

About the horns, it's quite difficult to get the same shading effect at this angle: previously, the angle of the horns compared to the angle of the light source happened to result in lucky shading that brought out the shape well, but it's not quite as simple for this angle - I do agree on it being a shame, though, and now I managed to get at least some of that effect in again (on my copy, so you don't see it yet), though it doesn't look quite as good.

It's head looks like it's pinned down to its neck, so I think you should raise that a bit.

The thing is I actually can't raise it - the sprite is already 80 pixels tall. What I could possibly do is try to move the arms and wings perhaps one pixel down and see if that helps.

Also, I can't really tell where the leg is supposed to be attatched to the hip.

You mean the relatively sharp line between the left (our right) leg and the body? Yeah, I could try to make that a bit less definitive. It bugs me too now that you mention it.

Anyway, I have a problem with the new sprite in that the arms don't look right on it any more. Previously, their Feraligatr-style positioning worked because the head was facing forwards too, but now that the head is facing a different direction, the way its arms are sticking forwards like that just looks weird. It looks like it's dancing or something. >.<

Hmm, yeah. What if I moved the right (our left) arm down a bit so it's not sticking out like that?

That could work. I think you'd need to try it and see if the other arm still looks weird once it's the only one pointing that way.

friday in two days? Well, its a special day for some people. Happy new year, quest for the legends!
I read part one, now i'll try the other one.
Scyther story ROCKS!

Maybe you should flip it and reshade, sprite's heads don't face right that often. (Mightyena, ugh!) Or you could have it's eye facing left. =3 Just some comments from a small veteran on Neoseeker! =3

Well, reshading the entire sprite was dramatically more work than just reshading the head. :P My justification was that various Platinum sprites face right, so let's just pretend this is Volcaryu's Platinum sprite.

The left hand looks a bit awkward to me.

For the horn, I tried shading it the same as before, except I made the big highlight a little bigger, and I made the small highlight into a shade. Will that work?

"The thing is I actually can't raise it - the sprite is already 80 pixels tall. What I could possibly do is try to move the arms and wings perhaps one pixel down and see if that helps."

I sort of meant redrawing it so the nose is a bit higher. It's good enough as it is now, I think.

"You mean the relatively sharp line between the left (our right) leg and the body? Yeah, I could try to make that a bit less definitive. It bugs me too now that you mention it."

I didn't see what you were talking about until now. @_@ I think I meant how it doesn't have any feet, and how the claws are attached to its leg instead.

I think I meant how it doesn't have any feet, and how the claws are attached to its leg instead.

Oh, that - that's just the odd way its legs are shaped, a carryover from the Kangaskhan legs I used for the original Volcaryu splice.

that's cool