Character Sprites – Completed!

Hi everyone!

As you may remember, I started making some custom character sprites for my project (as shown here: https://sldesignfmp.game.blog/2019/04/25/character-sprites/). It’s taken me (on and off) about a month to get them finished. Have a look at these:

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One thing that I had real issues with was the cloaks on the Mage and the Hunter costumes. Trying to replicate the way fabric behaves in 16-bit pixels is surprisingly difficult, as you have to make the sprite be a consistent size and shape, but luckily I had some test shots of people wearing cloaks (https://sldesignfmp.game.blog/2019/03/20/character-designs/), which helped me get some bearing on how to fabric would behave with regards to lighting and appearance. It particularly helped me with the Hunter, as the test shots showed people wearing a cloak on top of armour, which makes it look a little bit different, especially around the shoulders. Although the Thief is wearing a piece of fabric around his neck, it’s more of a scarf or a mantle, which made it much easier to contend with.

The ones I really like the most are the Priest and the Warrior. The priest design was completely based on the brown monk robe that I used in my original test shots, which made it so fun to work with. I like the warrior because it’s very strking; you know he’s an handly lad in a fight.

The reason why I’ve made the same character six times in different outfits is due to my character class system. Traditionally, when a character changes class, the sprite changes to one that reflects the nature of the class. For example, when a character becomes a warrior, they look as if they’re wearing metal armour; conversely, a mage would look as if they’re wearing robes. It’s primary purpose is to provide important visual information to the player.

The only issue with creating all of the spritesheets is the time required to make them. It can take me a whole day just to make one spritesheet! So for now, I’m going to stick with having only two main characters, as I don’t have the time to make a full roster.

Also, these costumes are just for male characters. Female characters use different, but still similar costumes, so the player can differenciate whether or not the character is male or female; but at the same time, they are still similar enough to show the player what class they are. For example:

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These are perfect examples of what I mean. The male and female outfits are both similar, and distinctly different. Yet they are both identifiable as their respective classes.

If I have time, I may show you the female outfits, but if I don’t show them, at least you’ll understand the concept that I’m trying to use here.

Anyway, that’s it from me for now. I’ll see you later!

Bibliography:

Square Enix (2009). Priest Vocation. [image] Available at: https://dragonquest.fandom.com/wiki/Priest [Accessed 23 May 2019].

Square Enix (2009). Warrior Vocation. [image] Available at: https://dragonquest.fandom.com/wiki/Warrior [Accessed 23 May 2019].