Well, being the guy providing the sprites to BMC, seems like it's my turn to 'speak' (and first of all, sorry for my english)
1. I really find it exciting people discusing (good and bad things) about the sypha sprites.
2. Curiously i've found most of the good critics to sypha come from people who are artists or they are spriters or they are related to making some sort of digital drawing/painting works. In the other hand, MOST (not all of them) of the "bad" critics are coming from people not involved in the creation of sprites (correct me if i'm wrong). Here I'm also considering critics from people in other forums (spanish). This is odd
![Tongue :P](http://castlevaniadungeon.net/forums/Smileys/classic/tongue.gif)
3. I accept all the critics, no problem at all. Thank you guys for your opinions. I myself consider me a novice spriter, so critics are as important as practice to me. That being said, I still want to participate in this discussion and share my point of view
-I can't figure out whether Sypha's cloak is part of her arms or its own thing. When she stand-attacks or walks, the cloak appears attached to her sleeves. That looks really bizarre.
I created the sprite with that idea in my mind. Cloak attatched to his arms, like this.
-Again with Sypha's standing attack, there should be fewer frames for her wind-up. It almost looks like she hits an enemy twice (once on the way up and again on her swing). I have to admit, though, it's cool to see the staff on her hand always.
-Those stair animations are going to be tough, no matter how you look at it. Sypha's cloak drags on the floor so if it's gonna look any good on stairs there's going to be some frames that will require her cloak to hide the stairs somehow. It's possible but it's challenging. The stair animations are the reason my Sypha sprite is still incomplete (I had pretty much all her other animations).
I have to agree with all the people pointing out the swing attack doesn't look convincing. I agree in that the motion is too slow, and that needs to be changed. Seems like i used too much frames. One of the reasons it works that way is i didnt want a sypha with notable warrior skills. In that swing, I tried to made her look like a character low-experienced in combat. Jorge is right, the stairs animation is pretty tough to make, very challenging, but I faced one problem here and is related with the swing attack: I don't have access to the game engine: i can't make tests, i don't know how fast or slow the animations are set, i don't know how much Sypha will move in X and Y when she is in the stairs, i can't make fine-tuning in the cloak and legs, Stairs animation, above all, is made based only on "intuition".
Considering all this. Any spriter knows sprites doesn't come perfect the first time, and considering all those sprites are the first version i sent to BMC, corrections are expected.
*Sypha's awkward animation when walking down stairs (it just doesn't look right)
As BMC already said, i have not provided him the down stairs, he is using the up stairs as a placeholder.
List of issues noticed in the video:
*the game having little to no particles and thus not being nearly as aesthetically pleasing as it could be
By reading this statement I see why particles are nowadays one of the most overused resources, specially in indie/amateur games. My opinion is that most of the particle based effects looks too modern and too sophisticated and doesn't fit in retro-style games. This is question of preferences, I know particles CAN BE used, but i hardly use them in a pixel art- based game
*Sypha's sprite has a lot of potntial, but overall looks rough and like it is still WIP; not sure how else to say it is I am NOT an artist and do not know the technical terms. Maybe go on DA and get advice from people better than us here.
Can you point me to any Sypha sprites (of similar size) in DA that may be used as a guide/reference?