Topic: Opinions needed on sprite for Legacy of Darkness project

[Arcraith]

Hey people! Just poking my head back in after a half years or so's absence. Some of you might remember me starting a thread about a 2D legacy of darkness fan remake a good while ago. I can assure those of you who are interested that it wasn't all talk, and I am indeed working on it, albeit extremely slowly. The project had a dual purpose in that its really intended for me to get in some good game dev experience. I'm using microsoft XNA to code the game, a choice which i'm rather divided about at the moment, because of the lack of portability. In this half year I've found time to code a general purpose game engine along with a level editor on top of the xna framework. This engine is still in heavy development of course, but I managed to port a platforming engine over to my game engine that I designed as one of my old gamemaker projects about 4 or 5 years ago. I have yet to add anything specifically castlevania-related to the engine, but that will hopefully happen in due course.

In order to pump up some motivation for the project, I'm taking a bit of a break from coding for a while, and focusing now on the design and concepts of the game. I've decided to make a start on the spriting, which will undoubtedly be the most time-consuming job, and its about time I learned since I've barely had any experience in that sort of thing.

Instead of making whole batches of sprites entirely from scratch, I've decided to use sprites from various castlevania games as templates. Currently I'm working on the sprite for Cornell. I've made two versions of the standing still stance, one based on Soma's sprite from DoS, and the other based on Jonathan from PoR.

At the moment they are extremely rough and ugly, I know, I just trimmed some things, and slapped some colour on just to conceptualize how Cornell would like as a sprite.

Anyhow, the one on the left is based on Jonathan, and the one on the right is based on Soma. I get that we have some height problems at the moment, the left one is two pixels taller than the right one, this is because Jon is a pixel taller than Soma, but I added another pixels height to the hair when I was experimenting with the hairstyle. Also I get that there are also some oddities with his stance, especially in the Jon version.




So basically I just wanted to see if you guys have any suggestions about which guy's template I should base him on or if there needs to be any serious redesigns of his costume or whatever, or any other suggestions about any part of the project, and also any general tips on spriting would be really appreciated.

Thanks =)

[Jorge D. Fuentes]

the left one looks a little better than the right one but I can 'see' the Jonathan in him still.  The one on the right has its shoulders too high so he looks like he's shrugging.  Cornell should have a more relaxed stance, what with him being some sort of Kung Fu dude.



Here's the Cornell used  up on the Forum Banner.  It was made many many years ago but I think it's still pretty cool.

[Phoenix7786]

I'm with Jorge on this one, about the one of the left being better. Being that Cornell is a Werewolf, he DOES carry a lot of stress and intensity, but LoD went out of its way to emphasize how Cornell has mastered himself, so I'd stick with Jonathan's base-sprite. Ortega, on the other hand, being a more typical savage brute, would fit the bill for a more tense sprite

[Ratty]

I agree with the above 2 posts. Cornell always carried himself with a certain grace in his posture hinting at his self mastery. As Jorge put it he's more "kung fu dude" than vampire hunter, one who is acutely aware of his surroundings rather than single mindedly seeing only the path and obstacles directly ahead. Very cool project by the way!

[Claimh Solais]

I agree with the above 2 posts. Cornell always carried himself with a certain grace in his posture hinting at his self mastery. As Jorge put it he's more "kung fu dude" than vampire hunter, one who is acutely aware of his surroundings rather than single mindedly seeing only the path and obstacles directly ahead. Very cool project by the way!

Or like a wolf. You know, they're aware of their surroudings too.

I personally prefer the left one also. The left shoulder (the character's left, not the viewer's) is too high because the base sprite (Soma) normally has his hand on his waist. Such a stance would prop the shoulder up, but Cornell is just standing like normal, in a relaxed pose. So his shoulder should be lowered. Also, it looks awkward keeping Soma's boots down bottom.

[Ratty]

Or like a wolf. You know, they're aware of their surroudings too.

I personally prefer the left one also. The left shoulder (the character's left, not the viewer's) is too high because the base sprite (Soma) normally has his hand on his waist. Such a stance would prop the shoulder up, but Cornell is just standing like normal, in a relaxed pose. So his shoulder should be lowered. Also, it looks awkward keeping Soma's boots down bottom.

But as Phoenix had pointed out, his total mastery and awareness of himself through rigorous training is also event, there is much more to him than the corrupted beast like we see with Ortega.

[Arcraith]

Thanks for the replies guys, since the Jonathan-based sprite seems to be in more favour so I'll go with that one. Anyone have any suggestions on any major changes to the stance to be made? for example how would I make him less 'Jonathan-like' as Jorge was referring to?

[Claimh Solais]

Thanks for the replies guys, since the Jonathan-based sprite seems to be in more favour so I'll go with that one. Anyone have any suggestions on any major changes to the stance to be made? for example how would I make him less 'Jonathan-like' as Jorge was referring to?

Take a quick reference from Cornell's actual idle pose from LoD. He takes on a bit more of a battle pose, or "at-the-ready" type look. In fact, you can pretty much see all of Cornell's animations from the side-view in LoD, you can take a LOT of reference from that game.

[Phoenix7786]

I was gonna recommend an "at-ease" battle-stance but others have pointed that out, along with my idea to observe Cornell's animations in LoD.