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Most of my work is on the engine lately, but I'm still hard at this too. Still working on getting the basics to a satisfactory point. Retouched Valis's arms because he still looked a bit skinny (my monitor distorts a bit wide, so when I see him on another screen, he's wasted a little).
Indeed. I just figured it was a technique I would never be able to pull off... guess you never know till you jump in. Speaking of, something else I never thought I could draw - finger motion.
This just about fits his sword stance word for word.
Valis glanced down and scraped a foot gently along the floor. Apparently satisfied, he unsheathed his sword and spun it around his wrist for three revolutions, then settled into his opening stance. Facing left shoulder forward, Valis held the weapon in his right hand loosely behind. His left hand lay in a slight horizontal guard, fingers twitching and flexing unconsciously.
Now I need to go back and rework his unarmed stance. The basic motion is... passable, but the rhythm is a just little off. Some sub-pixel work on the rear arm might fix things up. It's also still using the old palette and shading style on his legs.
I'm making a joke about you using Photoshop with the setting to show the entire document in the thumbnail - I can't work like that, it bothers me a lot.
You can change this if you want:
Click on the three lines menu
in Thumbail Content, choose Layer
You can even make the thumbail bigger.
I'm making a joke about you using Photoshop with the setting to show the entire document in the thumbnail - I can't work like that, it bothers me a lot.
You can change this if you want:
Click on the three lines menu View attachment 7233
in Thumbail Content, choose Layer View attachment 7234
You can even make the thumbail bigger.
Oh! Thumbnails in layers. Yeah, I know how to disable those. I like them on. It actually helps me. Does become an issue when the layers start to pile up though.
Both legs textured, shadow angle fixed, and added tabard. Probably going to drop his rear hand just a little lower, but it's going to be challenging to get all the arm texture right with a new angle.
Been on a mini-vacation from OpenBOR stuff lately. Classes really grinding on me, and I used most of my free time to finish FF7 Rebirth. Starting to get back into it though. I'll be doing more engine work as my classes wind down a bit end of spring. Also, after seeing the interpolated twelve frame walk @bWWd posted, I decided to give it a try myself...
...and, I hated it. The tools always made such a mess of the colors, I ended up scrapping all of it and just drawing the frames by hand. Here's the result so far. Needs some tweaks obviously and I'm still working on the tabard, but for a first effort I don't think it's too shabby.
Next step - running. Much as I want to do the fun stuff like strikes, throws, and spells, better to get those PITA cycle animations all done first. This is just a rough draft of frame 0.
Not at all. It's an integral part of the character. OCD, borderline over trained, and basically a genetic freak as a father, all of which reflects in his physical appearance.
Also, some of it is just the character design. If you look close, he's bulky all over, but no more than a typical video game fighter. It's just harder to see because he's wearing armor and heavy gear instead of colored spandex or a ripped gi.
Since my office recently started providing access to the pro version of Chat-GPT, I gave a whirl recreating some of the scenes from my book in progress that goes along side the game. I was just curious how it would recreate my illustration here:
So I fed it a technical description of Valis's appearance, had it read the linked chapter, and told it to recreate my illustration using the provided excerpt:
Oh, so that's how they wish it? Valis unsheathed his weapon and took a step forward. Some of the goblins back-peddled slightly, eyeing the gleam of steel and speed of his draw. No, wait a moment. He could afford no more delays, especially a brawl with nuisance creatures. Perhaps a spell? What a waste of valuable magic, but at the moment expediency outweighed frugality. Valis stowed his blade and began to concentrate. He had just the thing for them.
It starts small enough; little more than a tickling zephyr. The gentle draft wafted about his body as Valis cleared all surface thoughts, forcing his consciousness around a single instance of potential waiting in memory. Standing ridgid, he extended each arm to his sides as if to grasp the very air itself. Obliging his mental and tactile command, the growing breeze swirled ever faster until Valis himself was the eye of a personal cyclone. Ready. Aimed. They asked for this!
“GO!” Valis thrust one hand forward, his directive cry echoing with supernatural force. And it did. Joined by winds from all about, the little vortice exploded into a ferocious, howling gale as it skipped across the lake. The spell “Tempest Efficacy'' inflected little direct harm, but was one of Valis’s favorite and most powerful by sheer scale, and did its job well. The goblins could only stand agape as the screaming wall of tornadic force winds bore into them, flattening some, throwing the rest here or there, and buffeting all in torrents of sand and spray. Within seconds their makeshift camp was no more, most of it simply blown out of sight.
Here's what ChatGPT spat out. ...and... it actually did a decent job of the character. Got his body proportions almost perfect... Hair and ears are just a tiny bit long, but that's about the only nitpicks. The catch? ANI being ANI, it decided to strip off not only his armor, but most of his clothing too... WTF?!
Also, you got to love how all the goblins have beer guts now.
Sorry HAL9K, you're not ready to replace us humans just yet...
Since my office recently started providing access to the pro version of Chat-GPT, I gave a whirl recreating some of the scenes from my book in progress that goes along side the game. I was just curious how it would recreate my illustration here:
So I fed it a technical description of Valis's appearance, had it read the linked chapter, and told it to recreate my illustration using the provided excerpt:
Oh, so that's how they wish it? Valis unsheathed his weapon and took a step forward. Some of the goblins back-peddled slightly, eyeing the gleam of steel and speed of his draw. No, wait a moment. He could afford no more delays, especially a brawl with nuisance creatures. Perhaps a spell? What a waste of valuable magic, but at the moment expediency outweighed frugality. Valis stowed his blade and began to concentrate. He had just the thing for them.
It starts small enough; little more than a tickling zephyr. The gentle draft wafted about his body as Valis cleared all surface thoughts, forcing his consciousness around a single instance of potential waiting in memory. Standing ridgid, he extended each arm to his sides as if to grasp the very air itself. Obliging his mental and tactile command, the growing breeze swirled ever faster until Valis himself was the eye of a personal cyclone. Ready. Aimed. They asked for this!
“GO!” Valis thrust one hand forward, his directive cry echoing with supernatural force. And it did. Joined by winds from all about, the little vortice exploded into a ferocious, howling gale as it skipped across the lake. The spell “Tempest Efficacy'' inflected little direct harm, but was one of Valis’s favorite and most powerful by sheer scale, and did its job well. The goblins could only stand agape as the screaming wall of tornadic force winds bore into them, flattening some, throwing the rest here or there, and buffeting all in torrents of sand and spray. Within seconds their makeshift camp was no more, most of it simply blown out of sight.
Here's what ChatGPT spat out. ...and... it actually did a decent job of the character. Got his body proportions almost perfect... Hair and ears are just a tiny bit long, but that's about the only nitpicks. The catch? ANI being ANI, it decided to strip off not only his armor, but most of his clothing too... WTF?!
One of my RL friends and I were having a laugh over the AI gaff above, till he explained that what really happened is the AI thought of something I didn't. According to my friend, Haggar just got to Valis at some point and took him under his wing.
Haggar: "Listen kid, if you're gonna fight an army, you got to be prepared. First thing, dof that armor and take your shirt off. Trust me."
Valis: "Err.. Very well Master Haggar. I am in your debt for the consul."
It's more amusing to me in context, since most of his planned grapples are wrestling throws...
Anyway, as for actual progress, I scrapped my first attempt at running. I felt it looked too squat and cartoonish, when what I'm going for is athletic. Here's the new one in progress. It'ss low going since RL is crazy, but anything > nothing, yes?
One more bit of progress on first run sprite before I turn in. Got the near arm, paldron, and upper half of tabard drawn. Up to my ears in homework, so that's probably it for a few days.