[Ritz]

I'd prefer sprites, honestly. I can't say I'm not interested in seeing a Sonic fangame with completely hand drawn graphics, but the art shown here just looks gaudy to me. If you really want to make this work, introduce more depth to the foreground so you can work some darker values in and break up the monotonous flat colors.

[muteKi]

I have to admit, the flatness of the level art bothered me a little bit too. It's a nice start, though!

[CyberKitsune]

An interesting take. It's something we've seen succesfully done with the Wario games. However, with this visual style I hope you realize that animation now takes a greater importance in making it look good as well. You can't get away with the same animation tricks pulled with pixel art like shifting pixels around unless you want it to look like a cheap flash game that uses nothing but Tweens.

I'd have to agree with Chimpo. It looks great and very colorful, but you're gonna need some smooth animation or it'll ruin it. Also, it does have -some- flatness to it, maybe try to concentrate on depth more. Other than that, it looks spectacular!

[Jayextee]

flatness of visuals

Save the black lines for your main characters only (Sonic, Metal Sonic and badniks etc) and experiment with the scenery having outlines that are a darker version of the main shade. Also wash out the background a tiny smidgen.

Interesting concept mockup though.

[Shoemanbundy]

Seeing this reminds me of games made in Flash. Somehow I immediately am put off by the style and just choose to skip playing the game. It's just a horrible style IMO.

Hopefully this looks different in the end. I don't see what was the matter with the previous style btw.

This post has been edited by Shoemanbundy: 30 December 2009 - 04:42 AM

[Namagem]

I hope to god I wasn't the only person to see this.

Anyway, I can't wait to see where this goes. This could either be pulled of spectacularly, or it could flop incredibly hard.
Preferably the former, of course.

[Chimpo]

Cannot unsee.

[DM Ashura]

The sand tiles you see were kind of preliminary anyway, so they're getting redone with a bit more depth and variation.

As for why we switched to the new style ... the idea was suggested by SonicWarriorTJ for him to hand-draw it all because (1) it would be easier to produce and edit than pixel art and (2) because we could *NOT* find enough reliable pixel artists. A number of people said they would help us and then either bailed or ended up doing nothing. For instance the guy who created the background for Memento Temple Zone flat out told us that was ALL he wanted to do for us. So we went in the direction that would not only give us creative uniqueness but also make sure our game gets DONE.

I appreciate all the feedback though ... it will very much be taken into account. Just because it's hand drawn doesn't mean it's going to just look like a Flash game.

[Sonic Warrior TJ]

Everything's being done in Photoshop at a crazy high resolution with my drawing tablet, and I'm drawing each frame by hand. No shitty Flash tweens here. I'm among those of us who hate modern cartoons for their sheer lack of effort when it comes to animating. DM Ashura posted it on another site, so I don't see why I can't share this with you.

People have told me the .gif is too fast, but this is literally just me putting the frames together in PS to see how it looks in motion. It'll be "correct" after the sprites are put into the game.

[DigitalDuck]

I hope to god I wasn't the only person to see this.

Anyway, I can't wait to see where this goes. This could either be pulled of spectacularly, or it could flop incredibly hard.
Preferably the former, of course.

Kinda reminds me of this.

[Vague Rant]

Can I ask what it is Sonic is doing here? Is that a standing animation? A wind-up-to-begin-running animation? A nervous-at-the-high-school-dance animation? Not really a criticism, just curious what the foot shuffle is for. The art certainly looks nice, so I'm moderately interested to see this in action.

[Sonic Warrior TJ]

It is indeed a standing animation, it's more or less based on the one from Sonic Advance. I'm definitely planning on having a few idle animations per character to mix it up a bit. Good Lord, you'd cringe upon seeing the very first standing pose I made after we decided on the art change. It took some trial and error before I got my bearings, believe me.

This post has been edited by Sonic Warrior TJ: 30 December 2009 - 10:45 AM

[Ritz]

the very first standing pose I made

Receiving_Anal.gif.

[Vague Rant]

the very first standing pose I made

Receiving_Anal.gif.

Looks more like Newton's cradle to me.