Badniks & Bosses Art

No offense, it's an excellent Nebula, but for some reason it looks, well, bland. Maybe add some screws, grating, or other patterns to it in the name of "Sprucing Up" your art. Like how CN added the hexagon pattern to the whisp's wings.

 

I think the thing inside still needs some work, but the rest looks nice. The gun on the bottom could actually use some more defining now that I look at it. Feels a little bland.

 

Yeah, he's definitely a good start. Some things I would suggest first off is you will want to get the basic shape down before you start shading, as it will save you some work in the long run. I say that because the angle still looks a little off to me. The next thing you will want to remember is that this guy is completely made out of metal. The black parts are off to a good start, but his body doesn't look metallic at all. You will want some sort of reflection on the green parts, and especially on the arms and eyelids.

I see you are using the concept art as a basis, which is a good thing, as that is the same way I have been starting off my latest badniks, but you will want to add some things to make it your own, too, as was mentioned with my whisp, and you can see how different the latest masher is. Just don't go overboard with the minute details, because too much is just as bad as too little.

Like I said, he's off to a good start, but keep those things in mind when making your revisions in the future, and I think you will be all right.

Edit: One more thing to note. It won't matter too much for the nebula, but when making the basic shapes for these guys, remember they will need to be animated, so you will need to figure out how you want that to work first and foremost. For this guy, all that really moves is the propeller and his arms, but for badniks with more complex animations, it is important to get that down sooner rather than later.

 

I think you should try to first get the shapes right, and then worry about the shading.

After all that, you might include additional details (or might not, if it looks good already).



Also, comparison pics please. Always.

 

That's what I said

 

Here is a gift for everyone

 

And also...




EDIT: I can't believe the wiki just has the low-quality, 256 colors manual from Sonic Jam... :O

 

About doing the shapes first, I know. In fact, I made almost every part in a separate layer, as well as the shades. Even though I've already hit the double digits in layers, but it's a lot easier to make changes this way IMO.

Also, sorry about comparison pics. It wouldn't matter because I've been following the official art in terms of both shapes and design. It's probably just me, but the angle looked so weird in the actual sprite image. Again, it's probably just me, so I'll change it to the angle on the sprite if no one agrees.

Anyway, here's the next edit.

 

The arms look a bit odd, like he's wearing clothes or something... and now it looks like it has eyelashes.

 

I don't know if that light source is particular necessary given its absence in the original sprite. It just makes it look awkward, really.

 

and also:

from ICEknight's avatar

 

I was gonna tell CN to post this, but seeing as he isn't around at the moment, here's his final base drawing for the masher before he shaded it, and the finished product. All he did was get the basic form down and then add enough shading to give it some depth.

 

You should really be aiming for what the original sprites look like, not the manual art. Just because the manual art may not have been the final design. I mean by all means add the detail the sprites couldn't accomodate, but in the case of Nebula the design is radically different in places and it just looks odd.

 

I'm liking this new take on the masher over the old art one. I think the teeth are loads better. The one thing that bugged me in the old art was the jaw action as it just looked akward. Are new animations going to be done for the badniks as there is for Sonic?

 

Well, I guess here is a Nebula that has no shading and looks a bit more like the sprite.

 

Yeah, there are going to be additional frames to make it smoother.

 

I love the new Masher, but there's something about those teeth that makes them feel more flat than they should... And also, his shape looks a bit too symmetrical compared to how it used to look like.

 

Perhaps that his teeth are individually shaded, but not shaded as a whole?

 

The most glaringly obvious flaw is that the cap/lid thing is far too large.

 

I might've snickered a bit when I realized how much that image looked like something out of South Park (that's not a quality criticism, I just found the similarity funny).

Couldn't you say the same thing about the sprites? I admit, I don't know much about the design process of the original game, but it seems to me many examples of games with conflicting designs in their official art have the in-game stuff as the most outdated or inaccurate.

See: Donkey Kong being one finger short in DKC, the inconsistent character designs in F-Zero GX's cut scenes, the off-color Koopa Kids in Super Mario World, etc.