[Sprite] Astathon, Gemini of Light [R7 proto up]

[LastingDawn]

Astathon is the opposite of Zalera within the Gemini stone, already awaking within Garamonde's grasp.

Astathon has a markedly different appearance than Zalera. Unlike the other Lucavi he is very human looking. An extraordinarily tall man, wearing a white robe, with a mourning veil, covering the majority of his face. His hair can be any color the spriter wants it to be.

He should have bright blue eyes, and if Somehow make him seem extremely handsome (which might be difficult with just eyes to work with). Astathon is a very vain being, believing himself to be the most pure and beautiful creature to grace Ivalice.  

I apologize for the real lack of description, but I'm not that great at describing things. I was told to make this topic along time ago, let's see if I can't find some references...

http://www.life.com/image/1377997

An idea of what I mean (with face more veiled.

http://www.life.com/image/1377996

A better description of the outfits I have in mind.

http://www.steampunkfamily.com/wp-conte ... 50x150.jpg

And finally an idea of how the portrait would look (half the face impossible to see through the shroud, so to speak.


Sorry this took so long to get up, just keep in mind his outfit is meant to be white, rather than the traditional black.

[Lijj]

Interesting bio. Better let R999 handle the proto...

[R999]

Thanks for this LD though I have something in mind that might just fit him as well. I'll tackle on the proto and give this a try (and it'll be using Altima's shett) over this weekend.

[Kagebunji]

I will do this sprite, only question is, do you want him to be Lucavi sized (since he is soo tall), or normal, taller human will be enough.

[LastingDawn]

I think you both should work on a vision, the reason I dislike the Ultima sheet is because I want Astathon to have a few unique animations, which is much easier if a monster is replaced.

1. The monster to replace is Treant. She's already rather tall and it makes a good base only by that. (of course you can increase the size the a little more because a lot of the top of her sprite is covered by leaves.

2. Replace her charging pose, with holding the "veil" and finally replace the spellcast pose with him revealing his face.

I envision that exactly half of his face is a skeleton's face. (Hence the point of the veil) down the middle of his face. This should make an absolutely unsettling portrait, which fits Astathon's theme. (Look at the picture of the girl for instance, how half of her face is veiled)

This is because Astathon kills by surprising people with his visage and the visage itself is cursed. It's the base of his power basically.

This is why an Altima sized Spreadsheet doesn't work and would, frankly, look out of place. A Tall humanoid yes, but not a giant!

[R999]

@Kage: Sure go for it, though I had kind of started working on him as well.


@LD: Altima sheet does not have to be a giant at all.  It can even be smaller than monster size,  as you could for example, make a small size human sprite (the Nu Mou by Twinees is one example, half the size of a human). I am not sure if I really like the idea of the Twos= Face -- it will not look like a skeleton for sure when changed into sprite size (the Skeleton sprite or Mime sprite has a much larger head size in order to show a little bit of detail on the face). A half Veil is possible, a full veil however would look pretty bad on a sprite (it'll just look like a blob of pixels on the face).

Astathon could have a smaller body (like Smash's Shemhazai) with wings extending out from his back (so he wouldn't look so plain). The black wings from FF12 Zalera's shamaness arm would suit him very well imo, and they can make up most of the sprite.


Wings:





I can see why you would want custom animations, but without the ability to test them it will just take forever (since you'll have to test them frame by frame in-game (or at least making custom GIF on every couple pixel change), as opposed to being able to test them instantly in under half a second in ShishiR4).  Lijj and I would know this; it can take as much as a full day if not days (in the time that several sprites can be finished) to get some animations correct even using ShiShiR4 depending on the complexity of movement. Without proper testing, it may end up looking looking bad. But I should remind us that the Altima sheet does have room for custom animations.

The Monster sheet is a great sprite base to work with but until melonhead is willing to fix ShiShi for it it becomes too much of a hassle to work with, really more trouble than it is worth.

[Smash]

Suggesting this as a ref. Not sure what you people have in mind though.

[Kagebunji]

Heh, this was supposed to be Mateus, Smash, so I doubt it will work.

[Smash]

But it has some good examples for robes, face, appearance, much resembling LD's description. Not all, but most of the features on this Emperor's version can work with this concept, even if not modified.  


It's what refs are for.

[R999]

Some very rough mockups (mostly shapes only for now, only basic shading)... Looks like even the Ultima Sheet doesn't have much room for stuff like wings.






Adding veils instead of the hair? yes I'll give it a try.  I'll try another approach as well tomorrow or so.

[Lijj]

Wow that's impressive pixeling there R999

[R999]

Still shapes and outlines only.  Experimenting.

spoiler

Yep I know you probably couldn't tell what's going on in these sprites. Regrettably I am still in this "outline" phrase. The good news is that I still got plenty of stuff to try (including that Emperor concept).

We might have to change his skin color like the other Lucavi. Keeping him this way... well he won't look as intimidating. From what I gathered from LD, he's suppose to look like a human.





Update: another WIP, idea: Gemini + Kefka + other stuff.



Putting this concept on hold because how I realize it just won't look good with such puny wings. Maybe we should scrap the wings.

[R999]

After about a million different rough sketches, here's the first prototype (a complete redesign, still keeping his core features (Gemini definition, two face, symbol of beauty (lotus flower), purple color (Zalera's sign color), handsome looking human appearance).  It's still a WIP, but this will be the base template for him for now.


Much thanks to Eternal, and Twinees for working with me through this. This is Astathon's full and final form, as opposed to an intermediate form where he's would be wearing a veil.


Astathon R7 (WIP), "Lotus Gemini"



His back view will look like a lotus flower.  I am giving up on the wings; there's no way to make them look nice in the given space. The wings would have to look large -- which our spritesheets don't allow. The other option is making them bend down like Ultima's.


On another note, Lijj seemed to have knocked out the Samurai_W tonight.  Good job

[Kagebunji]

What the hell is going on with his face? Make it more humanly, or at least make his eye visible. That giant purple thing behind him does not have enough depth, it's flat. And maybe it goes with design, but dividing his body into two colors is a bad idea, looks bad.

[Smash]

Neither handsome nor light nor the rest of the stuff. (Probably purple yes, but..) He looks more like a shadow demon or something.

IMO, this needs to be reworked from the core, and needs more elements to properly asociate him with a light creature.
And what Kage said.


Im willing to make a drawn -quick- sketch based on this to propose some changes, not straying too far than what you have.

[R999]

^ Thanks for the comments. Glad I posted this before I went much further with it last night.

Demon. I agree with Smash he does look like a demon of sorts. This design started looking "too human" and if you were in the chat yesterday you would know I had been trying to "demonize" him so that he'll look as intimidating as the others. But how far should we really go about this though?  The good news is that he can be reverted back easily with color changes if that were to be done, and then with modifications to his arms. He looks very human in relative terms when compared to the others; the goal was not to make him looking like an actual human, but more like a hybrid -- think of an Elf or hybrid between a devil and human.

The eyes? it's difficult to show. The white skin will make eye-white invisible, and having the eye-white on the dark side would be too much of a contrast. It isn't an easy task. This would require changing his skin colors.

As it stands, the purple thing at the back is unfinished (I thought that was pretty obvious, should have mentioned it).  I had thought about giving him a long hair extension as well, so leaving some space there. Still contemplating on getting rid of it.

The two sided / two face design -- well it's not complete yet, I don't think it looks "nice" per se, but it fits in his theme. The other reason is to differentiate him from Chaos, who may have a similar body. But I guess this would have to go.


Next prototype coming up later today, hopefully these points will be addressed then.

[Archael]

In this post, R999 completely disregards the comments of Kagebunji and  Smash, an artist who is lightyears ahead of him with regards to visuals art / graphic design in general, all while trying to sound compliant, nice, and eloquent. Let's take a closer look:

Demon. I agree with Smash he does look like a demon of sorts. This design started looking "too human" and if you were in the chat yesterday you would know I had been trying to "demonize" him so that he'll look as intimidating as the others.

Translation:
I am making him look like an Inuyasha demon because that is how I envisioned him, and if you had been in the chat instead of having an IRL, you would have known this. You weren't in the chat, so tough luck dude, he's staying as a demon. And assuming that you WOULD have been in the chat, I wouldn't have changed it from a demon anyway, and am still dismissing your critiism.

But how far should we really go about this though?  The good news is that he can be reverted back easily with color changes if that were to be done, and then with modifications to his arms. He looks very human in relative terms when compared to the others; the goal was not to make him looking like an actual human, but more like a hybrid -- think of an Elf or hybrid between a devil and human.

Translation:
Here I'm going to try to sound like I take your point into consideration without actually doing so. Think of a cliche idea put into a sprite. That's what I'm doing here. And I don't care if you, the more experienced and blatantly talented artist agrees, I'm doing things my way because I'm a stubborn idiot and that's what I'm here to do, regardless of what any of you think.

The eyes? it's difficult to show. The white skin will make eye-white invisible, and having the eye-white on the dark side would be too much of a contrast. It isn't an easy task.

Translation:
I am now giving you technical (yet false) excuses as to why it's staying like I want it to stay, because it's not easy to take criticism the right way, swallow my own pride, and actually improve my work.

As it stands, the purple thing at the back is unfinished (I thought that was pretty obvious, should have mentioned it).  I had thought about giving him a long hair extension as well, so leaving some space there.

Translation:
You're an idiot. Isn't it obvious that the purple thing is just a prototype and unfinished? You don't get to criticize the purple thing because even though this is a horrible starting point , it's a work in progress and no matter how bad it gets, I am going to finish it my way regardless of what you think.

The two sided / two face design -- well it's not complete yet, I don't think it looks "nice" per se, but it fits in his theme. The other reason is to differentiate him from Chaos, who may have a similar body.

Translation:
It fits the immutable theme for the character that I have in my own head, so it's staying. Sorry

I don't know about you guys but I'm getting sick of seeing Smash treated like shit by someone who has an excuse for EVERY mistake he makes.

[R999]

@Voldemort, I have said it before. If you don't know what the fuck you are talking about, don't fucking open your mouth. More over, don't put words in people's mouth.

[Archael]

Let me clarify it for you:

Someone who DOES know what he's talking about:



Someone who DOES NOT know what he's talking about:



I suggest you start listening to people more knowledgeable than you in spriting, instead of dismissing them with your endless paragraphs of passive aggression excuses. Smash isn't some guy trolling your board flaming your sprites for fun, he's one of the most talented artists on FFH. He's even offering to draw sketches for you!

Like Asmo put it the other day, you caught lightning in a bottle by having Smash volunteer to work on any of your ideas, and it's really sad to see the way he is treated.


I know Smash isn't confrontational, but I am, and you're gonna start treating him [Starcraft Marine Voice] mighty nice from now on.


BTW nice try at removing me from the IA forum. Shows the rules you like to play by.

[R999]

You don't get it so stop pretending you do. You are not me, you are not Smash, you are not Kage, you are nobody. If all you are doing in this forum is talking shit and disrespecting other members there is no reason for you to be here.