It's fun to see someone building off of Sinbad. He was on the list of characters I'd like to expand (especially in honor of his open-source pedigree) but yeah.
Here's a quick touchup of the shirtless version if you're interested:
Re female head: Huh. I spent quite a bit of time fixing animation formatting bugs like that one; a number of them were introduced somewhere along the line. I'm surprised one got through, especially without being brought up. I'll have to look into it and get a fixed version out, at least for the sake of future development.
Edit: from taking a quick look at the current LPC style guide, the head appears to bob properly on the back view. Perhaps the sprites in question were working from an older version with the earlier bugs?
Re skin tone, etc.: Generally, when people start pixel art, the very first thing they do is recolor a preexisting sprite (at least in some circles). It's the first thing because it is basically the easiest thing you can do once you get a hang of the tools. I would say that it's definitely something worth looking into as a programmer, if only because it lets you add variation to assets quickly. Because it's pretty easy to do (and I figured people might want to make it truly individual when designing a character, rather than just choosing from a few examples) it wasn't high enough priority to add at the last minute. There were plenty of other things that got cut as well.
I'll agree about female outfits generally being lacking. I was hoping to fully animate Sara, but I got caught up in other work. It's still on my list of things to eventually do, though.
I would advise never using his assets in an open source game (or at all, honestly). The vague self-written license could be a real issue for your project, and are decidedly FOSS incompatible.
For the record, the skin/eye tone in the base assets is meant as a placeholder to be customized with the rest of the character, not as some stereotypical ideal. I had assumed that most programmers even with no art background could probably do a color swap easily enough, though ofc not being from that side of the game dev world I'm not always sure.
I would be interested in your elaborating on what you mean by a motor piston head, though. That metaphor doesnt say too much to me.
This is VERY important! Not just style, but medium, resolution, thematic tone, etc. These are all necessary for people to know what you're talking about, and whether they can help at all.
Do you want vector art? Pixel art? 3D? Painted assets? Is this fluffy and cartoony or dark and gritty? If you want it to look similar to a particular game, link to some examples of art from that game so we know what you're talking about. You need to know either A) the answer to all these questions, or B) which ones aren't decided and how much freedom the artist has in approaching them. If you have this all laid out, you are waaay more appealing to an artist, because you are showing that you have your stuff together and you'll probably be good to work with.
...anyway, the game is looking pretty neat so far. A few notes, though:
On the opening screen it says "art and music by Opengameart.org"; you should probably say 'from' rather than 'by,' since OGA is a venue for (and occasional commissioner of) work, rather than a producer.
Sorlo's sprite appears to be crunched together horizontally, which looks kind of odd. Is that a preview thing or is there some other reason?
I think that you're missing one important detail. In what capacity would someone be developing a game for you? Would they be paid, or would it be merely 'portfolio work'? Would it be closed or open-source?
It's fun to see someone building off of Sinbad. He was on the list of characters I'd like to expand (especially in honor of his open-source pedigree) but yeah.
Here's a quick touchup of the shirtless version if you're interested:
@MadMarcel:
Re female head: Huh. I spent quite a bit of time fixing animation formatting bugs like that one; a number of them were introduced somewhere along the line. I'm surprised one got through, especially without being brought up. I'll have to look into it and get a fixed version out, at least for the sake of future development.
Edit: from taking a quick look at the current LPC style guide, the head appears to bob properly on the back view. Perhaps the sprites in question were working from an older version with the earlier bugs?
Re skin tone, etc.: Generally, when people start pixel art, the very first thing they do is recolor a preexisting sprite (at least in some circles). It's the first thing because it is basically the easiest thing you can do once you get a hang of the tools. I would say that it's definitely something worth looking into as a programmer, if only because it lets you add variation to assets quickly. Because it's pretty easy to do (and I figured people might want to make it truly individual when designing a character, rather than just choosing from a few examples) it wasn't high enough priority to add at the last minute. There were plenty of other things that got cut as well.
I'll agree about female outfits generally being lacking. I was hoping to fully animate Sara, but I got caught up in other work. It's still on my list of things to eventually do, though.
I would advise never using his assets in an open source game (or at all, honestly). The vague self-written license could be a real issue for your project, and are decidedly FOSS incompatible.
For the record, the skin/eye tone in the base assets is meant as a placeholder to be customized with the rest of the character, not as some stereotypical ideal. I had assumed that most programmers even with no art background could probably do a color swap easily enough, though ofc not being from that side of the game dev world I'm not always sure.
I would be interested in your elaborating on what you mean by a motor piston head, though. That metaphor doesnt say too much to me.
Important information is still needed for people to help you:
What medium of art do you need? Are we talking vector art, pixel art, a 3-D model?
What general tone are you going for? Serious, gritty fantasy? A roman cartoon?
My first impression was that you're probably making a side-scroller, but you don't really say. What perspective are you looking for?
As it stands, it's almost impossible to help you out. We need more info.
"Tell us what style of art you're looking for."
This is VERY important! Not just style, but medium, resolution, thematic tone, etc. These are all necessary for people to know what you're talking about, and whether they can help at all.
Do you want vector art? Pixel art? 3D? Painted assets? Is this fluffy and cartoony or dark and gritty? If you want it to look similar to a particular game, link to some examples of art from that game so we know what you're talking about. You need to know either A) the answer to all these questions, or B) which ones aren't decided and how much freedom the artist has in approaching them. If you have this all laid out, you are waaay more appealing to an artist, because you are showing that you have your stuff together and you'll probably be good to work with.
Triangle boy, triangle boy.
Triangle boy hates particle boy.
They get in a fight, triangle wins.
Triangle boy.
...anyway, the game is looking pretty neat so far. A few notes, though:
On the opening screen it says "art and music by Opengameart.org"; you should probably say 'from' rather than 'by,' since OGA is a venue for (and occasional commissioner of) work, rather than a producer.
Sorlo's sprite appears to be crunched together horizontally, which looks kind of odd. Is that a preview thing or is there some other reason?
Anyway, keep up the good work.
Nice work! It's good to see more female characters being made.
Hehe, trying to edge in on my territory?
opengameart.org/content/platformersidescroller-tiles
Seriously, though, would you like to be added as a contributor on the other collection? It might make more sense to have one fully complete set.
I think that you're missing one important detail. In what capacity would someone be developing a game for you? Would they be paid, or would it be merely 'portfolio work'? Would it be closed or open-source?
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