Posted August 15, 2016 Vamps were added to my scroll because of how they look not in spite of so-called imperfections ... if changes did not impact mine ... fair enough but all the Vamps will be altered ... that is unacceptable .. more changed ones to the back of the scroll Share this post Link to post
Posted August 15, 2016 (edited) So I'm gonna pop in again and say a little bit. Just because there are artists who are working on doing updates for the vampires doesn't mean that they will be implemented, that decision lies solely with TJ. If I remember right the silver update thread sat around for a long time before it was used for updating them. If Tj really thinks that the Vampires are ok as they are, then they won't be touched. And to me, having slightly updated anatomy is not going to be the end of the world. But, everyone is entitled to their own opinions so I won't say someone is right or wrong, its just how I feel. Ok I'm done. But, if I had to chose, I would pick either Vixendra or Shokomon's version just because it keeps the essence of the original. Spatio your stuff is amazing as always but I think I prefer sticking to the original pose of the incave version. Edited August 15, 2016 by dragontamer44722 Share this post Link to post
Posted August 15, 2016 (edited) You are NOT alone !! AGREED !! 100 %!! stop fixing what is not broken !! no more messing with perfection .. pleeeeeeeeeease !!! Not broken? Perfection? NO ART is perfect, NEVER. This is the most basic rule of art - every single piece of art could be better. And the original Vampires lack anatomy, proportions, details... I'm all for imporving sprites that look like this and which even I am able to improve somehow. That's why I joined this time. And there's plenty of room for improving Vampires. As you can see in this thread with the new sprite suggestions, each having a different level of difference by shapes alone - with absolutely minimal changes, medium changes(which i.e. I did, I changed some of the proportions like e.g. resized those riddiculusly large hands and added some anatomy which I hope will be even more improved with Spatio's shading, my anatomy is definitely poorer than Spatio's) and a complete revamp(by Spatio). All I see among the 'against' votes is the general dislike for any changes and a pure sentiment. I'm sorry but this is not enough and it's not convincing. Vampires, Seasonals, Baloons, etc. there are plenty of sprites that are very easy to improve for how much they lack... and this is probably why they will be updated at some point - more or less. Vampires have broken wings, no joints in wing fingers, hangbutt(I'm personally stupborn at keeping hangbutts on some of my personal characters but on DC we have it listed as a cardinal mistake), overlarge hands(I believe these came from trying to sprite fingers while avoiding to do the clunched pixels in the outline and therefore came out so large), human shoulders, hardly present skeleton(it's mostly limited to the ribs...) and muscles, and a hyena-like posture I see all artists treated as a mistake in this thread so far(well, I think a hyena posture should be avoided on flying dragons), too dark outline near the white parts on the male(while the female's pale colour is darker, she got lighter outlines than the male near his whites!), no chest, and a broken foot(its left one, to our right) to name the major issues. As for me the only bad sprite update so far was the Nhilia pygmy one. The rest are indeed better pieces of art, Nhilia is argueable. And I'm skipping the smaller updates plenty of you haven't even noticed(e.g. the Gilded Bloodscale, for me this one was completely unnecessary and some parts changed for the worse in my opinion e.g. the male's hand now is blending with the body and the wing's shading looks more like a cell-shading now). But well. No matter what you or I say, the decision is all up to TJ and he is pretty much for sprite improvements as we could see so far. If he likes some of the Vampire sets from this thread, he will use it and there's nothing we can do about is exept for trying to make the best sprites to choose from. All we can do is to work as hard as we can to make it look good indeed. And no whining will stop this... so I'd suggest working on the new sprites instead of trying to stop the unavoidable for the sake of sentiment. Sooner or later someone will make a sprite TJ uses, even if you convinced a few of us here. But the question is, if it won't be with a worse result then. If spatio resigns, my sprite won't have a good shading(probably), and I'm not withdrawing my flats anyway - even if this thread got deleted by the OP, I or sb else would start another one. So yeah, better don't discourage or you risk getting a poorer replacement than you could get. I believe you should rather poke TJ about your being against sprite updates(while it wouldn't have much impact if any), not all the artists. There will always be some unconvinced artists and TJ will do as he decides anyways. There's plenty of room for imroving the Vampire sprite, question is how much better it'll be. Let's get back to work I suggest... Edited August 15, 2016 by VixenDra Share this post Link to post
Posted August 15, 2016 Exactly WHO says this is unavoidable ? and who says PERFECTION is necessary and sentiment doesn't rate ? I might have preferred a redheaded daughter. Should I have dyed her hair to make her more perfect - and she has crooked teeth, too - and that's who she is. I wouldn't change her to make her "closer to perfect". Share this post Link to post
Posted August 15, 2016 Exactly WHO says this is unavoidable ? and who says PERFECTION is necessary and sentiment doesn't rate ? I might have preferred a redheaded daughter. Should I have dyed her hair to make her more perfect - and she has crooked teeth, too - and that's who she is. I wouldn't change her to make her "closer to perfect". Are you attempting to insinuate that dragon sprites are your actual children? Share this post Link to post
Posted August 15, 2016 (edited) Exactly WHO says this is unavoidable ? and who says PERFECTION is necessary and sentiment doesn't rate ? Are you saying it's futile to try and refine things? We're doing this because we want these sprites to be the best they can be. Edited August 15, 2016 by Dusky_Flareon Share this post Link to post
Posted August 15, 2016 Are you saying it's futile to try and refine things? We're doing this because we want these sprites to ve the best they can be. Or, to put it in an analogy, should we not develop better cochlear implants just because the older ones we remember? What about those who would love an improvement? I think equating dragon sprites with cochlear implants is as unrealistic as equating them with your own children. Sentiment does enter into our collecting and breeding of dragons here. I doubt it would affect anyone's choice of a medical device. Share this post Link to post
Posted August 15, 2016 (edited) Much of what we collect on DC is defined by the art. We can't interact with our critters as much as a lot of adoptables sites can, so it's the art we get attached to. And art, of course, is in the eye of the beholder. I often prefer stylized art over realism, myself. As far as DC goes there have been sprite changes I've both really enjoyed and really hated. I don't think changes should be mandatory... but when they do happen, as long as they're quite close to the original and just present shading/a atom fixes instead of intense new overhauls I usually can enjoy them. This is an argument that's been made many times before. If we rehash it here we are all just going to beat a dead horse for the umpteenth time. Edited August 15, 2016 by angelicdragonpuppy Share this post Link to post
Posted August 15, 2016 sprites are art and art is to be perfected. At least all good artists are good just because they pushed themselves into trying to imporve and bever claiming 'this is perfect and there's no need of perfecting it". Is it just me or all these latest posts are offtopic? I thought this is a thread for creating Vampire sprites for TJ to choose from if he ever wants to. Right now it became a general outburst of "I hate sprite changes" vs "changes are needed" discussion but no Vampire spritework and no sprite crits... Share this post Link to post
Posted August 15, 2016 (edited) I'm still looking for crits on my redlines. http://imgur.com/vjZt5bM - S1 + S2 http://imgur.com/8F3wSdw - Adult Redlines... but aince I sketched in pen, I used bold black to show them. Crits? Edited August 15, 2016 by Dusky_Flareon Share this post Link to post
Posted August 15, 2016 sprites are art and art is to be perfected. At least all good artists are good just because they pushed themselves into trying to imporve and bever claiming 'this is perfect and there's no need of perfecting it". Is it just me or all these latest posts are offtopic? I thought this is a thread for creating Vampire sprites for TJ to choose from if he ever wants to. Right now it became a general outburst of "I hate sprite changes" vs "changes are needed" discussion but no Vampire spritework and no sprite crits... Again, debatable. There is no absolute definition of perfection. Stylized art can be just as pretty, if not more so, than realism in my eyes. I really liked the old GoN and Bloodscales' textured wing shading over the more "proper" shading they have now, and that's just a small example. Art is art. Discussing whether people want an update at all is quite relevant to the topic at hand. Although, again, we've all waged this war before. For what it's worth I quite like the sprite you put forth, but sprite updates in general make me uneasy because they seem to go 50/50 in terms of enjoyable polishings to lineage altering overhauls. Share this post Link to post
Posted August 15, 2016 There it is. I was wondering when the fighting would start. Anyway, @ dragonwinxzodiac: Thank you for the criticisms! I'll get to it when I can. Share this post Link to post
Posted August 15, 2016 (edited) Believe me, my current regular art is definitely more stylised than realistic... I was practising on redrawing photos in realism but after that period I started stylising and this period lasts for a few years, and in general I prefer much more saturated and opalescent colours than the natural/photographic colours. But even stylised art requires at least some basic anatomy behind(just look at Disney's animals! http://vignette3.wikia.nocookie.net/disney...=20160313024904 simplified and hidden but still behind). and sadly, the original vampires don't have stylised anatomy, it has very little of anatomy behind it... that's why its update is being attempted here. Well, at least that's why I joined in. What is offtopic is that we're statig the obvious all the time - one group says 'no changes' another 'all changes' and the last ' just some changes'. And all these are pretty universal... and repeating every time there is an update introduced... or beign worked on like here. I noticed the wing membrane wasn't smooth enough in 1 area and I tried to imporve the far hind leg's toes: [link] any last nitpicky crits before the shading? Edited August 15, 2016 by VixenDra Share this post Link to post
Posted August 15, 2016 One thing I'm noticing is that the top of the wing membrane at the top of the sprite has a long straight line that could maybe be segmented a bit? I didn't notice it at first but now that I see it I can't unsee it Other than that I think its good to go. Share this post Link to post
Posted August 15, 2016 (edited) like this? better? or better go back to the straight?(edit: nah, I personally prefer the straight, I feel it defines better?) I also tried to make the neck base less angled by movign a pixel or 2, worth it or better go back? 1 more neck edit - adding a pixel to it's length in the base (the sprite got 1px wider): [link] last edit here: I'm personally in favour of this (so just the edited neck but the straight wing finger): [link] Or I'm wrong? Edited August 15, 2016 by VixenDra Share this post Link to post
Posted August 15, 2016 Not really helpful in any way, but I really like VixenDra's sprite. It has much better anatomy while retaining the general look of the original. Share this post Link to post
Posted August 15, 2016 like this? better? or better go back to the straight?(edit: nah, I personally prefer the straight, I feel it defines better?) I also tried to make the neck base less angled by movign a pixel or 2, worth it or better go back? 1 more neck edit - adding a pixel to it's length in the base (the sprite got 1px wider): [link] last edit here: I'm personally in favour of this (so just the edited neck but the straight wing finger): [link] Or I'm wrong? Eh looking at it I think I agree Vixen, stick to the straight. The way the wing is positioned it would probably look straight anyway. Share this post Link to post
Posted August 15, 2016 Just a quick post to say that anybody sticking to pure anatomical fixes should probably think about adding a propatagium. ^^;; Share this post Link to post
Posted August 15, 2016 See, now VixenDra's sprite is a sprite change that I would totally support. I personally am not a spriter and don't do well with tiny critiques to anatomy, so I don't really see the flaws in the current sprites. But if there *must* be a Vampire update someday, VixenDra's is keeping the pose and general concept look of the vampire, and that is why I would not fight against the change. Share this post Link to post
Posted August 15, 2016 I'm still looking for crits on my redlines. Oh dear. I'm afraid that your redlines keep most anatomical issues of the originals while adding some more. The hind legs still have two heels each, the wings are still a mess (as far as I can tell from the sketch), the near wrist is invisible, the base of the tail is way thicker than the abdomen, the neck is rather short and connects awkwardly to the chest, the proportions of near and far limb (both sets of legs, really) don't match... I'm sorry to say so, but I think you'd better start anew. Share this post Link to post
Posted August 16, 2016 (edited) well, I'm not used to propatagiums so be nitpicky on me if I got them attached wrong/not-the-best-way: [link] I think I'd like having both versions for my sprite - without(like the original) and with(for the sake of availability and becuase of the current standards), this way TJ could decide for himself in case if he wants to keep this as a Vampire trait (ofc assumed he'd choose my sprite in the first place ). Oh, actually I just checked and I noticed that quite a few of the newer breeds don't have propatagiums! Lunar Herals, Spirit Wards, Greater Spotted Drake(I'm just not sure if it isn't supposed to be flightless?), Fever, Two-headed Lindwurm, Imperial Fleshcrowne?(I can't really see it on the only wing that shows the area), Hellhorse, Copper... well let's stop here and not go any more back:P I've always beleived that the matter of propatagium and the elbow fingers are pretty much only a matter of choice of the 'theory', presence of the first and absence of the other are simply the more mainstream ones;) I'm actually in the 'it's a freakin' dragon!' 'camp', I even add 'who said that in this non-existent world where your dragon would live there are the same parameters as on Earth (hence the same requirements for flight)? Hehe, in case of DC this looks a bit like evolution - propatagiums are an evolutionary improvement, hence it's more frequently occuring in the new breeds but still appears in some others, though less and less frequently. If you know what I mean;) Edited August 16, 2016 by VixenDra Share this post Link to post
Posted August 16, 2016 Are you attempting to insinuate that dragon sprites are your actual children? No. But I see no need to try to make everything "perfect" - not least because perfection is in the eye of the beholder. But also because -yes, sentiment - sometimes the imperfect can be way more loveable. A totally perfect face is dull, in a way. Steve Martin would be less attractive if they gave him a nose job. Share this post Link to post
Posted August 16, 2016 No. But I see no need to try to make everything "perfect" - not least because perfection is in the eye of the beholder. But also because -yes, sentiment - sometimes the imperfect can be way more loveable. A totally perfect face is dull, in a way. Steve Martin would be less attractive if they gave him a nose job. you know, just Steve Martin's nose is perfectly allright on its own already. Think rather of people born with deformations... they are miserable for being deformed(they themselves feel worse and ashamed, some are not just 'ugly' but also disabled) and if you offer them a free plastic surgery, they(I mean vast majority) happycry and say they were offered a new life... I won't link samples in case if they got considered +18 and well, not to disturb anyone sensitive to such view. And people aren't even pieces of art... they're living beings. Yet still there are cases when they feel a need to be treated like one. In-cave Vampires have more like deformations than imperfections - broken wings anyone? lack of joints in wing fingers?(would you like no not have joints in your palm?) swollen thingh area? you know... Share this post Link to post
Posted August 16, 2016 I think the paws are too small compared to the head. I think longer claws or something would help balamce it out. And yeah.. the top wing finger has too many straight pixels but I'm not sure how that can be fixed ;-; Other than that, love your sprite! Share this post Link to post
Posted August 16, 2016 (edited) Better? I'm refusing to make the fronts anyhow larger in any way the enormous size of the in-cave sprite's hands has been always bothering me and look like a huge() mistake to me... hm, I'm still pretty new to spriting... is having a straight line where the dragon is supposed to have a pretty straight line (because there's a bone) a mistake/a not-acceptable? Well, I attempted to 'break' it (as a few posts above) but then the wing was blending with the far wing to me, creating pretty much a one large curve well, and the joints weren't this obvious anymore, making an impression there is 1 bone that curved.. unless I'm wrong and it's just me Edited August 16, 2016 by VixenDra Share this post Link to post
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