WSMS - Sprite changes, fixes, evolution (Patreon)

Hey everyone! I wanted to do a post showing off some of the evolution of a few sprites that have gone through changes since I did their initial designs. And I just wanted to show off some of the expressions I've done for a few of them! 

Ari

Ari's sprite has kind of a fun back story. Originally he was a brunette and when I started work on his sprite...it somehow turned into Caleb. So I currently have two files named "Ari Sprite" but one is Caleb and one is the real Ari sprite.

I always imagined Ari with...not long hair, but definitely not short hair either. But for some reason I never liked the hairstyle I designed for him. It just made him seem...weirdly old. I think it kind of contributes to making his face look too long and narrow. So I finally sat down and tried to redesign his hair and come up with something I liked better. So I came up with the one on the left, which I do think makes him look younger. And it also doesn't narrow his face so much.

Weirdly, once I tried some expressions on with the old hair, I found myself appreciating it more. (But I think I'm going to stick to the new one).

Anyway, here is a small expression sheet for Ari (he has way more expressions than this - these are just a few.

As a side note, here is one of Ari's additional variations. Because everyone has a system of nanites in their body - of which one function is that they can help speed up cellular regeneration when injured - I was able to do a fun effect for a scene where Ari is healing up from an injury. Right now, I don't know if any of the others will get injured to the point something like this is applied to their sprite, but Ari gets this variation, at any rate.

Another sprite that has undergone some modifications as I started finishing out designing his outfits is...

Jack

Jack is a character whose been around for a while. And he was always blonde- from the moment I first designed him (with blue eyes).

I ended up changing him to a brunette when I decided Lance would have mostly silver hair instead of black. I remember when I showed off his design way back...someone made a joke about his "emo hair" - which I did not forget. 

A lot of times people will make little joking remarks like that about character design without realizing how much they actually can cause someone to question their design choices. And that's an instance where I immediately reconsidered his original hairstyle. I eventually did redo the design a bit. And, somehow, when I started playing around with colors...I tried blue.

And really liked it.

(I also added some scars and piercings just to make him a bit more interesting to look at.)

I'm keeping the brunette version of his new hair in his file because I may find a way to work it into the game. Maybe he'll go back to his natural color toward the end or something. Because I actually really like how they both look on him. I still kind of miss the blonde, though.

But funnily, the blonde isn't quite as appealing on the new style. I could probably tweak the shading and make it look nicer. But I'm keeping him a brunette.

No one else has gone through any redesigns, but I did do a lot of playing around to try to figure out just how I wanted to do the eye-glow for the Espers.

I tried a lot of different things, but currently have settled on a glow the centers around the iris, and is somewhat based on each character's base eye color. Here are some other things I tried:

Full glow (deemed "creepy")

Iris only (what I eventually went with)

Some kind of combination of the two...

Dune Spice addict???

No eyes. Just glow.

Here are some other characters being glowy. 

Jack - his eyes are actually kind of a violet color, so his glow ended up kind of pink-ish!

Caleb's brown eyes mean a nice, amber glow. 

So anyway...yeah. I hope you enjoyed this. When I get everyone's expressions done, I'll do a basic expression sheet for each character and show you some of their cute and funny facial expressions! That may be a while yet, but keep an eye out!