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Thanks - I'm glad I was able to help some. A lot of times I have no idea if I'm just rambling and the other person is gonna have no idea what I'm saying.
I actually really like the fix to the seadweller's shoulder, looks pretty good on the big guy too. There's another small tweak I'd make to his (our) left foot, but it has more to do with shading on the ankle, I might bring the shadow down a bit further to help convey the perspective I think you're going for on the foot - but I'm no expert on that, and much of what I do myself regarding perspective is trial and error, so take my specific advice here with a grain of salt.
For the flower girl's foot, the edit is definitely an improvement, and I get what you're going for with the bent leg now. Maybe try editing the outline slightly to convey the arch of the foot? I realize it'd be a bit different shapewise than the other feet, but I think you could get away with it considering you have two other trolls wearing heels or shoes where the outline implies an arch.
also sorry for the favbomb, I really like your style and design, and even if I haven't done anything with mine in forever I really appreciate a good fantroll or two.
Hey, Tarenken!
Thank you for the very thorough critique. You've got a good critical eye, and a lot of what you said ended up working out when I tried it.
Here is the edited picture with the fixes you suggested. You'll notice that the flower girl's foot is still at an odd angle - this is because the intention was for one leg to be bent, with her toes flush to the ground. However, since it was hard enough to read that you thought it was an error, I did a quick once-over on her foot to make it more three-dimensional (and there is just no room for a fifth toe, so four is all she gets). I fixed the seadweller's and the big guy's shoulders, as well; the fix works very well on the latter, but I'm questioning it on the former. Big boy's foot is also simpler now.
Do these tweaks fix the problems you saw? I don't want to cause unnecessary traffic by editing a picture several times, so I won't post the edit until it looks its best.
Love these designs and the colors used for each. the difference in body types and facial features is especially nice, and I really like the different ears.
the one criticism is that the MSPA no-arms & stick legs thing looks kind of awkward on some of the characters - the left (our left) foot on the one with the flower crown looks sort of lopsided, as it comes out of the dress into a kind of square angle with the heel on the right - maybe making the transition from the leg to the foot more tapered as with some of the others would help. I feel like the left (again, our left) foot on the larger one is too detailed as well, kind of uncanny compared to all the smaller sprites. Arms-wise, once again the largest one's blazer looks kind of odd just cut off like that, broadening where you cut off the shoulders might help, and the aquatic troll suffers from a similar issue where the smooth cutoff of skin and the underarm part of their tank top reads really awkwardly. (Then again, I feel like tank tops read really awkwardly on MSPA style stuff anyways, but that's just a personal opinion.)
I feel like it's probably real difficult to reconcile the simplistic MSPA limb style with the more realistic(ish) take you have here, but it looks really nice on the smaller sprites. Maybe just a bit much on the bigger ones. Not sure. I hope there's a good compromise somewhere, since honestly I love that sort of mix of more realistic and totally abstract/symbolic elements, yknow?
Anyways again, love these. Sorry if my miles long critique made it seem not so. I'm just wordy.
How's this? The edits are super subtle, but every pixel counts!
Drawing feet is hard.