Space alien mech suit
Printed From: Pixel Joint
Category: Pixel Art
Forum Name: WIP (Work In Progress)
Forum Discription: Get crits and comments on your pixel WIPs and other art too!
URL: https://pixeljoint.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=21691
Printed Date: 08 September 2025 at 5:02pm
Topic: Space alien mech suit
Posted By: Sorsy
Subject: Space alien mech suit
Date Posted: 04 March 2015 at 5:18am
Hello guys, I'm looking for some feedback on this mech suit as I'm not sure what is it that i don't like about it. It would be fantastic if you could point something out that would help me improve the piece.
Thanks for your time! |
Replies:
Posted By: Pandupaz
Date Posted: 04 March 2015 at 6:58am
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love your suit! reminds me of the tau crisis suits from w40k. the line art is superb, but it kinda looks like he's about to take a dump :P
maybe be a bit braver with the shading? here's my try at tweaking the shading. 
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Posted By: Sorsy
Date Posted: 04 March 2015 at 7:29am
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Oh, that's it! That looks much better. I will try and improve based on your attempt, if that's ok with you. Thank you very much.
I'm aware the stance is somewhat unnatural and looks kinda how you described it, but it's designed with a function in mind. This mech is supposed to attack by stomping on its enemy. You see, the hands are like jet engines that lift the mech in the air, that's why they are more in the back than on the sides. The knees and legs in general are designed to absorb the shock after landing. I just finished rough outline for that animation and I believe it makes it a bit clearer. 
This looks more like he is just landing so I guess it will take some more vertical motion to make the stomp happen. Thanks again, I appreciate it! |
Posted By: Sorsy
Date Posted: 05 March 2015 at 5:59am
I did my own version bearing in mind what you said, Pandupaz, but not strictly copying what you did and I'm pretty happy with how it came out. I reworked the helmet, because I felt like it had no clear shape and hopefuly it's better now. I also struggled with the chest piece, maybe the highlight on it isn't the best... what do you think?
I worked on the animation some more and I'm pretty confident about it and I will start colouring it as soon as possible. Some feedback would be appreciated! :) 
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Posted By: Sorsy
Date Posted: 06 March 2015 at 6:56am
Hey guys, I have some more progress on this mech suit. I coloured the animation and I quite like it. I will add smoke in a later update hopefuly tomorrow.
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Posted By: electricSleep
Date Posted: 06 March 2015 at 9:52am
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Are you doing this for a game? |
Posted By: Sorsy
Date Posted: 06 March 2015 at 10:19am
| Yup, I do. This will be one of tougher enemies. |
Posted By: electricSleep
Date Posted: 06 March 2015 at 10:25am
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Have you got any more stuff to show? I am guessing it's for a 2d platformer possibly with shooting haha? |
Posted By: Sorsy
Date Posted: 06 March 2015 at 11:10am
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Not really a platformer -
SHORT STORY more like stuff goes from sides and you shoot them by touching your android device screen. LONG STORY First game I made was https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.fanaticalsmile.sparepartsmaker - Spare Parts Maker . It used really simple graphics and also the controls weren't great - basicaly you pointed at something and it died. It wasn't about skill but about the speed of you shooting, which meant it was about grind because you had to upgrade your rate of fire. In this next game I want to focus on the skill of the player so the controls will be different. Some time ago I remembered an online pvp top down game I played, Seek&Dread. Instead of your mouse cursor being the gunsight, the sight was attached to the player and it went in circle around you as you moved your mouse. This meant you had to think where the round will land based on line from player through sights and then projected on your target. That is what I want to do in this game. But instead of the mouse you will slide on the bottom of the screen left and right and your character will aim accordingly. It's not really that original and I'm sure someone already used it in other mobile games. It's actually pretty similar to the way the Angry Birds controls, but the player(bird) and sights(catapult) switch places. --- Not sure how that's popular around here. As for something else I already have my main character done and you can visit http://www.pixeljoint.com/pixelart/93072.htm - him in my gallery and see his idle animation. Two other enemies are on this image. 
Second row, the first one is gonna use jetpack to do big leaps in the air, so something similar as this mech suit, but this one will have different pattern. Second row, the second one will teleport around. More enemies are on the way. I'm afraid they no longer go well together with the suit, I will have to go in and add a bit more depth to them. Also there is a WIP of the suit. The jets are animated, smoke's not - just a rough sketch: 
The gamescreen will look like this(I was trying tile placement in the picture): 
Also the game will be in double pixel size, so bear that in mind when looking at these. I hope it doesn't matter that this topic is no longer about the one and only mech suit. I would rename the topic but I'm not sure about the name of the game yet (suggestions are very welcome! :) |
Posted By: Iscalio
Date Posted: 07 March 2015 at 10:21am
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Feels like your robot is taking too long to get off the ground. You've got 2-3 seconds from the time the thrusters go off to the time he finally lifts off. I understand this might be the case for a huge rocket, and that he's maybe supposed to be heavy, but as a pixel sprite only twice the size of the main (human) character it feels too slow.
I end up feeling like his thrusters turn on, they don't lift him up, then he hops on his legs. Which is even stranger because of the design seemingly always making the legs folded. Usually in a jump the leg extension is an integral part of the motion. |
Posted By: Sorsy
Date Posted: 07 March 2015 at 3:51pm
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Well, exactly - he is supposed to be heavy. The delay is there because the engines don't have the power necessary right away and it just takes a while to get there. Also the hop isn't him hopping. It's supposed to show that his legs are carrying a lot of material, meaning they push out constantly. When there is a relief they don't respond right away and push out just a bit longer until they find their "default" position again.
I guess what I meant to convey doesn't show right away which is totally my mistake. I thank you very much for your input but I'm not sure I know how to edit it to look more like I want it to look. Yesterday I did the puff of smoke the engines generate when they kick off and I gave it a good night sleep to look at it today. I think it looks ok so once again any feedback is appreciated. I wanted the smoke to linger a bit longer and spread out more but it's a game sprite that will be on screen with others and I didn't want them to overlap too much. One with gray and transparent background.  
I think I will add a bit of dust when he lands later. |
Posted By: Sorsy
Date Posted: 09 March 2015 at 9:10am
Hi, I made another, possibly final version of the suit. What do you think?
 
There will be no line under the suit in ingame version for obvious reasons, but I think it looks a bit better here on its own. Edit: You can check it out in http://www.pixeljoint.com/pixelart/93269.htm - the gallery . |