New Imp Sketches

[40oz]

The current snake imps are tall, have weird animations, are a little bulky and have a unique, yet not traditional shape. I want to create a new monster that isnt scary or too indivualish. I want it to have a human like shape, yet not look too reminiscent to the traditional doom imp.

It will be tough because the normal doom monsters a little frightening at first, though they become a little more friendly looking after a while. Not really sure how I will do this, but what I am going to do for now i make a bunch of sprite sketches and let whoever wants to peek at this thread vote on which of these imps are good enough to be easily recognizable and are good enough looking not to be an eyesore as they are very common monsters.

This is one sprite i whipped up in a few minutes. Obviously if theres any potential for it, i might give it some more frames. I dont really like this one a whole lot because pink is a color thats too easy to use in doom. Demons, Hell barons, cacodemons, doom has too much pink and I dont want to stretch the color to too many monsters. Another thing I dont like is that it doesnt have any unique features. Something impish would need a unique insignia like a tail or something. Hes a little too boring. But I like how hes not too annoying to use in large numbers.

[Patrick]

i would make it a bit more... scary. i think it would e good to add horns to its head, make the eyes a little more sinister, adding fangs wouldn't be a half-bad idea. just my thought

[Jon]

I like this. I've been trying to make an alien-grey style sprite for the imp for ages, but I haven't made any progress. I think your sprite might look better with a grey or light tan colour (not dark brown like the original imp though). Good work!

[YMB]

Neat. Needs spikes, but otherwise it's solid.

[40oz]

Gray? Good idea, a greenish gray like the stone imp in KDiZD. That might look good. Better eyes and and fangs would be cool. I think it needs a tail though. Like a Devil tail, a long one with an arrowhead on the end. I'll get working on it later.

[40oz]

How about this one?

Now that i look at it, I think it needs more contrast. and its body shape looks too weak. It needs a little more muscle. I couldnt incorporate horns on it without looking too weird. Spikes would make it look way too much like to normal doom imp, so i gotta stay away from that. I was dissapointed in the lack of green the doom pallete has. So it had to be gray.

[BoldEnglishman]

Hmm the tail could curve round the back (like an Xenomorph - Alien from the Aliens movies). Tails looking a bit right-angled at the moment. I agree with it needing more muscle but otherwise -- looking good!

[Enjay]

Yeah, the various points for improvement that have been made are true enough but I like this. It's original and a lot better than that odd looking rendered snake-thing in use at present.

[YMB]

JohnnyRancid said:

http://img233.imageshack.us/img233/5051/trooa1se1.gif

How about this one?

Niiiice. My only comment is that the head looks a bit... meh. Too cartoony for my tastes. Still overall very doomy.

[Udderdude]

I would say take the first one, give it bigger claws/hands, and make it have a clearly defined face. Right now it's face looks crap.

[40oz]

I think it looks like a pink KDiZD shadow with better posture.

[Patrick]

yeah, the head needs to be better defined

[RockstarRaccoon]

I actually, really liked the idea of the old Basilisk. I just think it needed some editing to make it look better...

[40oz]

cchristianPunckgzsor said:

I actually, really liked the idea of the old Basilisk. I just think it needed some editing to make it look better...

whats that? the snake imp thing thats already in it?

[Macro11_1]

I like the second one!
Did you do any concept sketches?
(i.e. scans of hand drawn stuff)

[YMB]

Even if they don't make it into Freedoom, you should definitely make a graphics wad.
John, my friend, you have art skills.

[40oz]

No I dont have any sketches, I did some earlier today but their really small samples, and pretty underdetailed. I was kinda testing my knowledge of anatomy so that they looked realistic.

What do you think about the posture? should the imp be kinda crouching down? (like image 2) or standing upright? (like image 1) I also considered kinda ripping of of Doom 3 and make the imps crawl on the ground, and then hop up on its back legs to throw a fireball.

Speaking of which, how should he throw a fire ball? Regular Doom style where he kinda lunges his hand forward? Dark Imp style, combines both hands together like a dragon ball z move? Maybe should he simply whip his hand across? because it doubles as a good scratching animation too.

[Enjay]

I think the crouched pose is more menacing but the upright one is cool too. Personally, I dislike the dark imp double-hand action. I just don't think it works very well. Double hand actions can work well but there is something about the dark imp that just doesn't work properly to my eye. I like the idea of the "whipping his hand across" action. Perhaps it could even be a "backhand" action?

[40oz]

ooh i kinda like that. Very original. I'm working on a greenish one. Do textures in doom use the doom pallete? I'm wondering how i can get the marble color for this imp.

[40oz]

well this is it.



Looks kinda like a swamp monster.

EDIT: i forgot to add a tail too =P

[YMB]

Very nice, this is the best one yet!

[RockstarRaccoon]

I dunno... I'm still liking the old one a lot better... Also, this looks too much like the old Imp, only it's green, and stands more like an Affrit or Gargoyle (Heretic/HeXen monsters) I just don't see this as a good monster to replace the imps... I really do like the Basilisk ones better...

JohnnyRancid said:
whats that? the snake imp thing thats already in it?

Yeah. That I call the Basilisk, like the Combine is my word for the old zombies, the Slug for the mancubus, and my version of the Archvile I call a Necromancer.

[boris]

I liked the gray one better. The green one looks just weird... the position of the legs, the arms/shoulders, the barrel-like head...

[GGG]

I don't know about the whole squatting thing. Is it supposed to lunge out at the player, or does it walk around like that-- like a bowlegged cowboy? In fact, that sprite could work for a cowboy imp mod, seeing as it has that quick-draw pose thing down.

[40oz]

Ooo. Various opinions.

I liked the gray one better. The green one looks just weird... the position of the legs, the arms/shoulders, the barrel-like head...

Yeah, the head is weird. and the teeth look weird too. He also kinda looks like hes falling backwards or something. For some reason I managed to nail the leg position right the first time on the grey guy, I couldnt reproduce it again haha. I was trying to get the same legs as the grey one.

I don't know about the whole squatting thing. Is it supposed to lunge out at the player, or does it walk around like that-- like a bowlegged cowboy? In fact, that sprite could work for a cowboy imp mod, seeing as it has that quick-draw pose thing down.

Eesshh... k thanks man. It's kinda representing what it looks like as the first frame before it throws a fireball. I'm not too sure how exactly its gonna walk yet. I'll come up with something. The crouching down thing I'm doing is kinda inspired from this picture.

http://doom3.planet-multiplayer.de/images/content/demon_archvile.jpg

I think what I'm gonna do is use the gray imp as a base, make it tougher, modify the head so it looks less like a monkey, maybe give it a thicker tail and raise it a little higher, and recolor it with the greenish color I used in the latest imp and see how that looks.

EDIT: Oh and I need a good eye color too.

[leileilol]

i'd rather not make him green. doesn't give him demonic qualities and makes me think i'm shooting at living vegetables. it's bad enough fredrik's new caco is a cabbage

[YMB]

leileilol said:

i'd rather not make him green. doesn't give him demonic qualities and makes me think i'm shooting at living vegetables. it's bad enough fredrik's new caco is a cabbage

Cacocabbage, now that's truly horrifying.

[40oz]

Where is it? I wanna see it. Which is the latest version of freedoom anyway? I have 0.5 right now.