Tutorial for creatures

[Relic]

This tutorial was created by Óin, for the tibia.de graphics forum. You can find the original here: link

NOTE: Humans/human based creatures do not nessisarily need to look like tiban humans. They are shown here because that is what the tutorial was created for. Although all the aspect/lighting also applies to Dristin. -Relic

So, you’ve decided to draw a creature? Congratulations! While working with the weird perspective, animations and death n’ decay is very challenging, it can also be extremely rewarding.
This isn’t a tutorial to teach you shade or anything such, and I’m counting on that you know the most basic of basics about monsters and skins. This is a collection of notes of what I think about when making humanoid creatures. It’s a big tutorial for an enormous subject, so be prepared for some reading (1784 words total! This part has 994 words.) You don’t make a monster in one session, so you don’t have to read this tutorial in one session either.

Beginner’s Section

-Perspective
Start with getting a hold on some character and monster skins from the game.

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A good way to begin is to try to replicate (not editing) one of the skins. There’s no chronological way to tell you all this, so read through the whole of this perspective guide before you start.
Begin with drawing the line-art, and then fill up with basic colors as you go.
Like walls, monsters lean 45°.

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Draw a diagonal line and make sure the character follows it.
Here’s a fact for you: [Dristin’s] perspective is impossible and cannot be replicated in real life, you can’t see something right from the top and still see the sides. If you met a [Dristin] on the street, he’d look like this.

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Weird, huh?
Surfaces that are flat up against the sky are drawn straight from above – You have to judge when something stops being flat up against the sky. Make the top sides brighter than the sides so you can see.

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Just try, it takes practice.

Your result may be good or not so good at this point. Here comes a principal rule to follow: All points on one side of the graphics should be parallel to those on the other side. This means that arms should end at the same pixel height-wise, that they should begin at the same pixel height wise,

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that one shoulder shouldn’t be lower than the other one etc. It applies to all kinds of details.
You can override this rule by one or possibly two pixels on the arms, since it can be hard to fit details on the small left arms that you get with this rule. The Character outfits do this. With bigger monsters you shouldn’t need to make any exceptions, however.

< As you progress, often twist and turn the skin so that it faces east instead of south,

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as this helps when looking for perspective faults. Also, try drawing the character facing east instead of south.

-Shading
The top of monsters are a bit brighter than the sides.

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Remember this and use it to show where something is “flat up against the sky.” Aside from that, creatures are shaded in a weird and undefined way. Just shade them darker towards the edges.

< Did I mention you should look at in-game stuff?

[Relic]

-Animation
We move on to animation. Not too much work, but hard to get good. Prepare to do it more than once.
The animation should have [at least] two frames. You shouldn’t just move the legs and arms back, but also forward – don’t keep them like they are when the creature is standing still.
Don’t select the whole leg and move it forward/back, that looks cheap. Instead, just move the foot forward/back and then redraw the leg so that it fits. Keep in mind where you have your joints. Avoid making the movements too small!
The Character and monster skins are, yet again, your best friend. Try checking yourself when moving around too.

< WoT’s Monster Section [link] has animated monsters of all sorts to look at.

-Back Side?
There’s actually not much more to say about drawing the back sides of creatures. Once again, use the character skins from Tibia as reference. If you make a monster, you should at least draw the back and front, otherwise it isn’t that much to it.
You can simply remove the toes and out-sticking parts of the feet and make them go out on the other side,

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and then paint over the front side. If you put the back side of a monster next to the front, it should usually be “shorter” because you removed the toes.

Addendum by Kohai:
Get the east-facing version (rotating the south one as said in the tuto), put it in the very left part of a 64x32 canvas and draw horizontal lines coming from the key points (top and bottom of the head, bottom of the trunk, knees, and feet). Now start drawing the west-facing version in the right section of your 64x32 canvas, draw each part of the body following the horizontal guides. This way you'll avoid the problem of having an sprite taller than the other.

< The back side can be boring and intimidating sometimes, maybe you could try drawing it first?

-Death and Decay
If you make humans, you actually don’t have to make this one, since all humans in-game have the same dead bodies. On the other hand, this is a bit lame. So if you’re making a non-human or simply want to take the time, draw Death and Decay.

There are three stages. The first should just show the dead creature lying down, with blood or without. The rules for perspective at this point are either very blurry or nonexistent, so try your way along.
The second stage of decay is the Zombie Mode. Skin will at this point become white and grayish, and the body thinned out and skinny. Just remember where there are bones, like the ribcage, that would hinder this. Blood should now be brown-black from coagulation. Bones could be showing through.
Last stage, bones Do an image search for skeletons on Google so that you’re not coming up with lots of imaginary bones. Don’t make grey, unsaturated bones, but add some weak yellow to them. You can see how I did when making my Ogre.

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< Yeah, it’s a bit of work, but after this you’re bloody finished with it man

So you’ve done all that? Good effort man, it was a ton of work
I’m going to write an “Advanced” section sometime soon, and I might update and edit this part by adding more pictures and making it easier to understand.
Wait a minute or two before writing, I have to make some more posts

Yours,
Óin

[Relic]

Advanced Section

Well, advanced and advanced, most people could probably apply some of this to their graphics, but those that aren’t quite so competent yet would do better focusing on the basics.
This part is very much a personal declaration of what I think is good and distinguishes an interesting and special creature from a “normal” one. Its nature makes this part (800 words) somewhat unstructured

The first thing you should do is to get a hold on some monster skins (WoT, Tibia.com)! Because they weren’t made to be used by everyone, these are usually more specialized and interesting than the character skins.
As I talk about a monster, look it up in the monster libraries and notice the things I'm pointing out.

Stance

So let’s begin with the stance of your creature while still.
- As a start, think about how often you stand with perfectly straight arms… Not so often, right? Tension in our muscles (or something) will pull our lower arms forward a bit, and the effect may be enhanced depending on our body structure. Look at the Cyclops and trolls for examples of this in Tibia. Straight arms should be avoided unless they fit the character especially well. - On some creatures the arms shouldn’t hang down at all – think about the boxing position for the Monk’s fists, the outstretched arms of the Banshee or the Zerker holding his halberd.
- You could do the same things with the legs. Most people usually put their weight on one leg and not on both, and far from all people stand with both their feet facing forward just next to each other. You could show this by pointing one of the feet a bit outwards,

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and/or maybe having it positioned a pixel behind or forward the other foot. By doing this, you’re making the monster more individual, so unless it’s supposed to be rare, be careful with it.
- The space between the feet of your creature is its supported area. as long as its center of gravity stays inside, it wouldn't fall over. So when you eventually try hunchbacks or big-bellied monsters, try to guess where their center of gravity would be and make sure its inside the creatures supported area (this is so floaty it's ridiculous, so just be reasonable). My Ogre has a big belly, but also a set of very beefy arms, so it balances out.

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As long as you manage this, you don't have to stick to the usual straight-back stance.

Dance!

…From standing still to moving.
You don’t want to have your creature move stiffly unless, once again, it’s the way they should be. You don’t want the movement to be all typical and uninteresting either.
-To battle stiffness, you make your creature make big and clear moves, not one or two pixels back and forth. I usually take the stills’ feet positions and then move the feet at least two pixels either forward or backward, creating a difference of four pixels between each animation frame. Remember that this is relative to the creature’s size.
- Another good thing is to make some light changes or move around thing on the whole creature, not simply the limbs. If you moved in an armor, the highlight’s position on the metal would probably differ a bit, yea? Fur would move around a bit too. Really, the whole body would move, thus changing the lights and shadows. The Dragon, Beholder and Gargoyle show this well. Many complain about the work of Jan Pedro, but I’ve learnt this from him, and he really does it well.

[Relic]

- What you could also do is to deviate from the usual “arm back, arm forward.” Lord Ariakas did this with his Dwarf and Mino Guards; see how they move their weapons.
Oh, by the way, you see how their pauldrons (shoulder armor) moves along with their arms? This can be a super improvement for many creatures.

Weapons

- This brings me to another thing (huh???,) and that is to not make weapons sticking out diagonally from a creature. You always see the top straight from above, remember? So having the weapon like that would mean that it being held pointing like this.

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Now, you can hold a weapon like that, but, eh, I don’t, and it doesn’t work too well in Tibia where it sticks out a lot. Most people put the weapons like that because they’re not sure how they should do. Lord Ariakas, once again, first came up with the “correct” perspective for weapons - straight forward. Look at the Guards and the Warlords and Leaders when they're standing still.
Anyway, do play around with having the weapons pointed and tilted slightly in various directions, but make sure that you understand the way perspective works on them and keep it in mind at all times.

Statues, a subsection

Since statues are essentially grey (hopefully with a hint of some color) creatures standing still, it’s strange that so few make them. On the other hand, statues are where your mastery of perspective can really shine, as you can try your mind against difficult stances - stances that living monsters wouldn’t assume when they’re standing still. The Angel and Huntress statues are two tough examples. I drew the Huntress statue - from both sides – and it was bloody hard! Great fun!

-

This was the Advanced Section. I think there’s more to write down, but I’ll take that when I actually remember it

Yours,
Óin