I debated whether or not to revive this thread or start a brand new one. Ultimately decided I'll just resume this one. On other forums I was on in the past, typically reopening old threads was frowned upon, but I figured it might be better to keep this in the same thread? Not sure.
I stopped this a while back due to stress in other areas of life as well as having a lot of issues at work. I switched over to trying to write a novel instead of doing a game, did various tries at that. I had to pause that as well, but recently got back into that, and used AI art to help with some inspiration, but I wound up finding the AI art lacking as its not easy to get exactly what I want, especially when using non-standard character designs.
I finished a rough draft of the fantasy novel, but on editing got stuck on some dialogue areas as well as positioning of certain objects and characters during action scenes. I was considering the possibility of creating maps of the locations I'm trying to create using LPC assets and Tiled.
While my work is more stable now, I did have some stuff come up at work that made me want to pursue other goals, with one of them being trying to make a game again. An online friend of mine, Ryukas, brought up the idea of character sprites being used as a base to commission concept art, so I decided I'd pursue that idea as well (but I also want to use said sprites to experiment with game development).
After digging around for options on areas like itch.io, I wound up coming back to LPC.
So far I have posted the following recent updates:
"Relm Kisaragi" is the main inspiration for the long ponytail and elven ear variants. Her design hasn't changed that much since the original commission I made from Halcyon Enigma:
But I have made a bunch of changes to her character and backstory over the years. Still, her base design will still follow this design, but with some modifications (the "oversize sleeves" will be what she uses for both arms, for example; having it be just one arm was based on an old lore idea I since changed up that requires her to hide both her arms now).
The main reason I'm posting this right now is because its just taking forever for me to get the latest update out, as the past several updates have gone through relatively quickly. This next update, however, is me recreating Relm's outfit design, which is a lot of work. I've finally got the full sprites done for the kimono design:
However, I need to finish the long sleeves and boots. Once I realized just how incredibly long this was going to take, I opted to create several variants, including a "normal" kimono design:
I thought about doing a long one as well, going completely over the feet (this one is ankle-length), but for now I decided against that.
Both of these kimonos have their own trim sets as well, to reflect Relm's reddish-pink trimming on her black kimono. I also created a new Obi design based on Relm's here. When I originally made the request from Halcyon Enigma, I actually didn't exactly know that this was a kimono; I just asked him to base it on the Fire Emblem "Swordmaster" outfit. Which I'm pretty sure is just a kimono variant looking back on it. The strap would then be an Obi. I tested this kimono with the existing waist sashes and it works well with those, too, but this really does look best if you have some sort of sash across the middle; its designed with that idea in mind.
In addition, I'm creating two sets of long sleeves, but they're not yet finished. The first is a long sleeve based on Relm's "right" arm, and the second is an oversized sleeve based on her "left" arm. In her final design she'll just have both arms using oversize, but I'm creating both designs anyway to make this more modular. The sleeves also have trimming as well.
Making the sleeves separate was my way of adding more options as well. They're designed to act as a separate layer that goes over the existing sleeves seemlessly. Its POSSIBLE they might mesh with other outfits, but no guarantees there.
I'm... only making the female variant for now. I am going to enable "teen" on the ULPC, because this style does fit it, but I'm not reworking it to make the chest "flat" in that variation, if someone else wants to do that later feel free. I'm not doing male at all (I have no need for it right now, and no dresses are in the "male" style anyway, but perhaps if I was commissioned I MIGHT consider it), and I will eventually do child, but it may take a while. As for "pregnant", its not impossible I might eventually want to do that variation, but at this point I have no plans for it either.
I will likely submit this once all "universal" assets are complete (they should be done over the weekend I think), but I still intend on doing run/jump/sit as I _do_ want these assets for my character Relm. I'll edit my submission with those variants once they are complete.
To finish this off, I'm also creating a couple of new boot variants. And as an added bonus, I created some tabi socks:
NOTE: There's a couple of mistakes here. For one, I did not notice the feet are visible in the second-to-last "down" frame. I have a fix for this coming out later. For two, the "cast" animation has the "white" at the center be transparent because when I noticed I forgot to fill it in with white (due to the similar color scheme to the light skin tone), even though I replaced it in most locations I missed the spellcast animation. I will be fixing this soon.
Unlike the kimono, for the boots and socks I WILL be making male and child variants right away. Relm's boot design has a flap down over it, which is a difficult design to manage. I think I'm going to ignore the "zipper" on the boots, and the red trimming will just be on the rims of the boots instead. There are two variants of these boots; ones with a fold down flap in the front, and the other with just a rim all the way around. These boots I figure will work well for my character Dalton: https://www.deviantart.com/anniethegreenkitty/art/Dalton-Alder-646016750 (another commission I made from a different artist)
And as such, I fully intend on making the shoes work on the male design. The male design's feet aren't _that_ different, mostly just slightly larger on some frames and in different positions, so it shouldn't be hard to easily shift the boots and socks over to the male design, but the kimono is just too much work for now.
As I get new updates out I'll post more comments here again. After I finish the kimono, I intend on working with ElizaWy's LPC tilesets, creating some tilesets in Tiled, and try designing some maps. My next character sprite submission after this will probably be another "xlong" hairstyle (but not a ponytail) and animate Relm's XLong Ponytail as well.
Thanks... I'm trying to actually get something done for a change. Last time I did stuff for a little while then gave up, but now I'm trying to at least create enough assets to create a good chunk of my characters so I can do some experiments with game dev, probably using RPG-JS (though RPG Maker is not out of the quiestion; I just got MV on sale).
I started doing outfits now and... wow they're pretty tough. I think I'm only going to create one big set of a variant of items (using the same base assets) for now so I can finish the assets for my character Relm. I created a slit kimono design so far (with the kimono open on the bottom, similar to a Swordmaster style from Fire Emblem) but I think I can also create a "tight" kimono as well relatively easily alongside this.
After this set is done, I'll probably do some map design with Tiled (compile one or more tilesets with LPC assets and use that), then do more hairstyles/outfits/non-furry tails.
Speaking of which, I'm kinda surprised cat heads didn't exist already... usually cat is the go-to-first design choice when coming up with furry humanoid characters, but LPC currently has wolfman and not cat yet. Kinda funny.
I've seen this commentary around in general how catfolk are generally always preferred first, and its also ironic as in my universe its the Lykons (wolf/canine) that are far more prominent. My cat race (Zabos) have a rather minor presence as a whole by comparison.
For me I don't use those alternate heads. The only reason I even made the "top of head" designs is because I knew some people would like them. I actually wanted to make an "earless" version of the heads (I really dislike "catgirl" characters having two sets of ears, it just looks weird to me, that's why all my ear additions try and cover up the old ears if possible), but I never quite got around to that one. Perhaps I'll do that soon as well.
My "furry" races are really just "little bit beastly" and they have ears on the side of the head, which is why I have those versions in here. I included the more traditional ones for other people to use. The tails should be usable in either context, though. ^_^
I actually wanted to make the fluffy tails even larger than this, but its really hard to make it with sprites. Still, I think it turned out fairly well overall.
I was able to generate a better preview now much more easily now that I'm figuring out how to use Aseprite better.
I want to make other tails as well. I created "feather" ears but no feathered tail to accompany it, I will do that eventually. I also want to make dragon tail and tail fin, along with at least one more.
The "wolf" tail here may look too smooth. Perhaps if I want a thinner tail I should find a way to add more loose strands? Its really hard to do that with such small sprites and I'm not fully happen with the "fluffy" tail either in that aspect, but I think some frames look REALLY good.
If anyone has any suggestions on what they'd like to be seen done (including porting existing assets on the ULPC to child/sit/run/etc), let me know what you'd like to prioritize. Eventually I'll start porting some elements over to the other sets, especially the ones I want to use. I'm also open for suggestions on other things, though I do have a handful of plans I still want to work on later on.
I think I'm going to be doing more outfits next. I've never done a fully custom outfit from scratch.
Eventually I want to add more animated hairstyles as well, and animate my Relm ponytail I posted up last time. After playing through Chained Echoes I'm getting a feel for how the hair is done in other spritesheets and that could give me some ideas on how I can improve animations.
I need to do some additional cleanup on the furry ears and tails but they should be done within the next few days. I think I'm going to change the idle frame when standing still as I'm not quite happy with it, and the run animations are incomplete. Child is basically done in all contexts, while adult (male/female) need the furry ears added to alternate frames.
Well... I actually managed to fully animated the tails now, and tbh, I think they look pretty good. However, I need to finish the run and jump animations before I'm ready to post it. I had to update my setup in Aseprite to actually make it work out, but I realized how to properly create a full spritesheet from an animation using the Import and Export options, as opposed to just saving. Once I figured that out and got a good template going, I was able to more easily figure out the animations.
Next step was figuring out how the motions were to go, so I had to dig around online to see both how the design of the tails would look as well as the flow of the wagging, but I'm quite happy with it now.
I was really nervous about them, but I'm feeling a lot better after having gotten through these. Maybe I overreacted a bit in terms of how hard the animations would be which is what I was really hesitant to try doing the ponytail right away...
The next batch of updates will have three tails and five sets of ears:
Fluffy Wolf Tail
Wolf Tail (Slightly thinner)
Cat Tail
Cat Ears (Top of Head)
Wolf Ears (Top of Head)
Wolf Ears (Side of Head)
Cat Ears (Side of Head)
Feathered Ears (Side of Head)
I didn't include a feathered tail this time because I want to make a wing variant first, so I figured I'll just wait until later for that one.
All of these assets are done on Universal, just have to finish getting therm onto the other sets. (Child Universal doesn't have Top of Head ears yet, but it won't be hard to finish those.)
Eventually I'll also make Dragon Tail, Prehensile Lizard Tail (Chameleon), Tail Fin, and Tail Feathers. Not quite ready for this yet, though.
Yeah I noticed you were working on the LPC stuff as well. I basically had some stuff happen at work that really pushed me into the idea of wanting to try making a game again, so I looked around for options and ultimately decided to go back to LPC. I'm in a much better position to actually stick around this time than I was last time, and if I actually want to finish a game using LPC assets I'll need a decent chunk of assets, so I'm likely going to be doing quite a bit of work on it.
That being said, once I have a small handful of stuff to work with I'll probably start at least trying to compile something a little simple before going into a much bigger idea. I still need enough assets to design a good chunk of my races and notable major characters, though.
I'll probably also be working on trying to convert some existing assets to alternate actions and child sets, too.
I debated whether or not to revive this thread or start a brand new one. Ultimately decided I'll just resume this one. On other forums I was on in the past, typically reopening old threads was frowned upon, but I figured it might be better to keep this in the same thread? Not sure.
I stopped this a while back due to stress in other areas of life as well as having a lot of issues at work. I switched over to trying to write a novel instead of doing a game, did various tries at that. I had to pause that as well, but recently got back into that, and used AI art to help with some inspiration, but I wound up finding the AI art lacking as its not easy to get exactly what I want, especially when using non-standard character designs.
I finished a rough draft of the fantasy novel, but on editing got stuck on some dialogue areas as well as positioning of certain objects and characters during action scenes. I was considering the possibility of creating maps of the locations I'm trying to create using LPC assets and Tiled.
While my work is more stable now, I did have some stuff come up at work that made me want to pursue other goals, with one of them being trying to make a game again. An online friend of mine, Ryukas, brought up the idea of character sprites being used as a base to commission concept art, so I decided I'd pursue that idea as well (but I also want to use said sprites to experiment with game development).
After digging around for options on areas like itch.io, I wound up coming back to LPC.
So far I have posted the following recent updates:
https://opengameart.org/content/lpc-1-hairstyle-2-hair-extensions-3-prev...
https://opengameart.org/content/lpc-new-elven-ear-variants
https://opengameart.org/content/lpc-relm-hairstyle-pieces-xlong-ponytail...
https://opengameart.org/content/lpc-furry-ears-tails-for-rpg-sprites
"Relm Kisaragi" is the main inspiration for the long ponytail and elven ear variants. Her design hasn't changed that much since the original commission I made from Halcyon Enigma:
https://www.deviantart.com/halcyon-enigma/art/Relm-197635922
But I have made a bunch of changes to her character and backstory over the years. Still, her base design will still follow this design, but with some modifications (the "oversize sleeves" will be what she uses for both arms, for example; having it be just one arm was based on an old lore idea I since changed up that requires her to hide both her arms now).
The main reason I'm posting this right now is because its just taking forever for me to get the latest update out, as the past several updates have gone through relatively quickly. This next update, however, is me recreating Relm's outfit design, which is a lot of work. I've finally got the full sprites done for the kimono design:

However, I need to finish the long sleeves and boots. Once I realized just how incredibly long this was going to take, I opted to create several variants, including a "normal" kimono design:

I thought about doing a long one as well, going completely over the feet (this one is ankle-length), but for now I decided against that.
Both of these kimonos have their own trim sets as well, to reflect Relm's reddish-pink trimming on her black kimono. I also created a new Obi design based on Relm's here. When I originally made the request from Halcyon Enigma, I actually didn't exactly know that this was a kimono; I just asked him to base it on the Fire Emblem "Swordmaster" outfit. Which I'm pretty sure is just a kimono variant looking back on it. The strap would then be an Obi. I tested this kimono with the existing waist sashes and it works well with those, too, but this really does look best if you have some sort of sash across the middle; its designed with that idea in mind.
In addition, I'm creating two sets of long sleeves, but they're not yet finished. The first is a long sleeve based on Relm's "right" arm, and the second is an oversized sleeve based on her "left" arm. In her final design she'll just have both arms using oversize, but I'm creating both designs anyway to make this more modular. The sleeves also have trimming as well.
Making the sleeves separate was my way of adding more options as well. They're designed to act as a separate layer that goes over the existing sleeves seemlessly. Its POSSIBLE they might mesh with other outfits, but no guarantees there.
I'm... only making the female variant for now. I am going to enable "teen" on the ULPC, because this style does fit it, but I'm not reworking it to make the chest "flat" in that variation, if someone else wants to do that later feel free. I'm not doing male at all (I have no need for it right now, and no dresses are in the "male" style anyway, but perhaps if I was commissioned I MIGHT consider it), and I will eventually do child, but it may take a while. As for "pregnant", its not impossible I might eventually want to do that variation, but at this point I have no plans for it either.
I will likely submit this once all "universal" assets are complete (they should be done over the weekend I think), but I still intend on doing run/jump/sit as I _do_ want these assets for my character Relm. I'll edit my submission with those variants once they are complete.
To finish this off, I'm also creating a couple of new boot variants. And as an added bonus, I created some tabi socks:
NOTE: There's a couple of mistakes here. For one, I did not notice the feet are visible in the second-to-last "down" frame. I have a fix for this coming out later. For two, the "cast" animation has the "white" at the center be transparent because when I noticed I forgot to fill it in with white (due to the similar color scheme to the light skin tone), even though I replaced it in most locations I missed the spellcast animation. I will be fixing this soon.
Unlike the kimono, for the boots and socks I WILL be making male and child variants right away. Relm's boot design has a flap down over it, which is a difficult design to manage. I think I'm going to ignore the "zipper" on the boots, and the red trimming will just be on the rims of the boots instead. There are two variants of these boots; ones with a fold down flap in the front, and the other with just a rim all the way around. These boots I figure will work well for my character Dalton:
https://www.deviantart.com/anniethegreenkitty/art/Dalton-Alder-646016750 (another commission I made from a different artist)
And as such, I fully intend on making the shoes work on the male design. The male design's feet aren't _that_ different, mostly just slightly larger on some frames and in different positions, so it shouldn't be hard to easily shift the boots and socks over to the male design, but the kimono is just too much work for now.
As I get new updates out I'll post more comments here again. After I finish the kimono, I intend on working with ElizaWy's LPC tilesets, creating some tilesets in Tiled, and try designing some maps. My next character sprite submission after this will probably be another "xlong" hairstyle (but not a ponytail) and animate Relm's XLong Ponytail as well.
Thanks... I'm trying to actually get something done for a change. Last time I did stuff for a little while then gave up, but now I'm trying to at least create enough assets to create a good chunk of my characters so I can do some experiments with game dev, probably using RPG-JS (though RPG Maker is not out of the quiestion; I just got MV on sale).
I started doing outfits now and... wow they're pretty tough. I think I'm only going to create one big set of a variant of items (using the same base assets) for now so I can finish the assets for my character Relm. I created a slit kimono design so far (with the kimono open on the bottom, similar to a Swordmaster style from Fire Emblem) but I think I can also create a "tight" kimono as well relatively easily alongside this.
After this set is done, I'll probably do some map design with Tiled (compile one or more tilesets with LPC assets and use that), then do more hairstyles/outfits/non-furry tails.
Looks really nice! Assets are a little small to use in the projects I'd want to use them for, but I'm sure these will come in hand for others.
"khajiit/tabaxi/catfolk"
Speaking of which, I'm kinda surprised cat heads didn't exist already... usually cat is the go-to-first design choice when coming up with furry humanoid characters, but LPC currently has wolfman and not cat yet. Kinda funny.
I've seen this commentary around in general how catfolk are generally always preferred first, and its also ironic as in my universe its the Lykons (wolf/canine) that are far more prominent. My cat race (Zabos) have a rather minor presence as a whole by comparison.
Lol!
For me I don't use those alternate heads. The only reason I even made the "top of head" designs is because I knew some people would like them. I actually wanted to make an "earless" version of the heads (I really dislike "catgirl" characters having two sets of ears, it just looks weird to me, that's why all my ear additions try and cover up the old ears if possible), but I never quite got around to that one. Perhaps I'll do that soon as well.
My "furry" races are really just "little bit beastly" and they have ears on the side of the head, which is why I have those versions in here. I included the more traditional ones for other people to use. The tails should be usable in either context, though. ^_^
I actually wanted to make the fluffy tails even larger than this, but its really hard to make it with sprites. Still, I think it turned out fairly well overall.
I was able to generate a better preview now much more easily now that I'm figuring out how to use Aseprite better.
I want to make other tails as well. I created "feather" ears but no feathered tail to accompany it, I will do that eventually. I also want to make dragon tail and tail fin, along with at least one more.
The "wolf" tail here may look too smooth. Perhaps if I want a thinner tail I should find a way to add more loose strands? Its really hard to do that with such small sprites and I'm not fully happen with the "fluffy" tail either in that aspect, but I think some frames look REALLY good.
If anyone has any suggestions on what they'd like to be seen done (including porting existing assets on the ULPC to child/sit/run/etc), let me know what you'd like to prioritize. Eventually I'll start porting some elements over to the other sets, especially the ones I want to use. I'm also open for suggestions on other things, though I do have a handful of plans I still want to work on later on.
I think I'm going to be doing more outfits next. I've never done a fully custom outfit from scratch.
Eventually I want to add more animated hairstyles as well, and animate my Relm ponytail I posted up last time. After playing through Chained Echoes I'm getting a feel for how the hair is done in other spritesheets and that could give me some ideas on how I can improve animations.
Forgot to mention, but these assets are now available on Sanderfrenken's Universal Character Generator:
https://sanderfrenken.github.io/Universal-LPC-Spritesheet-Character-Gene...
I need to do some additional cleanup on the furry ears and tails but they should be done within the next few days. I think I'm going to change the idle frame when standing still as I'm not quite happy with it, and the run animations are incomplete. Child is basically done in all contexts, while adult (male/female) need the furry ears added to alternate frames.
This is a really cute set. Nicely done.
Well... I actually managed to fully animated the tails now, and tbh, I think they look pretty good. However, I need to finish the run and jump animations before I'm ready to post it. I had to update my setup in Aseprite to actually make it work out, but I realized how to properly create a full spritesheet from an animation using the Import and Export options, as opposed to just saving. Once I figured that out and got a good template going, I was able to more easily figure out the animations.
Next step was figuring out how the motions were to go, so I had to dig around online to see both how the design of the tails would look as well as the flow of the wagging, but I'm quite happy with it now.
I was really nervous about them, but I'm feeling a lot better after having gotten through these. Maybe I overreacted a bit in terms of how hard the animations would be which is what I was really hesitant to try doing the ponytail right away...
The next batch of updates will have three tails and five sets of ears:
I didn't include a feathered tail this time because I want to make a wing variant first, so I figured I'll just wait until later for that one.
All of these assets are done on Universal, just have to finish getting therm onto the other sets. (Child Universal doesn't have Top of Head ears yet, but it won't be hard to finish those.)
Eventually I'll also make Dragon Tail, Prehensile Lizard Tail (Chameleon), Tail Fin, and Tail Feathers. Not quite ready for this yet, though.
Yeah I noticed you were working on the LPC stuff as well. I basically had some stuff happen at work that really pushed me into the idea of wanting to try making a game again, so I looked around for options and ultimately decided to go back to LPC. I'm in a much better position to actually stick around this time than I was last time, and if I actually want to finish a game using LPC assets I'll need a decent chunk of assets, so I'm likely going to be doing quite a bit of work on it.
That being said, once I have a small handful of stuff to work with I'll probably start at least trying to compile something a little simple before going into a much bigger idea. I still need enough assets to design a good chunk of my races and notable major characters, though.
I'll probably also be working on trying to convert some existing assets to alternate actions and child sets, too.
Pages