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MI: Special Edition - A comparison study


parabolee

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I dunno, none of you guys will prolly care but... I made a Cobb comparison, in Loom he had bumps on his face cuz he was the "hideous Cob" and in SMI he still had some bumps on his face, but in the SE he has no bumps on his face... he must have got some high powered acne medication.

 

cobbcomparison.jpg

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I dunno, none of you guys will prolly care but... I made a Cobb comparison, in Loom he had bumps on his face cuz he was the "hideous Cob" and in SMI he still had some bumps on his face, but in the SE he has no bumps on his face... he must have got some high powered acne medication.

 

Very interesting! Guess they didn't notice the bumps in the low res image. They also missed his moustache. And they probably had no idea he was from Loom.

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I wish they had fixed the spelling of Cob in the Special Edition.

 

I think thats part of the joke actually... he's just supposed to resemble Cob not actually be Cob.

 

I do like the new Cobb, though.

 

Yeah me too, I think out of the 3 close up pirates in the SCUMM :) Bar he looks the most like the VGA version of himself... the other 2 (re Estevan/One-eyed Frank and Mancomb Seepgood) look like they got a total reworking of their faces.

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You know on closer examination, after slowing that Guybrush animation down. I see I have not done it right, he seems to lunge forward after the apex of his stride. That's what happens when you do this stuff at work. I'll fix it tomorrow. He doesn't do that in the HD videos I watched. He does look stiffer than his VGA counterpart though, his posture is too perfect for how awesomely dorky he looks. :D

 

No doubt the LucasArts flash guy made a real mess of it though!

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guybrush.gif

That reminds me of my wet-dream Monkey Island art style: Purcell and Tiller working together. Blending the Purcell Monkey cover art with a little exaggerated Tiller greatness. All in 1080p with fluid framerate and lots of atmospheric fx.... ah a man can dream. I hope that TMI isn't too bland looking 3d-ish. I'd love to get a real feeling for the environments again...you know smell the sand of the caribbean beaches...

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Elaine Marley

 

Elaine-SE.png

 

Don't like how Elaine looks on the poster (too manly) but I think she looks pretty cute here. Although her walk animation is a little stiff. Good job we hardly see it in the game.

 

New Elaine's face is too symmetrical (looks like someone just flipped it for the other half of her face) and her eyes are too close together. Her left arm is completely messed up, it looks like it's just extremely short. They really should have made it as long as they other one with a bend in it. Crappy MS painting what I mean (the thing in the top left is how she looks with a totally symmetrical face):

balaa.jpg

Her other arm isn't much better really, it's more noticeable from the side but her arms really look like they need extending.

 

Also totally agree with SyntheticGerbil, the reason the animations look so stiff is definitely because they have been drawn stiff. Bill Plympton is a great example of fantastic animation on a low frame rate.

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Her left arm is completely messed up, it looks like it's just extremely short. They really should have made it as long as they other one with a bend in it.

 

Her other arm isn't much better really, it's more noticeable from the side but her arms really look like they need extending.

 

The issue with her arm is more an issue of style. I'm not saying it could not be improved, because it could. However this is not a simple case of the anatomical measurements being wrong because we are looking at a style that is very intentionally anatomically incorrect. Which is not uncommon in animation at all Allow me to clarify what I am trying to say with this image...

 

Elaine-anatomy.jpg

 

Anatomically speaking Elaine's head is massively out of proportion to the rest of her body, that is a design style choice and not a anatomical mistake. Following on from this she also has the very common issue with drawn women, in that her legs are far longer than her upper torso. Check almost any comic book to see this same issue. Now these are style choices that most people actually like, go see a top ten list of popular comic artists and then check the anatomy of their women.

 

Now this leaves the artist with the issue we are all seeing with the arms. A better artist would be able to hide this, but obviously this person has made a few mistakes and left it more obvious.

 

The issue I am talking about is this. With such a small torso compared to the arms, with what part of the body does the artists match the arm length? If you match it will the entire height of the person then the arms will stretch far too low on the legs. If her wrists started to approach her knees she would begin to look like a gorilla. What the artists has don is what most would do (although he could probably have gone a little lower) and that is left her arm stretch to the point in the legs that a regular arm would (as you can see form the anatomical model). This prevents her from looking like an ape, but can leave you with stubby looking arms. I think the artist should have gone a little further as I have done below (extending her arms only 7 pixels), but if you go to far you get the issue on the right (extending her arms only 16 pixels).

 

Elaine-anatomy2.jpg

 

Also totally agree with SyntheticGerbil, the reason the animations look so stiff is definitely because they have been drawn stiff. Bill Plympton is a great example of fantastic animation on a low frame rate.

 

Don't think anyone disagrees that the drawn frames are a little stiff, and that causes the slight stiffness in the animations. I have said so myself many times above.

 

However they are also pretty choppy, an issue with the increased resolution and that was what my point was regarding, at this fidelity the animations would really benefit from more frames than the originals and would look choppy not matter how well the frames were drawn. As we have clarified elsewhere these are different issue's all together.

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Well, you should still get appealing ratios in check.

 

Agreed, I said as much in my post.

 

I seriously wouldn't use any top ten modern comic book artists, especially the popular ones who no doubt work for the big two bull**** comic corps, as any kind of standard for good artwork or appealing anatomy.

 

Yeah I agree, but my point was what people like, style-wise. So going off popularity is what is important in that regards not what we as critical artists value as "good" art, which is far too subjective anyway.

 

I think you will probably find the exact same proportional differences in almost any popular hand drawn art. Especially manga/anime.

 

And I don't know about you, but I like slightly deformed proportions for cartoon esque style characters. For instance, Ren & Stimpy (as something I both know we like) -

 

johnk.jpg

 

She has most of the same deformed proportions, however the artist is clearly much better (although the style is different and more apt for deformity, proportion-wise).

 

Thanks, I don't feel like such a nut case now! :)

 

Nah, your still a nut case :thmbup1:

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...range from highly informative and revealing to weird bitter rants from a grumpy old man who likes hitting on young female animators.

 

 

 

Speaking of which... Skadi is one of the most delightful web comics running at the moment: http://dummcomics.com/index?sid=286 There's another example of appealingly exaggerated cartoony ladies for you.

 

Why isn't the Monkey Island special edition using a resurrected Preston Blair zombie and Katie Rice as their art team?

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Those aren't the same deformed proportions though, are they? That's a really well done drawing with the proportions being exaggerated with a much more masterful intention and appeal.

 

Here's another good example of doing it right: http://www.animationarchive.org/pics/pbanimation30-big.jpg

 

It has many of the same deformed proportions I mention in my post, huge head, shorter torso, long legs and arms shorter than height of body would indicate.

 

However I 100% agree it is a far more masterful drawn image, whcih is partially my point. Plus he at least got the elbow in the right place. One of the Elaine images biggest issues is the forearm being longer than the shoulder part of the arm. Also her hands are too big, which annoys me more than the length issue.

 

So again let me clarify I am agreeing the arm should be longer and looks a little stubby. My point is just it's not as simple as being anatomically incorrect.

 

I also think Elaine's arm looks much better when it is in motion in the walking animation.

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