Re: Crisis Point: Extinction - Metroidvania H-game - NOW ON PATREON!
You're a great animator and scripter, and this project and your mission statement are really encouraging.
The anatomy in your sprite art bugs the heck out of me though. I'm really late to the thread and the project for all this, I know.
The biggest problem, and one that would solve your torso length issue, is that the breast and shoulders appear to be mounted too high, at least in the running animations. The breasts and shoulders look like they start at the base of the neck. Neckboobs. Define the shoulders and/or bring the shoulders and arms down a little, and then reposition the breasts so the beginning of their bulge starts at the armpits.
There's a lack of shoulder definition in general. On the heroine and monster's standing sprites they are both tucking the far shoulder away without turning their upper bodies correspondingly. In the sex sprites for both of them, her shoulders and shoulder blades are entirely absent. I think this also causes her arms to be thin and straight - lack of foundation.
There is a general problem you have with torsos, I think. You draw them straight down with a dip in the back, but people's torsos are more bean-shaped. A person's front and back both curve the same way and the chest is sloped (men as well as women) from the very top where the shoulders are, the leanest part of the torso. I think this is why the monster's body looks flat.
In the standing sprite you seem to be trying to show us her butt, but from that angle - nearly facing us - you just wouldn't see it. The butt flattens out from the crack, where it bulges, and at that angle the bulge would be completely behind her and not within view. At angles like that you should focus on defining her hips and leading into the outer thighs with them.
In her standing sprite the jacket doesn't fall over her breasts correctly. The jacket opening appears to be facing directly toward us and her breasts appear pointed slightly away. It also doesn't match the running and jumping sprites: When standing the jacket is big enough to nearly cover her breasts, when running her breasts are so big that the jacket can only hang behind them.
Finally, consider that pectoral muscles and breasts are attached to the chest AND the shoulders, and that breasts only make cleavage inside clothing or anything else forcing them together. Even ridiculously large breasts hang to the sides when unsupported.
i appreciate the suggestions, there was a lot of helpful info in there - however, a few of them are a bit off. i'll go through your comments in order.
the running "neckboobs" is something i noticed a while ago. i will admit torso spriting is my weakness, shoulders especially, and i was planning on going back over the animation very soon to fix up a lot of the problems with it.
i messed around with the monster sprite a bit though, to give his far shoulder more definition:
it definitely looks better so i'll try to rework animations to reflect the change.
Alicia's standing sprite likely won't go through that change, though. her far shoulder is more or less hidden by her jacket and breasts, and her posture wouldn't really show off that shoulder all too much. to be perfectly honest though, i'm really not sure what i can do to her side poses to give her shoulders definition.. it's a tricky perspective to work with in regards to that.
i don't think i agree with your torso comments, though. the enemy's back may look flat, but at least part of that is because he's not intended to perfectly emulate the human body - his upper torso is hunched forward a bit to give him a more monster-like appearance, while his lower torso doesn't curve in the same way. thus, it doesn't curve in a bean-like fashion. as for the lady, her torso does curve quite a bit in her sideways standing sprite. here's a shot of her torso sans-arms:
her stomach may seem a bit flat, but curving it forward more makes her breasts look less impressive, so i chose the lesser of two evils.
i recently got complaints from a very vocal person about her ass, specifically the standing sprite, and i said the exact same thing you did. what you're looking at are her shorts flaring out to the side rather than hugging her legs, not me attempting to make her ass show. if you look at her other leg they also stick out a bit over there. still, i'll try tweaking with it to make it more obvious.
as for her jacket not falling correctly, you could consider it an artistic liberty to try and show off her cleavage more, lol. i'm not just going to excuse it like that though. i'll mess around with it a bit to see if i can make it look more natural without diminishing her cleavage. you'd be wrong about the jacking not matching up correctly in the running sprite, though - it's not hanging back because her breasts are too big, but because it's catching wind from her movement and flowing backwards.
that last one can definitely be explained away with artistic liberties, though. i'm not going for hyperrealism - cleavage is sexy, and if you look at the most recent sex animation i posted, you can tell that her breasts ARE falling to the side during the animation rather than ignoring gravity.
anyway, thanks for taking the time to write all that - and doing so in a respectful manner, nonetheless. i appreciate that greatly, and i'll do my best to improve it.
