skins Earlier skin touch-ups! [Goh/Roseate/Earlies]

[-Variant]

First of all, some folks may like this, some won't; But here me out.

Klei has changed a lot since early DST, heck I remember being there for the open beta. But this also means their art style has changed, which I'm sure almost everyone's noticed by now.

Most folks are nostalgic about them, but comparing them to almost every other bit of modern cosmetic makes you realize that they leave a lot to be desired.

Ideally the goal of this post is to see if there's any chance of having the team take a look back at some of the older skins and give them MINOR touch ups to make them more-so fit into their swap_icon art and portraits.
Not talking about redesigns, adding anything extra, nothing removed. Just quick touch ups to the existing art to make them better fit in and feel like the newer sets!

I've got some examples myself, to show what I mean.

My first example being Wicker's Guest of Honor dress.
This is the swap icon, its selection art, alongside the actual in-game dress.

And here's my take on the dress, I apologize for its messiness, I haven't drawn sprites in a while now.
Made from scratch with only the swap icon as my reference, with the original next to it.

I used the original dress' colors and tried to keep it as vanilla as possible. It can be done better but this is just to get the idea across!

Willow's Rosate Dress is another example, nowhere near as intense but I personally feel it could be touched up a bit. Others may disagree.

Again, not perfect. I struggled to make the colors closer aligned, but I think some minor desaturations and additional lines help a lot. I also made the highlights follow the curves of the dress, the rim, and the bust line. I sharpened said bustline as well as touching up the heels a bit too. Not perfect, but the idea is there!

 

Additionally some mutuals/friends of mine have taken their shot at touching up some of the earlier cosmetics as well.

For example, this gorgeous GoH WX edit from @crushcircuit! I'm personally a huge fan of the toned down coloring and shines, it really does make their chasis look more polished as stated by the skins descriptions.
Swap icon is here, blow.

And the OG for comparison below.

Here's another, a take on Wigfird's GoH armor and head from @TrashLord! 
Here's their edit. Again, I'm such a sucker for shine. They also made her headband properly wrap around her head, like most other that she wears.
This both fits in with the swap icon and the portrait!

And as usual, the OG below.

Please do note these mock ups aren't hard meant to be redesigns or 'better' takes on the skins, nor are they perfect!

TLDR: It'd be nice for the artists to possibly come back to some of the older skins and touch them up.
A lot of the problems with them that I listed here also apply to a lot of other earlier skins that I haven't listed or made mock ups of!
The goal is to stay as close as possible to their original designs without adding or taking away anything but making them feel as if they were part of a more modern set.

4 hours ago, -Variant said:

also apply to a lot of other earlier skins that I haven't listed or made mock ups of!

Wanted to quickly follow up on this!

Spoiler

Some examples I've personally caught are the lack of white lines in almost every Triumphant skin, despite their swap icons displaying them.
One of the survivors being Wigfrids armor. Wickers bust line shape is also inconsistent here as well. 
Wolfgangs belt could also use some depth. Same with Wigfrids, here too. It's very small.

Webber's GoH torso is also quite flat compared to its icon.

Willow's belt being hard to see in-game.

And yadda, yadda, you get it! Minor things, but I felt the need to bring them up as well!

 

[lowercase skye]

I get what you're going for here, and I think minor touch-ups are fine, however I think major changes like some of the ones here are kinda... overdetailed? It brings to mind when people were criticizing the Cawnival rugs for their art being too simple based on a still texture, despite how in-game they're covered in various decor and would look way too messy if they had more details. I think a similar thing could happen here: the art quality of that Wickerbottom dress you drew is AMAZING... but how it's it going to look in-game, all scrunched down and placed under a character with a 10x simpler head? Something that looks good in a blank void won't necessarily always look good when placed into context, and I worry that it might look silly in-game.

[YouKnowWho]

Great post as always! I’d absolutely adore seeing these older sets get some love, especially now that they’re all more accessible with spools.

[-Variant]

8 minutes ago, sylvia wander o said:

the art quality of that Wickerbottom dress you drew is AMAZING... but how it's it going to look in-game, all scrunched down and placed under a character with a 10x simpler head?

Thank yyoooouuuu, appreciate it, though yeah that's always one of the biggest concerns.
This is why I'd rather Klei take their crack at it, I had edited the actual in-game art then swapped to custom scratch made art (And even then its smaller than it could be, relatively speaking.) so it should be around the same size for a rough concept of an in-game sprite.
It's not my finest work, but it was just to get the concept across. There's a lot of room showing on the actual dress in-game since its drawn a bit lower so I don't think some minor detailing will be too bad, I just wanted to make it more comparable to say; her Roseate dress.

[Asparagazpacho]

love this post! Some of my favourite stuff is nitpicking (i mean this in the best way!) parts of the game to hopefully improve or just generally comment on. it shows a real love towards the original material. Why delve so deep into a games cosmetics? because you love the game! these touch-ups are gorgeous. I do hope they can take your advice and implement some of these! The comparisons and redraws are great! I wish we had more posts like these

[xhyom]

It's impressive how those little white lines make such a huge difference in a metallic texture, I always thought this WX skin was pretty bland conceptually, but this shiny gold gives it a new life nice work

[Evelo]

my eyes don't work. I don't see much of a different (besides the Wickerbottom one and the color change of the WX)

[Scrimbles]

The Wigfrid and WX-78 comparisons are probably the most I would want if they were to touch up skins/items.

I feel like some skins and items have been getting a bit too 'detailed' which I am strongly against when it comes to Don't Starves artstyle, but minor touch ups here and there are always welcome!

[WhackE]

Yeah I see where you're coming from and I think your art looks great as always, but I also don't think Klei should go back and change old skins as it can be polarizing, especially the WX one that's there, I think it looks better with the yellow.

you're heart is in the right place, but I think Klei shouldn't touch up old art.

Spoiler

Wickers GoH Dress is kind of bad though.

 

[crushcircuit]

58 minutes ago, Evelo said:

my eyes don't work. I don't see much of a different (besides the Wickerbottom one and the color change of the WX)

in order, the changes are:
changing wickerbottom's dress to be a little more detailed, like the icon
changing willow's roseate dress to have a bit more detail and a better bust line, with slight changes to the roses on the heels
changing wx's guest of honor (haha i made that one) to be a bit darker and less yellow (mostly to look closer to gold, or a polished version of default as the descriptions imply), making them shinier to match their polish, and making their glasses have more definition and having a shine like their portrait
changing wigfrid's guest of honor to have shinier armor and adjusting her hair and the headband to sit on her head better

hope this helps! ^_^

[Leonardo Cox]

Ummmm ACTUALLY wickerbottom's dress looks like this:

Sorry, your entire post is now invalidated. gg.

Spoiler

But yeah, some old skins really need some touch ups.

 

[-Variant]

1 hour ago, Evelo said:

my eyes don't work. I don't see much of a different (besides the Wickerbottom one and the color change of the WX)

You can open both images in a new tab, to see the differences.
The mock up for WX has their colors slightly muted, added shine all over their body - including their glasses, and gave their glasses 3D depth, namely in the side view!

My Willow one is very minor, adding black lines, a slightly sharper bust line, and making the colors closer to the icon.

For the Wig its mostly just giving her a golden metal shine to her armor, some details in the skirt and making her headband properly wrap around her head!

12 minutes ago, Scrimbles said:

some skins and items have been getting a bit too 'detailed'

Yeah, that's entirely fair. Again, I won't want a whole heap of detail, just small details.

1 minute ago, Leonardo Cox said:

Ummmm ACTUALLY wickerbottom's dress looks like this:

Sorry, your entire post is now invalidated. gg.

  Hide contents

But yeah, some old skins really need some touch ups.

 

Yeah, already getting to fixing the post.

31 minutes ago, WhackE said:

especially the WX one that's there, I think it looks better with the yellow.

Yeah, that's entirely fair!
I think I personally feel the minor smaller touch ups are fine, I don't want to entirely change skins people have paid for in the past, so I'm not certain their colors would change at all should they be revisited anyhow.

[Juanasdf]

I agree.

I just want the dresses to be a bit more detailed honestly

[MikoFanboy]

I made a post similar to this 2 years ago and sadly nothing change

 

 Seem like Klei decision is not change anything about old skin

I'm really curious why they choose to keep thing that way because adjustment or minor update for old skin is something really common in other game

 

[HowlVoid]

Damn variant just work for Klei already.

And while you're at it, propose skins for wormwoods trail of flowers, wink wink.

[SpuddyBuddy]

Honestly one skin that they really need to touch up, if they only did one, would be Maxwell's Guest of Honor suit. I was so excited when I saw we were getting a white suit, but like...

this ain't it, chief.

I can live with the rolled up sleeves because that's just how skins were done back then(though it was released much later I assume it was designed alongside the others, and Woodie's GoH was the closest thing we had to non-scribble black long sleeves at the time), but why the black pants on the torso sprite? It just looks kinda... bad. Wolfgang got to have white pants, so why not Max?

(thanks for the feature btw!)

PS: if I'd thought of it at the time i probably would have shortened Wig's skirt instead of adding those crease kinda details; that way you could actually like see the shin armor

[Dr. Safety]

5 hours ago, TrashLord said:

Honestly one skin that they really need to touch up, if they only did one, would be Maxwell's Guest of Honor suit. I was so excited when I saw we were getting a white suit, but like...

this ain't it, chief.

I can live with the rolled up sleeves because that's just how skins were done back then(though it was released much later I assume it was designed alongside the others, and Woodie's GoH was the closest thing we had to non-scribble black long sleeves at the time), but why the black pants on the torso sprite? It just looks kinda... bad. Wolfgang got to have white pants, so why not Max?

(thanks for the feature btw!)

PS: if I'd thought of it at the time i probably would have shortened Wig's skirt instead of adding those crease kinda details; that way you could actually like see the shin armor

I've had that same thought ever since it came out. Im guessing that's supposed to be a black belt or cummerbund thing, but it covers the entire bottom half of his torso so it just looks terrible with white legs. I never wear it but I always wear the guest of honor head

[SpuddyBuddy]

On 3/20/2023 at 7:53 AM, Dr. Safety said:

I've had that same thought ever since it came out. Im guessing that's supposed to be a black belt or cummerbund thing, but it covers the entire bottom half of his torso so it just looks terrible with white legs. I never wear it but I always wear the guest of honor head

I actually had the same thought about it maybe being a botched attempt at a cummerbund, but when I checked his portrait I didn't see anything. There is some rather intense line shading, though; maybe there was some confusion between the portrait and sprite artists? IDK how designing skins works tho