New Style Moo Cow (Patreon)

Hello! Today's release is something fun!

So... if you'll allow me, there's some backstory and extra information about this one. It's not just another regular asset drop.

See, this is actually an idea that I've had in the back of my mind for a while now. After seeing one of the patron requests that aligned with this idea, and with the Elements character expansion releasing later this week, I figured it was time to start playing with this.

One of the big advantages of the new Elements series is that it has a more generalized color palette (vs Time Fantasy, which is very specific). This allows for more mix-and-match between the Elements assets and other styles-- even assets from other artists.

That includes my own Omega Modern set, which I haven't revisited since the Christmas update in 2022.

So-- this is my idea:

I want to make a set of animals in a general style that can be used alongside a variety of styles-- specifically: designed to work with BOTH Elements and Omega Modern.

Today's release is the first of these: It's an experimental sprite as I'm trying to figure out how exactly to get these to look right, but I think that I'm happy with how this cow looks.

With an Omega Modern sprite:

With an Elements sprite:

He's a little bit on the small side, but I think that it will work in most cases. Some degree of abstraction is necessary for these kinds of games.

Plus, I think that the original Time Fantasy cow was too big anyways. It made for an unwieldy sprite collision-wise, and also caused weird problems because the volume appears to shift with the perspective when it switched from front-view to side-view. In order to keep the volume consistent, I wanted to crunch him down into a smaller size.

Speaking of which-- when I was putting this guy together, I gathered up some references to see how cows were done in other games. Might as well paste this image in, you might find it interesting to see how I got here:

Top: Time Fantasy (mine, recolored)
Mid: Harvest Moon
Bottom: Stardew Valley

In addition to looking at photos of real cows, which is where my cow gets the sharper rear/back hip vs these round guys.

I liked the chubby cuteness of the Harvest Moon and Stardew Valley cows, so you can see the influence that had on my new one. But I didn't want to go full-on cartoon stylized, because that would defeat the purpose of a general-use sprite. 

I think I came up with a good middle style.

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Lastly-- there is plenty to be said about the pose/angle of this sprite. 

You'll notice that it doesn't quite use the classic four-directions, instead using the "two diagonals" method popularized by Paper Mario and used by many modern indie games.

I actually have a LOT to say on that subject (it's something I've put tons of thought into, I could write a very long essay about it)-- so I think that I want to save that for another day.

For the time being, I'll simplify it by saying that this cow is intended to be an environmental animal: she stands in the field, might walk back and forth a little bit, and maybe you can even milk her. But it's not intended to be a player character or for anything too complicated-- so in the vast majority of cases, it's not necessary to have direct four-directions, and instead the four diagonals should be more than enough.

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There are two separate animations: idle and walking. I've arranged it with a sheet for each one. There's also two versions of each sheet: with and without the shadow. Use whichever one fits your style better.

Here are the downloads:

• Cow - Idle Animation - 100% 
• Cow - Idle Animation - 200% (RMVX/Ace) 
• Cow - Idle Animation - 300% (RMMV/MZ) 
• Cow - Idle Animation (with Shadow) - 100% 
• Cow - Idle Animation (with Shadow) - 200% (RMVX/Ace) 
• Cow - Idle Animation (with Shadow) - 300% (RMMV/MZ) 
• Cow - Walk Animation - 100% 
• Cow - Walk Animation - 200% (RMVX/Ace) 
• Cow - Walk Animation - 300% (RMMV/MZ) 
• Cow - Walk Animation (with Shadow) - 100% 
• Cow - Walk Animation (with Shadow) - 200% (RMVX/Ace) 
• Cow - Walk Animation (with Shadow) - 300% (RMMV/MZ) 

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... and that's it for now! This post took longer to write up than expected-- but that's nothing new. 😅

I value being transparent about my thought process, and I'm looking forward to seeing what thoughts you share in the comments.

The next post later in the week will be for the full release for the Time Elements character expansion on itch. The download will be available for high tier patrons. See you then!

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Thanks!