merhorse tag

This is a tag I've been working on for a little while, and I'd like some input into how I'm going with it. I've coloured up this example with a simple bay.
*edit* New example with my character Muse.
*edit* New version without the fish in the background.


Credits: horse shading by Ruby, lines by dracontiar (of dA), background components by indigodeep (of dA), everything else by me. Detailed credits here.

I'm trying to achieve the appearance of water filtered light dancing across the body, and I'm not sure how I'm going with this and would love some feedback on this especially. Things like is it too bright? too dark? wrong shape? inconsistent? not moving right? anything, I'd love to know.

One issue I'm aware of but won't be fixing is the 'jumping' style of the animation. There are a mere 2 frames to this animation but I don't have enough background components to make it more than this, so it's staying.

If you see any other issues or just have some general feedback, I'd also love to hear about it.

Thanks in advance!

Last edited on 2016-05-02 at 00:17:21 by UlyssesBlue (spare)

I love it I would buy this

Thank you!

My pony zinc would look so cute

This is so cute! Love the animation :)
I'd totally buy this.

♥ Very beautiful. ♥

I absoloutely love it, however one thing you could do is possibly have the merhorse in shades of pink, blue, orange or green as with the bay it doesn't show up very much! Otherwise AMAZING!

This is a really cool tag! The main thing that I would work on is adjusting the fish, so that they swim horizontally in the background rather than blinking and moving vertically. I'd also separate them from the water filter light, so that there is the option of not having the fish. Other than that, it looks great!

This is, AMAZING! XD

It's just the animation, a little jerky, but it's fine!

OMG! yes! i will have to get one...my pony Quentin would look great on this!!!

Thanks for your input, guys! The fish are integrated into the background so I can't adjust anything like that, but I can easily have a static option available for anyone who doesn't like the animation.

I like the tag to look at but wouldn't buy purely for the fact it's free images put together. I appreciate the work that's gone into it, I'm just picky about what I buy. That being said I quite like it quality wise.

I know you said that you won't change the animation, but I think it would be vastly improved if you left the fish static and added a couple frames for the water rippling movement as a top layer. (I'd be happy to help with this if you'd like.)

I've taken into account everyone's feedback and although I said I wouldn't be adjusting the background I decided to fix it anyway, so I now have this version without the fish. Still only two frames, but now it's just the dappled water effect with no teleporting fish, so it shouldn't look anywhere near as jerky. Would love to get some feedback on this version, such as whether it's still too jerky, or needs to be sped up, or anything else I can do to improve it. No restrictions this time - I'm willing to play with anything that you reckon needs fixing.



At this stage I'm debating whether to add fish in again, but this time use more frames so their movement is smooth.

-slowly slides merhorse signature to the back of her to do list-

It's cute, but the background is very busy, and just looks so different from the merhorse.
If you add fish again I think it would be cute to have them bouncing rather then flashing.

Sadly I would not buy do to it being free images.

A couple more frames of the ripples would make it a lot smoother, you could get away with just having 4-5 frames there. I agree with Dox, bouncing fish would be cute.