By the time I am done writing this, it will probably have devolved into a giant wall of text. Hopefully my mind will be smart enough to organize it into paragraphs with relevant materials. Forgive me in advance of my horrible syntax.
Since my laptop has fried, I have had a lot of time to sit down and ponder random things that have been bouncing around in my mind. Before I came to this website and project, I was approached by a friend who is an artist (he is learning to use vector art so that he can get really good at making game art, and then one day pitch his idea to a freelance programmer, his game being losely based on the monster-girl pictures you see.) About 7 months ago, we were approached by another gentlmen who wants to make an adult game, but has no background in artwork. To further his cause he asked my artist friend to help him, and in return the artist's game concept would come to life. Now fast forward to now, we are entering the design stage for the sprite work to be one, and we also have the same angle for our sprite, in actual artist terms its called the three quarter perspective (and more specifically 3/4 perspective at 1 o clock).
This is relevant to this thread because there is something that fundamentally bothers me with a 3/4 perspective view when it comes to sprite making. In the case of Kal's work (and no offese is intended, this is just what I hope to be an insightfull look at one of the issues I personally have with the perspective of playshapes game. This is again, not an attack on kal's quality of work), it seems a bit more amplified by perspective. The main reason 3/4 perspective has always been popular is its wide range of 2-d actions available, and the ability to have modularization of the sprite pieces. In the case of legend of krystal, all you need do is open the files in flash to see how each piece is modularized. There are some parts redrawn as needed too.
The main examples of what I find wrong with the 3/4 perspective is mostly proportions, and the animation of the movements themselves. As noted above, this perspective is chosen because of it's ease of use, and in the case of this game, the angle neccessary for penetration. However this leads to te often wrong proportions of the sprite. Using Krystal's sprite on page one as an example. The head, in the perspective chosen by the rest of the body we should have more of a view of the top of her head, however because the head is in 2d form, it is at odds with the angle of perspective the rest of the body is in. The neck is long, and fundamentally at odds with the rest of the sprite. This gets further amplified as proportions are skewed if working with the head first (which I assume Kal did, however assumptions can be false and make an ass of onself. So if I am wrong, then feel free to call me out on this and I will at least as an open man accept I am wrong in my assumption, at best it is an educated guess), when looking at the chest. The chest area (not including the breast)should be wider in area because of the angle, and then the massive mammories (which is probably not a personal taste thing on kal's part but raher the internets fascination/addiction to large breast) come out wrong. The arms connect at the shoulder blade in the wrong area, and the feet also, however I understand well in advance why this is. Kal (who is meticolous in my eyes the more I look at his work) shows a preformulated approach, the angles of the feet and arms look off now but in different positions would work better, say, doggy style with the feet appearing to come at the audience. The last point on proportions on krystal is her thigh issue everyone pointed out. If she was perfectly 2d in the proportions you have given her (approximating of course due to perspective) in a full side profile view it would be fine, but because of the angle they needed to be made a tad thicker, however reducing the breast size would visually fix the problem (or trick people into thinking it is fixed). So all in all when it comes to his style at making sprites I very much do like kal's work, however in the perspective given there is room for improvement. The only real suggestion I can give as an artist would be to have spare parts for the sprites to allow for different range of motions and perspectives. Not so many as to burden the game ( I am not talking about making a "3d" 2-d model) but rather as to help in some situations. In this case I would change her breast shape and size, shoulder blade shape and perspective, and foot perspective, but allow for them to be used when put into other positions. Her breast can be like they are now when bent over to show gravity, her foot as described before can be used in a doggy position to allow the feet to look like they are coming out, and her arms used in different poses as needed.
The second sprite isn't finished, and as such I feel it rude to judge it as criticlly as I did the Krystal piece, which leads me to animation. I have yet to see the full animation style of the current team, and as you are well aware they want to prevent as many spoilers to make the game's debute that much more memorable, a decision I fully support. However animation needs to be covered none the less. As mentioned previously, we are also working on a game with the same perspective, which leads to certain animation issues (which the programmer and I clash on a lot, me being the artist understanding full well anatomy, him being the programmer that thinks "eying it is enough"). I hope that the animations are done by someone who has a basic (if advanced the better) of human locomotion. The trick is getting a compromise between realism (it will always look like parts, just how you animate it will be what sets it apart), and fluidity (but not robotic, like limbrs rotating at a set rate as shown by most of the animations in the creative section.)
Since we do not have much example (besides the finished scenes from a previous release) I cannot comment more fully on animation as I would like but felt it neccessary to at least bring up the topic so that there is at least more consideration of it.
That being said, Kal's work isn't bad, but if he got more accomodated to the perspective it could have been killer. Good luck to the man picking up his gauntlet! Also if there is more of kal's work I would love to see it