[SPRITE REQUEST] Shikadi Master

I have a project for which, at the end of one level, I would like the player to fight two Shikadi Masters. The Shikadi Master is an enemy seen in the last level of Commander Keen 5, purportedly the most "frightful foe" in the episode, which I think could actually be a credible foe in Doom as well. I've attempted to draw some sprites for the Shikadi Master myself, modeled more after this drawing (also mine) which I at least think is nice and menacing. However, my sprites are coming out really dopey-looking and I figured, if someone else was willing, they might sign on to draw some sprites instead.

I already have some experimental Dehacked behaviors implemented in a test WAD for the Shikadi Master, which don't precisely replicate its behavior in Commander Keen but come close enough for me, and which with perhaps some more tweaking could make it a formidable enemy.

The sprites themselves shouldn't be that complicated. The Shikadi Master is a creature made of pure energy, pictured in CK as a pulsating blue outline of plasma. The enemy in Commander Keen doesn't walk, but teleports in from the air and lands to stand in place and attack from there. For the purposes of Doom I'm thinking I'll have it float around instead, and teleport as part of its attack (again, limitations of Dehacked encourage this as well.) As such, I would want animation frames for:

*Floating, without too much motion except probably some flapping in that cape thing (and pulsating/glow effect in the outline)
*Raising its arm(s) and looking up to teleport
*Arms forward to release plasma
I'll probably just use existing teleport fog frames for the state where it teleports in, but if whoever feels like doing animation for teleporting in too, it couldn't hurt :)
*Simple pain state
*Death state where enemy evaporates, dissipates, explodes, etc.

I won't be too demanding for the specific appearance and animations of the Shikadi Master, since whatever anybody else submits will already be better than what I could do anyway. A creative Doom-ey take on the Shikadi Master could be cool to see, too. I'd have asked raymoohawk to take this up but I'd say the Shikadi Master falls within the category of ghost-like monster which is against the rules of that thread. Needless to say, all credit and eternal gratitude will be due to whoever can do this.

(I also have a thread about this at ZDoom.)

For some reason I read that as "Skakdi Monster".

Uh, I must be more tired than I thought.

Here's a quick attempt at Doom'ifying the Shikadi master.



Btw, I never played Keen (though I did check out some longplays - looks like a great series). The consistent art evolution between id's early games is undeniable.

I'm doing other graphics work at the moment, but if there are no other takers, this might provide you with a base for testing/modifying?

The see-through effect, I think, might make this a hard fit for the "standard" Doom roster. Perhaps Raymoohawk can do a convincing one!

EDIT: Question: What does he fire? A projectile I suppose?

Not bad! Kinda ghosty-looking, which is cool. It is really hard to get the transparency looking right in Doom...my own attempts (which is on another computer so I can't post it here) are more or less just outlines with and without internal arcs of plasma, and in either case they don't look quite right in both light and dark areas.

Currently, it just fires a flurry of plasma. If I can turn the spawn cube into a projectile without stupid shit happening then I may do something else, perhaps a slow tracing exploding electricity orb of some sort?

Thx. Without spending forever on this (nor having seen the creature in question up close and personal), here's a couple of more frames, for placeholder fire/teleport.

Oh those are cool. I like how it flares up like that, definitely gets the effect I had in mind.

Link me a functional prototype and I might garner enough inspiration to do more frames, in between other chores.

i really like that sprite :-)