Need a cloak spriting tutorial

[Terrek]

Hello, i'm working on custom battle sprites for my game and am having difficulty having believable cloak folds between animations.  While everything else seems to be working, I need help making this aspect work.  I'll attach what i've done so far. (top row is idle cloak cells, middle is kneeling/status, lowest is attacking)  I need a tutorial reading how to make the cloak folds look better.

[SaiKar]

The first set seems pretty decent. The other two get dodgy. You've got the basics of shadow and wrinkles down, but I think maybe you're overdoing the shading. and I'm not sure what those weird spikes are on the third animation but they should probably go.

It's far easier to add the cloak on the character rather than trying to do it all as two separate pieces. You get a much more coherent picture of where the problem areas are.

[Terrek]

Err, sorry, here's the entire sprite.

It's my first attempt at from-scratch spriting, so it took some hit and miss (the beginner's tutorial here really helped)

In the status effect one, he's supposed to be kneeling and using the sword as leverage (not sure how well that came off)

[MissingName]

I say that these look pretty damn good.

...but battlesets aren't really my thing.

[Bluhman]

The first 2 frames of the top animation suffer from slight pillow shading (just shading darker around outlines, not depending on light). It's very slight, though. I almost didn't notice it. The 3rd frame is quite good at avoiding pillow shading, so good on you.

On the other hand, the other 2 animations suffer from TERRIBLE pillow shading among all sprites/frames. To cure this shading problem, set a reference lighting point for your cape sprite (say, above or to the left of the cape will do. Perhaps both), and then shade the cape based on those guidelines. As far as I can tell, the wrinkles and folds are already in place. Just shade that **** properly and I think you'll have yourself some good looking capes.