AuthorTopic: New concept art  (Read 17518 times)

Offline JillandJack

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Re: Platform character Jill, 32x32 bit. Critique anyone?

Reply #10 on: November 27, 2012, 03:54:21 am
Thanks!  ;D
i love your shading skillz
 :yell: i want those shading skillz! lol  :P
I'll just steal that walk animation  ;) -edit-  ;) ;) ;) ;) ;) ;) ;) ;) ;) ;) ;) (i was using sarcasm on this sentence) clearly does not work like it does in real life but, eh live and learn -edit-
thanks again

chris,
« Last Edit: November 28, 2012, 10:51:40 am by JillandJack »
If your just starting out PixelPileDriver has a great blog to help you get started:
http://ppdaniatlas.blogspot.ca/
Hopefully you get as much as I have out of it :)

Offline Facet

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Simply taking someone else's work; getting them to do it for you, is not the purpose of editing. They're for more effective demonstration. If you like an example, try and learn from it by applying the idea.

Offline PixelPiledriver

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So here's some process on how I might make this walk:

1. Start with basic motion.
Theres no need for any real change in frames.
I just want to know where hes gonna go and when.
I like bouncy walks, as such, he bounces.


2. Add a frame or two to create a starting point.
Interrupt the motion with a unique frame.
Find a good spot that makes sense to you, like the initial contact, or the peak of his bounce.
This can look like crap at first dont worry about it.


3. Describe the action.
Break down the motion with more frames.
figure out how many uniques you need and how many times they can be reused.
Again they do not need to be perfect at this point.
Just draw them so that they are obviously different and show the action as it changes.


4. Polish the frames
So now you know how many unique frames you have.
Clean up each one to be clear, more unique compared to each other, and more specifically describe the motion of the aciton at the given time.


5. Add follow thru and other small details.
We can add more stuff just for fun to enhance the animation.
Follow thru is a good thing to do at this point.
Let's make the handle on the bucket move as he bounces up and down.
Overlapping the number of frames used to create Follow thru with the number of unique frames will create a nice contrast of motion.
This means, use EVERY frame to animate the follow thru, but keep the rest of the unique frames the same.


6. Other small effects
A shadow can help ground the character.
The way it is drawn can change depending on how your game is presented.
Having some change in the shadow is fun.
But keep in mind the shadow shown is unnatural.
Realistically the shadow would get bigger, and weaker, as he moves higher.


7. Other effects 2
Particles are good.
They fill space, enhance motion, and give meaning to animation.
Drawing them directly on the frames, or creating them thru code in a game engine both have interesting properties and uses.


8. Do it again!
I quite often do animations 3-5 times.
Make a slight variation.
Or try something completely different.
Save the old versions and compare them.
Use the insight to create a better animation

Change vs. Motion
The animation is 14 frames total.


But there are only 4 unique frames. (this is actually a lie, there are 5, open up the file and figure out why!)

The rest of the frames are used to convey motion, rather than change.

The walk I've created is intentionally very stylized.
It does not directly hinge on the traditional walk cycle, altho this is an important lesson to learn and practice.
Practice to understand the basics of animation.
Break the task into a series of steps.


Quote
I'll just steal that walk animation 
thanks again
Quote
Simply taking someone else's work; getting them to do it for you, is not the purpose of editing. They're for more effective demonstration. If you like an example, try and learn from it by applying the idea.

Facet is absolutely right.
Don't do this!
For what you think you gain in productivity, you will lose in self ability.
Use what people have provided as reference to create your own art from scratch.
You will learn more and get better faster.

Some of what I have written might not make total sense, I am in a bit of a rush.
If needed ask questions, np.
Try again and have fun with it (don't take mine! use as reference!).

Edit:
So ptoing messaged me:
"That runcycle of the Fez dude you made has absolutely no weight"
This is a good critique.
Naturally we tend to make things subtle on the 1st pass.
Push what you already have further on the 2nd or 3rd pass for a variation.
Play with the space and timing.
Whatever the animation is, exaggerate and create more contrast (of course sometimes this can mean the opposite).
When it starts to go too crazy dial it down a few degrees and you'll usually end up with something just about right.

Weight
We can add more weight with a few minor additions.
1. More contrast to his vertical movement.
Put more space between the highest peak and lowest point in his bounce.
The faster the motion, the more resolve and cushioning frames you should use to make it feel natural.

2.Offset parts of the animation from the rest.
The head bobs, and the neck strectches, slighty off from the body.

3. More follow thru elements.
Making the hair light and flexible reinforces that the static elements are thicker and heavier.

« Last Edit: November 28, 2012, 11:52:28 pm by PixelPiledriver »
And knowing that it is, we seek what it is... ~ Aristotle, Posterior Analytics, Chapter 1

Offline tim

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This is amazing PixelPileDriver. Thank you, even if I'm not the op.
Founder of Odd Tales
Art Director - Game Director - Game designer - Motion designer

Offline JillandJack

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  :o ya, pixelpiledriver you really outdid yourself this time. I don't think ill be the only one referencing this  :)
so to you and Final ninja i say


Here is Jill in here a run cycle:


Kinda messing around trying to make it look like she takes a bigger step on her second stride:


K now I'm on to faces, or emotions. If you see any crutial emotion you think im missing please don't be shy to tell me i forgot one or two, or that i don't know what im doing and should cut my wrists, cuz your eyes are bleeding because these sprites are so bad  :crazy: all replys will be appreciated  ;)



Will be posting more updates soon, next on the list is the candle minions.

oh, just for mabe people who are super new like me. this is for those who kinda wanna know how i went about making the bonnet, really the only thing that i've created thus far without a actual pixel reference.  :D also just for me to look back and see how im improving.  :P


as you'll notice i started out as football helment and played around with that forever till i realized that all her hair would get tucked in the back, i then made it super big and began to trim down. Although it does not show in the strip i really played around with those black lines. I had the bow on the head since that was where most of my refrences had the bow but then later decided to put it near the neck. cuz then that gave something that could animate. The colors, i used were just some colors i wanted the character to have, i mostly just followed the shading of ppd character he made for me. But then changed the shading a bit after final ninja gave me some tips.

-edit- If your reading this and are good at pixel art check out Final Ninja sprites and give him the critique i couldn't, thanks :)
link:
http://www.wayofthepixel.net/index.php?topic=14889.0

Happy pixeling these upcoming holidays everybody!  ;D
« Last Edit: November 29, 2012, 12:45:42 am by JillandJack »
If your just starting out PixelPileDriver has a great blog to help you get started:
http://ppdaniatlas.blogspot.ca/
Hopefully you get as much as I have out of it :)

Offline Phlakes

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Re: Jill emotions, run cycles, Craziness!!!

Reply #15 on: November 29, 2012, 02:30:24 am
You shouldn't just copy PP's work. You don't learn anything that way that you wouldn't from just looking at it.

Take what you did learn and start a new one from scratch. Maybe use the other one as a reference for a bit, but you should try to do as much as you can on your own.

Naturally, and I don't mean to offend, you probably won't be as happy with it, but you shouldn't sacrifice experience to make good things now, you should sacrifice quality to get experience.

(I was talking about PPD's sprite earlier, also - Facet)
« Last Edit: November 29, 2012, 05:31:13 pm by Facet »

Offline JillandJack

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me gusta prepare to die..

Reply #16 on: November 29, 2012, 07:14:43 pm
Well Phlakes, first off. I want to thank you for helping me when i just started out, without you replying to my thread at the start, who knows i might still be uploading spirtes on graph paper.
The fact that you people care about my success is what makes me love this forum even more..

Thank you guys, even you too newGuy it been about a month since you been on but, i want you to know when you ever get on that the link really helped.
K, now on to the issue here. I don't know what everyone is refering to. Are you refering to the run cycle i made of ppd's Jack:

or that i keep using the skeleton of ppd's jack character in all my sprites?
If you are refering to how i made the Jill bonest and how it is pasted over ppd's Jacks body. Hopefully people arn't insinuating it is some sort of guide to steal someone's character and tweek it a bit so you can call it your own. Because that was not my intent i was just trying to show my thought process on how i made the bonnet.
Like I'm totally new to pixel art but the style of character ppd made is what i sorta had in mind when i first was making the game. So i just tried to make that jack sprite do a run cycle because that is the sort of characters i would be doing a run cycle on. So it doesn't really make sence to me to go building a some other sort of character who would have a different run cycle, sure i would learn a bunch and sure i would know more about pixel art but it would not be helpful for me when i want to make this game.
I am not claiming all my sprites are original, i know that the jill spirte running sprite looks almost exactly like ppd's but it isn't. Looking back even referencing his material i still managed to screw up. Like there is pixels there i havn't deleted, stuff like that.
I am trying to make more orginal sprites and i am working on some. But staying on something that is totally "orginal" isn't that fun for me. Like that is mostly what i am trying to do when i am pixeling is just having fun with it. I try not to copy peoples work because that's not fun either. But trying to re-invent the wheel everytime i pixeled got kind of slow since in the end, it looked like crap and i ended up deleteing it. (which looking back was a big mistake)
If it offends ppd that i took his character he made for me and tried to make a run cycle out of it. ill delete the sprites.
Sorry if i offended anyone,  :(

chris,

-edit- to ppd: Well this one is pretty much the same as the other ones when he is jumping, hopefully this what you meant XD -edit- shit wrong one just let me switch it -edit-

-edit- k now it the right one ^^ -edit-
i don't get what you mean when you said motion vs change...-edit-

K, just a update on what i currently working on, started candle stick, still need more sources on what kind of flame i should use. But put that on hold and started new project. My online friend hates the me gusta face and is in taekwondo so i thought i could do a funny gif of her kicking the shit out of it. I just started doing her hair but, my gamemaker program does not have very good base color pallete like i don't have brown. Having trouble with hair, found a pixel image for me gusta face. Currently working on hair of the sprite her hair is brownish. Was trying to do it in a ponytail but gave up since all the references were crap. I don't know if this looks like a taekwondo suit. Hopefully it does... So far just getting her to point finger at the ugly face then probibly going for one of those flying kicks then a bunch of punches to face. Wanting to give the face like bruises and scares at the end of it too. But if some one could provide a nice brown color palatte for the hair it would be appreciated. here what i got so far:

-edit- what is happening in the sequence above is just taikwando girl is just pointing to the me gusta face like "im gona kick your ass mother%^&*er" -edit-
does the hair look ok?
Oh and does anyone know how to make like a super long gif files
lately ive just been using sites like this:
http://gickr.com/
i tried using Gimp but first i don't know how it works, and the tutorials i find say you need like this video tab and the verison i got does not have it. So any help would be good. I am definetely going to be using more then 10 images for this gif lol

-edit- K.. well candle stick still never got done. But i started with the giant and kinda turned him into a wizard. I don't know if i made him evil enough anyways Let me know what ya think.

I-edit- tried to start -edit- from scratch this time, but i find i still rely heavily on references, Here is the picture that i referenced alot. If you notice i got the hair style and eye style off this one for my Jill character. But for the giant i mostly referenced the girls top part of the hoodie, since that was what i had the most trouble with. -edit-
-edit- i tried to make him bigger but, every time i tried i kept feeling that he drifted a little too far away from the style i am trying to develop. I am really trying to make him look like the final ultimate evil guy. But when i look at him he just seems like a second teir boss like the boss's wizard or henchman. Trying to use as many triangles as possible in his character design to make him look sharp and dangerous. Hopefully some of this comes across when you see him. Anyways a first impression of this character would really be appreciated. Even if you just joined the forum and know nothing of pixel art, just saying what comes to mind when you see him would be some really good input. That would help me make this character the best he can be. I was thinking on giving him like those gothic wrist bands with spikes, but did not know how i would incorporate them. Or mabe even chains on his wristes with broken pieces of chain hanging off them but if i do this i think i might have to increase the # of pixels i use. Anyways just want your insight since i sorta broke away from the jack skeleton ever so slightly.
-edit- wow i type alot...anyways after showing my roomate i think, ill explain the giant sprite more. The two things on his shoulders are suppose to be spikes. He suppose to have a plate of armor on his chest, yes i tried to make it look like he had a pot belly. Idk if ill change that, still working on story a bit. He got a belt, idk what to do for the legs i was thinking just black. I might add a cape. He just has a hood with armor on top of it. Really what got me off on this whole wizard thing was i kept asking myself how do i want to feel when i see this character, thus the hood, red eyes etc.. -edit-
-edit- oh and the things around the sprite in the end is some bones on the ground and a bag of flour, i kinda hoped it would make me feel like he was more of a giant if i did this i guess... -edit-
« Last Edit: November 30, 2012, 08:49:17 pm by JillandJack »
If your just starting out PixelPileDriver has a great blog to help you get started:
http://ppdaniatlas.blogspot.ca/
Hopefully you get as much as I have out of it :)

Offline PixelPiledriver

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Re: wooo 2000 views! Me gusta prepare to DIE!

Reply #17 on: November 30, 2012, 01:54:29 pm
Quote
If it offends ppd that i took his character he made for me and tried to make a run cycle out of it. ill delete the sprites.
I am not offended at all.
But grabbing my sprites will not help you, and is not how I intended to help by posting in the first place.

Quote
So it doesn't really make sence to me to go building a some other sort of character
Art requires raw experience and that means starting from scratch over and over again.
It may not seem like it now, but for a multitude of reasons it DOES MAKE SENSE to build another character of your own design.

If you wish to reference do it side by side, and draw your own frames.
Referencing is not the same as copy paste.
These pixels are exactly the same:

These feet are decisions that I made based on many factors.
The amount of time I had, colors available, how the animation flows, random quick decisions etc.
I had control of these choices and they filled the need of how they are used within the animation.
Control is necessary.
By taking these you have lost control.
You must make your own choices, of feet and everything else, that fit the context of what you are creating, and fit the style of choices you make naturally.

My above post is not a straight forward guide to drawing a formatted walk cycle.
It is advice on process to creating ANY sort of animation.

Quote
or that i keep using the skeleton of ppd's jack character in all my sprites?
Creative exercise is good to flex the mind.
In some way there is something to be gained from an exercise of editing my edit.
But at a certain level, this will only take you so far, and that distance is much shorter than I am sure you want to achieve.


Quote
i don't get what you mean when you said motion vs change.
I have not explained it well enough on my blog or here. (I believe I covered Change on my blog, but not Motion yet).
Change and Motion a basic concepts of animation.
There are different ways to apply them, but lets just talk about the simple stuff.
Brace yourself because in explanation it sounds very dull and silly.
But this is important!

Motion:

Is the perception of an object moving.
The difference in position over time.
The main mass of the object is moving thru space.
You are able to follow the object with your eye.
In your mind you think "that thing is moving".
You dont question that it might be another object on the next frame further away from the object on the previous frame.
They are "the same object".

Change:

is the perception of an object as different.
The difference in representation over time.
This can be illustrated and applied in many ways.
Redrawing, deformation, scale, volume, color, etc.
The object may change so much that you perceive it to not be the same object at all.
It is also good to think of it as the amount of change within the entire animation, not just of a given object.

Motion and Change:
can work in isolation of each other, or be combined.
The classic animation exercise that lets you experience combining Motion and Change is the "bouncing ball".
If you have not done this exercise you NEED TO, a few times over, to understand the basics of animation.

What about the fuzzy stuff?:
Like rotation?
Well its a bit of both.
The above is not a strict rule set.
It is a way of thinking about it simply.
In practice you can apply it with greater complexity.
Be creative!
At some point I will add more examples to my blog.

Please use the above to carve your own path.
It will be difficult, but the hard work is good, and pays off.
« Last Edit: November 30, 2012, 10:39:06 pm by PixelPiledriver »
And knowing that it is, we seek what it is... ~ Aristotle, Posterior Analytics, Chapter 1

Offline JillandJack

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moonwalk candlestick

Reply #18 on: December 05, 2012, 05:28:09 am
mmk... after much fooling around, i made my first original sprite will no references. ( thats a lie i totally copied the flame from somewhere, i just can't find the picture  >:( )
Close your eyes :blind:, and behold my creation  :D


If he looks like he is running backwards, that is because i do things backwards  :crazy:
..... :'(
Me tryin to plan this sprite out...
http://i1323.photobucket.com/albums/u587/JillandJackForever/IMG_0196.png
me tryin to plan things out:
http://i1323.photobucket.com/albums/u587/JillandJackForever/IMG_0194.png
-edit-here is me adding bounce to his step:





//edit ptoing: please do not directly post big pictures like that which do not even need to be this size or are hard to make out anyway. Thanks.
-edit- :-[ K.

-edit- If people can give me a critique on candles, and the Giant (wizard) that would be cool.
I kinda know i suck at animation.. and that the running sprite needs work, but that is because i did not really look at ppd post just for trying things on my own and that what i came up with.
If anyone can just comment on character design and what you think i should add to them, if i am using the right colors etc.. I really don't care if you have alot of experiance in pixel art i just want to know what impressions people get from them, so don't be afraid to comment. :D
I don't have time right now but i'll add more to this candle running sprite like the flame dieing down when he hits the ground mabe and a few other things. -edit

-edit- found the link to the candle :D
http://img.electro-maniacs.net/69979.jpg
-/edit-
« Last Edit: December 22, 2012, 04:53:19 am by JillandJack »
If your just starting out PixelPileDriver has a great blog to help you get started:
http://ppdaniatlas.blogspot.ca/
Hopefully you get as much as I have out of it :)

Offline Jeremy

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Re: the moonwalking candle stick

Reply #19 on: December 05, 2012, 07:59:46 am
Your run/walkcycles still look more like ice skating. Notice how in PPD's edits the body of the sprite rises and falls, as the feet push against the ground.

This uses more frames than what you're doing, but it illustrates again the need for up and down movement to make something convincing: