AuthorTopic: GR#204 - Cartoony Cat Portrait Sprites - Gameart  (Read 37981 times)

Offline W.A.C.

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Re: [WIP] Cat Sprites for a Game Project

Reply #30 on: August 07, 2014, 09:29:17 am
So... About 'bout these ears?



I hope the light source is finally clear to everyone and that the ears no longer look attached to the skull. Last change I made to the sprites was adjustments to the eyes. I tried making the eyes white instead of yellow and love how they turned out. Though I also loved my yellow eyes. Maybe my color pallet choice in the yellows wasn't the best or do white eyes just work a lot better?

Now it looks like a cat with ice cream cornets stuck onto it's ears. It's because of ear shading. Bright pixels in cats ears give the impression that ear isn't hollow but that it's going outward, that's why they give conic feel.

Yeah... Lots of people noticed the ears looked very cone like. Hopefully the new ears look cat-like to everyone now.



I second HDMD's feelings about this sprite's ears, and also about the shading. Your new version also has a weird skull shape -- seems to be shaped like a rock instead of a skull.

My edit addresses the main problem of your skull issues, both in the new version and the old version, and it addresses the ear shape in your new version. In your old version, your ears were part of the skull somehow, and it seems that's the case in your new version somehow too.

There needs to be clarity in your 3d forms -- not just a stylized 2d silhouette -- to make it work.

I'm going to make a modified version of the cat sprite with the more wild ears look at some point and I'll definitely use some of your shading suggestions. I always felt something looked really off about those sprites of mine and you made it very clear (both visually and verbally) what was wrong with it. Thanks to everyone for the help. If it weren't for all the useful advice I've gotten here and other places, my work would look a lot worse. Constructive criticism just encourages me to try harder.

Edit-

Funny to think the color pallet had 18 colors when I started this thread and now I only use nine colors.
« Last Edit: August 07, 2014, 09:44:52 am by W.A.C. »

Offline astraldata

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Re: [WIP] Cat Sprites for a Game Project

Reply #31 on: August 08, 2014, 12:45:42 am
Excellent work there man! You've made a ton of progress! The new eyes and ears read very well now. Reminds me just enough of Sonic stylistically, but not too much. Nice job. :)
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Offline W.A.C.

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Re: [WIP] Cat Sprites for a Game Project

Reply #32 on: August 08, 2014, 11:12:49 am
Excellent work there man! You've made a ton of progress! The new eyes and ears read very well now. Reminds me just enough of Sonic stylistically, but not too much. Nice job. :)
Thank you so much. I definitely took inspiration from the Sonic series, but made sure the art didn't look too Sonic like. Also, I'm not 100% sure if I'm sticking with white eyes or not. I love the nice contrast from the white eyes and how the simpler color pallet looks so nice, but there was something very aesthetically nice about having yellow eyes. I think the biggest problem with my previous yellow eyes was that I made it too strong of a yellow. Someone on a different forum made a mockup that changed the eye color which I think looks really nice.



What do you guy think looks nicer, white eyes or eyes with a less intense yellow tint to them?

Offline HarveyDentMustDie

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Re: [WIP] Cat Sprites for a Game Project

Reply #33 on: August 08, 2014, 11:39:06 am
Keep the previous version. It looks clean. This yellow tint is too much, don't complicate it.

Offline W.A.C.

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Re: [WIP] Cat Sprites for a Game Project

Reply #34 on: August 08, 2014, 02:08:44 pm
Keep the previous version. It looks clean. This yellow tint is too much, don't complicate it.

After experimenting more with the color pallet, yeah, I agree. I noticed the lightest yellow was really similar in color to white, so I tried having the color pallet for the eyes go from white to yellow and it just looked weird. Anyways, I did a small update for the cat's neutral expression and the cat's somewhat sad look.



I really like how the neutral expression turned out. Hopefully the two white pixels for the shines in the eyes next to the the lightest shade of the fur doesn't look weird to anyone. I think the colors look visually distinct enough not to blend much.

Offline 9_6

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Re: [WIP] Cat Sprites for a Game Project

Reply #35 on: August 08, 2014, 02:17:09 pm
neutral expression
It looks like 3 times the same expression to me.
Does scaling an image blur it?
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Offline W.A.C.

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Re: [WIP] Cat Sprites for a Game Project

Reply #36 on: August 08, 2014, 02:21:16 pm
The difference is in the eyes. >_> I'll experiment with the mouth more in the future to make it more visually distinct for certain expressions but in the mean time, I'm just leaving that aspect of the cat's look alone until I've made more progress with other areas of my sprites like getting a full head rotation with the cat's new look. That's going to take a very long time.

Offline 9_6

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Re: [WIP] Cat Sprites for a Game Project

Reply #37 on: August 08, 2014, 02:28:23 pm
I know.

Drop whatever the 2 other expressions are supposed to be then, you only got 1.
Why display them if you're not yet willing to improve upon that aspect yet?
« Last Edit: August 08, 2014, 02:30:10 pm by 9_6 »
Does scaling an image blur it?
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Offline W.A.C.

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Re: [WIP] Cat Sprites for a Game Project

Reply #38 on: August 08, 2014, 02:47:09 pm
I know.

Drop whatever the 2 other expressions are supposed to be then, you only got 1.
Why display them if you're not yet willing to improve upon that aspect yet?

That's because I'm currently willing to make further improvements to the eyes in how they would look for different expressions. I'm also willing to make improvements to the muzzle, but not for different expressions yet because it's not a huge priority right now. That, and the different expressions for the mouth in certain angles might never get used in my game, where as I'm not 100% sure which way I'll have the eyes by default for when the cat stands and isn't doing anything.