CVS Style Sprite (Back in Black)

[Rosier]

Saw some sprites in this style, and got inspired to make this.  Took a few cues on the legs from Cammy, but the rest was a lot of guesswork.  I feel pretty good with it, but there's a lot of shading I'm not fully certain of. 

[Bak]

her sleeves are same color as her hair which is confusing
also assymetry gonna be nightmare if you want to animate it.

edit: its one of them RWBY characters it seems. Not a fan of that design, but they use more lemony yellow for gloves\bra.

[Rosier]

[washk]

Left leg has a weird proportion / angle. But I really like the sprite otherwise

[Rosier]

It's supposed to be a sort of boxing stance, a bit bouncy on the toes.  I hopefully made it a tiny bit more accurate to what it should be.  Might have to rework shading so that the right/our right leg so that it looks more in front. 

[heyguy]

I feel the the anatomy or angle of the left leg looks weird too. It looks a bit mushy around the knee. Also the right leg seems a bit off but maybe that's just me. The shadow under the right knee seems to imply a strong bend forward. But the front leg looks more relaxed and straight and might need different shading to reflect that. I'd recommend finding reference images of other female boxers this stance. Last thing, your feet/shoes need some work. They also look a bit mushy and lack some detail. Maybe add some lines to imply the seams in her boots? Maybe shoe laces? Maybe another color? A different silhouette? Check some of Capcom's stuff and notice there's detail on the feet/shoes too.




I agree with bak regarding the  yellow hair, yellow shirt, yellow sleeves being confusing. I think you've done a good job differentiating them but there could be other interesting designs. Anyway, I really like the sprite so far. The changes to the foot make the stance work better too.

[dpixel]

As mentioned earlier, the colors are confusing.  I always like to define shapes as much as possible.  Maybe a defining line between all the yellow would help.  Also, you seem to make the crotch too high...wasn't sure what was going on there.
Anyway, been poking around with this the past couple days...

[Rosier]

I'll take a second look at her legs then, though that edit ought to help a heck of a lot.  As Bak pointed out a bit earlier, though, this isn't my character.  It's Yang Xiao Long from RWBY, so I've been going for her design, which is why I'm not changing the arms. The shading and such ought to be super useful, and I can try again with proper shaping.

[eishiya]

In your depiction, her entire arms are yellow, but in the design, only the lower arms are yellow, which helps avoid yellow-yellow overlap and keeps the design clearer.

[dpixel]

Ah...ok.  That makes a bit more sense now.  My last post still holds true though,  just not the edit in areas obviously.   I was trying to read what you had.  I just like pixeling.   

[Rosier]

Shaded her legs a bit closer to Cammy than the edit, but otherwise took a heck of a lot of cues. Leg shape definitely looks a lot better.

[Bak]

it looks better
i tried to do an edit but gave up halfway and pose is janky

The problem with RWBY designs is that they use flat shaded no outline style and simplified anatomy, which is exact opposite of CvS style sprites. Hair and gloves have same outline which makes them look like weird hair slabs.
I dont think their designs translate well into small sprites without removing stuff. Like she has black/yellow boot top bandana things but also orange stocking on other leg and like piece of tutu skirt what.
That orange stocking obscures the leg and causes difficulty in making them match in length.

[Decroded]

the sock on the front leg still totally reads like a knee that is too high.

both arms are hard to read but especially the front arm i cant figure it out.

i think the pose is a little cramped and unbalanced because its not clear where she's putting her weight.
i had a little go at making her lean more on the back foot (i figure weight would be there so front foot can be raised faster for blocking/checking).

[Rosier]

I don't want to change the pose because it is her actual pose that she takes.  This is the best screen I could find of it, but that's how she holds her arms up.  I redid the front arm so it's more angled towards the front, though, which hopefully makes it a bit more identifiable. 

[Rosier]

Decided to come back to this style because I saw reference for one of the character's new outfits in the game I based the sprite on. I'm mostly worried about the shading, because while the reference gave me a good guide, it doesn't have nearly as much detail for this level of complexity. 

[eishiya]

I think the legs' positions in Decroded's edit is closer to what's pictured in the ref. Both her legs are bent, but in yours, one looks like it's barely bent. This effect is even stronger in the new version with the pink dress.
Also, watch the foot positioning. In yours she less balanced footing with her feet pointing in nearly opposite directions, whereas in the ref the feet face the same way and look more stable.

[Rosier]

Made the our-right leg face more towards the screen, hopefully making her stance a bit more balanced.

[MysteryMeat]

Crotch is too high and the leg bits aren't the same length, careful about those CLAMP legs man!

[eishiya]

I think the reason the legs ekep looking off is because you've not put any light on the knees, even though those stick out and should receive light along with the upper leg. As a result, I think you've confused yourself about the lengths of the upper and lower parts of the leg, making the upper leg too long.
Here's a possible fix:

I put light on the knees (including some on the sock so it doesn't read so much like a shadow), and shortened the upper legs by 2px. I also made her thick a bit thicker, because she had weirdly skinny legs (even in the ref she has some thigh flesh).
Even with my fixes, the boots have some lighting issues. Try to shade the calves as if they're simple cylinders, ignore the fact that they're boots. As-is, it looks like you shaded the boots as separate objects without taking into account that they're just part of the leg. They seem to have shading at the tops of them, for example. Why would they?
Also her hair's lit from a different direction than her torso xP
If what I said here doesn't make sense, just say the word and I'll do an edit.

[lachrymose]

Need to separate her forearms more.
She looks like she has yellow nubs. Like her arms end at her elbows.

Her legs are noodles, define muscle mass a bit more.

[Rosier]

Made legs thicker/slightly shorter, turned the foot slightly, changed the hair shading a bit, and reworked the arms.

[Swifty]

Hey Rosier, the arms are much more readable now and great improvement overall!

One thing though, if you look at the way her pelvis tilts, her right leg should be pushed back slightly, but it actually looks longer than the front leg from the way the knees line up. I did a quick paint over to show:

[Rosier]

Came back to this sort of style with another character from the same series, Blake Belladonna.  Problem is, she's mostly in black, and CVS doesn't have a ton of black shading reference without it being gray. 

Shading and the face are what I'm iffy on mostly. 

[Ranaldo Sparda]

use amazing

[Rosier]

I took another look at this looking a bit more at the CVS sprites.  Problem is, the only examples of characters with black hair were almost pure black with no shading, and all the clothes were gray.  I think this looks a bit better, but I still have no idea on the shading of the black.