WIP/C+C for talking sprite

[bumblebeetle]

Im messing around with portraits to practice for an adventure game and am looking for feedback!

for some reason, saving my work in .gif form keeps changing to colors, so I've also included a still shot with the colors I'm using. (the layout is a stand-in/WIP)




looking for any comments or criticisms on what I've got here! very new to this so p much any feedback you have will be appreciated

I'm working to improve the animations, but I think, stylistically, I'm interested in keeping things pretty simple in that department. On the fence about anti-aliasing, but leaning toward no for the same reasons!

Edit: most recent version

changed hair, eyelid placement, shirt-neck allignment issues

[eishiya]

When people look down, their upper eyelids lower, the upper eyelid tends to stay touching the iris. It looks creepy when she looks down but her eyelids stay in place.

I'd thicken her neck a little bit, maybe a pixel on each side. This is probably just a taste thing though.

Her shirt doesn't seem to flow smoothly into her neck. If this is intentional and meant to show the thickness of the fabric, then I think we should see it behind her neck a bit.

[bumblebeetle]

thanks for the feedback! after taking a step back and looking with fresh eyes, I definitely see what you were pointing out

I made the neck a little thicker and lowered the shirt profile (which flowed fine before adding the braids but looked very weird after) and then messed with the eyes a little

I made two versions, which do you think looks better?



Edit: sorry for gif quality, tried to pop them off quick and havent figured out how to do it better. also realized the animation might benefit from changing either the eyebrows, mouth shape or head position a little if I wanted to go more for shame/shyness than boredom which might be worth trying out. Wasn't going for anything specific and was just messing around, but it's interesting to see how little changes can affect an expression so much (especially in pixel art)!

I've been referencing 'making comics' by scott mccloud which has a great section on expressions and am excited to apply it to this project

[eishiya]

The one on the right is much better. The one on the left still has the upper eyelid too high.
The shoulders and shirt still feel a bit misaligned though.

[bumblebeetle]

changed up the hair, which is still wip, but also the neck/shirt which I think look at little better now!

also managed to get better gif quality

thanks again for the input!

[Afroskeleton]

I think some jaw movement could help a lot, feels too static. Usually also some head movement helps a lot to make things feel more alive, it doesn't need to be a super drastic animation, it could be a one or two pixel movement in the right frame to make it better. The eyes are nice I like the subtle animation that have.

[MysteryMeat]

Agreed with afro. Jaw movement and shoulder changes for better expressiveness!