Skeletroids stuff

[Ben2theEdge]

I figured rather than start a dozen different topics for the graphics I'm doing for my game, I'd try to keep them all contained in one. Anyway, here's my attempt at some character portraits.


Here's the character, Xavier.


From left to right: The original portrait I did when I first started the project - since then the artstyle has changed significantly and the semi-realistic portraits don't really fit the rest of the game at all. In the middle is the sketch I did for the new portrait, and on the right is the new portrait (not yet animated).

The current version:

[AdamAtomic]

I like the sketch a lot, it has a slick, Steven Silver kind of style to it.  Your color rendering of it is just creepy though!  There's a lot of great, natural things about the sketch that have been lost - the clean lines have been obscured by over-rendered shadows and highlights.  Anytime your image is MAINLY highlights and shadows you know you have a problem - the hair is actually quite good in that regard though!  The realistic rendering style is at odds with the distorted, cartoony design.  Also, you've changed his posture some - the sketch features a confident, relaxed character - his shoulders are down, head pulled back over his body.  The colored version has higher shoulders, and his head is pulled down and pushed forward - combined with the enormous eyes he looks like a paranoid freak!  By sticking to a realistic nose and mouth size it puts the eyes further at odds with the rest of the design.  Note that your sketch has a nice small nose and a wider mouth, plus a smaller ear.  I'd stick with your obviously good instincts and try to work the strengths of your sketch into the finished portrait!

[Ben2theEdge]

I think what happened was that I started taking too much reference from the original portrait and not enough from the sketch.



Slight modification. I tried making it a little closer to the original sketch. I don't want to make the shoulders too much lower because I think that the original sketch's shoulders were too low and didn't match the in-game sprite.

[Stwelin]

i think it's because of all the shine on the eyes. try toning it down a notch and make them look more flat and less popping-out-of-his-head.

[Ben2theEdge]

Tried toning down the brightness in his eyes and added a few other touches.


Left: Before. Right: After.

[Sharm]

Both of the pupils are shaded exactly the same, but one is more in shadow.  Try making the shine area smaller on that one.  It should help with the popping out of his head look.  I really love how the hair turned out.

[AdamAtomic]

quick & nasty edit to illustrate some of the stuff I was talking about earlier, since it clearly didn't make sense...



I wouldn't use any of my edits explicitly, they're mainly here to illustrate the following points:

1 - skin tone - your dude is lookin a little pale/ashen!

2 - you shadows and highlights are completely overwhelming the actual color of your different surfaces.  His armor especially is almost completely overwhelmed, and retains very little color identity.

3 - anime shines aren't just anime shines.  They are stylized specular highlights on the glossy surface of the eye.  Thus, they should probably match the actual light source in your image yeah?

I still think you should take another look at your original sketch and figure out why you (justifiably) like the sketch so much - pay attention to his posture and facial features!

[zeid]

It seems to me you have done some excessive exaggeration on the eye. Some exaggeration is acceptable of course but it's loosing the human aspect of the face, this might just be my opinion. I made an edit of the face, it's not complete as my hands are injured (so it's not the best edit) . I would suggest more reference from anime, you seem to be attempting a style similar to that but don't seem to have it quite down pat. Looks pretty good so far however I'm certainly liking the graphics for the project.

[Ben2theEdge]

Adam: Wow. I'll have to take a closer study of your edit in the morning when I'm not half asleep, but I think I see what you're talking about now.

Zeid: Yeah, the huge eyes are just my style... I guess it's influenced by Bryan O'Malley's work, or American cartoons from the early half of the 20th century, but it's intentional, believe it or not.  I agree that if I was going for a purebred Anime look they would have to be altered like in your edit, but that's not exactly what I'm going for.

[Faceless]

This is going to sound horrible, but I think you'd be better off going back to the sketch, tracing it again, and flat shading inside the outlines.
What you have at the moment totally loses the charisma of the sketch.

[Ben2theEdge]

Okay, here we go!



Left: Original. Right: New w/ early animation, based on Adam's edit and advice.

Don't worry, I'm not done tinkering yet; the animation is just some clever layering - I can still make changes to the base very easily if I have to.

This is going to sound horrible, but I think you'd be better off going back to the sketch, tracing it again, and flat shading inside the outlines.
What you have at the moment totally loses the charisma of the sketch.

Everyone seems to really love the sketch, haha. If the goal were to replicate the look of the sketch perfectly I would have probably used outlines and flat-shaded it as you suggested. However I need it to match the lighting and coloring of the in-game sprite, which does not use outlines and has relatively detailed shading.

[9_6]

I prefer the semi realistic portrait over the other ones.
The rendered version looks kind of creepy... you overdid the shading on the eyes making them look like glass beads.
Just flat shade them or ditch that stuff completely and go with the first one.

[Evil-Ville]

How about something like this for the eyes?

[9_6]

Here's a crappy little edit:
<->
I've simplified the eyes, raised the distance between the eyes (they were too close together) and changed the mouth to something more like the scribble.

[Froli]

I made some eye variations. hope this helps

[Xion]

Here's a crappy little edit:
<->
I've simplified the eyes, raised the distance between the eyes (they were too close together) and changed the mouth to something more like the scribble.

YESS!!! I've been looking at this for a while and couldn't figure out what was wrong with the eyes. They are way too close together.

And you say the realistic portrait doesn't match the style of the rest of the game, which I believe, but in the main character's sprite, his face has relatively normal proportions. Usually, it's the other way around, where the sprite has huge eyes to allow for emotion whereas the portrait is more realistic. (ie. FFIII or VI...whatever the SNES one was). Well, I really like the style of sprite you've got going on, but it's more realistic than the portrait, which just seems wierd to me. Also, the character's jaw doesn't look as square in the sprite as it does in the portrait.

But anyway, the newest portrait is much improved over the first one, so good onya there, and this looks to be shaping up nicely.
I look forward to playing the game...

[Conzeit]

My crit...is starting to get repetitive.

VOLUME.

uh....you have got GREAT lines. it seems in small sprites since you dont put as much detail you do fine. But the bigger you go, the more overcomplicated it gets, and the more you screw yourself over.

You shaded the new portrait with ridiculously excessive AA, it is so much it starts to be pillow shading...that's a frist!.

it seems you do all the shading to make the AA look good and to emphasize anime trends (the speculars, the shadow on the hair) stick with the basics, and then go for the fancy stuff. your sketch has better volume than your sprite, not because you do the texture wrongs or anything, because the sketch is clear, everything is there to show volume;form. Your shading is more like a bunch of misinformation, it implies a bunch of things that arent there. Not to mention you royally changed your design...I get the impression you use a mouse, if you have scanned something in DONT change the lines with mouse, your pencil lines are always more intuitive and show better form.

(Capcom's Pocket Fighter Portraits)
I think trying a style like this would do wonders for your work, might be a little off track but you could try this and THEN add outlines and AA and all your usual stuff.

BTW, you're not DarkfalzXL are ya?....the way you shade big stuff is starting to remind me.....nah, he wouldnt say he is bad at animation but DAMN

[Jad]

My take on it all. Remade the face just to break your comfort zone in how you think his face should look like. Got inspired by your sketch more than the original.

Nevermind the shading that sucks. :< The facial features are what matters. The eyes are blue because I made it using a screen with way too much brightness O: Whoops.



Also made this in like five seconds. Just widened his face and painted over the gap. To show that his face is way too narrow IMO. :]

Good luck now.

[Ben2theEdge]

Thanks for your edits everyone... those of you who say the eyes are too close together are problably right, the more I look at it. I may try simplifying the eyes even more like in Xion's edit. The delight of making ruby-like lighting effects sort of distracts me from making them look like eyes, so maybe I need to excercise more constraint.

uh....you have got GREAT lines. it seems in small sprites since you dont put as much detail you do fine. But the bigger you go, the more overcomplicated it gets, and the more you screw yourself over.

You shaded the new portrait with ridiculously excessive AA, it is so much it starts to be pillow shading...that's a frist!.

I guess I get excited and carried away when I have all that space to work with... *smacks wrist*

BTW, you're not DarkfalzXL are ya?....the way you shade big stuff is starting to remind me.....nah, he wouldnt say he is bad at animation but DAMN

I don't know who he is... should I be worried that I'm being compared to him?

Thanks for the reference pics... I'll post a new version today hopefully.

[Xion]

I may try simplifying the eyes even more like in Xion's edit.

I didn't make an edit.

[Stwelin]

I may try simplifying the eyes even more like in Xion's edit.

I didn't make an edit.

He probably was just looking too quickly and thought that the quote of 9_6's edit in your post was by you. *shrug*

@Ben: Personally i think you should take note of the nose and mouth in Jad's second edit, i think maybe it hits more on target with the sort of style the sketch has, which is what you said you wanted to match.

[Kren]

I think the eyes are to big, make them smaller and it would look perfect.

[skeddles]

I think the eyes are to big, make them smaller and it would look perfect.

i think thats the style




-kepp working at it, they look great!

[Ben2theEdge]

I may try simplifying the eyes even more like in Xion's edit.

I didn't make an edit.

He probably was just looking too quickly and thought that the quote of 9_6's edit in your post was by you. *shrug*

Yeah... I was at work so it was a bit hasty. Sorry Xion and 9_6. 

Slight modification. Toned down the anti-alaising, spread the eyes further apart, and started to work on fixing the shading. I think his cheek still looks funny... I can't get that highlight to do what I want it to; I'm thinking about just getting rid of it.

[Stwelin]

One small discrepancy i notice between the sprite and the portrait... the armour seems to be a different blue in each one. The sprite's looks more teal.

[Xion]

np.

Wow, the new one looks friggin brilliant.
What exactly do you want the highlight to do that it isn't?
Is he going to be talking like that in the game or will the frames match certain letters or be randomized, or are they just going to be stills?
Just curious.

[Ben2theEdge]

np.

Wow, the new one looks friggin brilliant.
What exactly do you want the highlight to do that it isn't?
Is he going to be talking like that in the game or will the frames match certain letters or be randomized, or are they just going to be stills?
Just curious.

Thanks  a/b the highlight... I'm not sure if it's conveying his cheek properly. Maybe it is and I've just been staring at it too long. Right now I think the animation will pretty close in-game to what you see here. It would be cool to have their mouths match the text, and probably more fun to animate, but code-wise that's a lot of work. That's one of the reasons I'm going with the "siss siss wow" Anime-style talking animations.

One small discrepancy i notice between the sprite and the portrait... the armour seems to be a different blue in each one. The sprite's looks more teal.

Yeah I pretty much blew it as far as consistent colors go. I'll go back and fix that eventually.

[Rydin]

I guess the only thing I don't like is how drastically the ear moves... I'd personally make it a tad more subtle.