Pixelation
Critique => Pixel Art => Topic started by: thebombsauce on March 17, 2014, 08:18:14 am
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I made this sprite of a young woman with white hair wearing a red jacket, I would like general advice of course but also advice on making it look more feminine and perhaps less old
(http://i.imgur.com/Kk9zd8A.png)
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Umm.. May be you shold try with something a bit less complex than drawing peolpe? That is to say, you make new and new pictures (even with animation) without refining the previous ones well. Try to choose one idea you`d like to draw, and draw it without any haste. I`ve been doing my avatar for 21 days so far (not every day, though, but nevertheless) and my first work I started in January is only ~20% completed.
So. Start with something simple, make it accurately, do your best and don`t rush to ask for a help until you feel you`ve run out of your skills. Your problem is that you are trying everything at once and don`t take it serious.
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I tried out an edit.
(http://i.imgur.com/6BnRk97.png)
The major issue here is trying to put too much detail into your sprite.
The truth is, at this low resolution, you can't put much detail down at all, and the perspective makes it hard to suggest depth without using some kind of hacky solution.
I tried to simplify your sprite down to the essentials, bringing it so that all of the major elements support each other.
(Except the pants, but ehhh...)
I tried to add an exaggerated chest to make it obvious that she was a girl, but anything I did add looked garish and out of place, so I decided to go with a more subtle choice of changing the character to more easily show core traits.
She's now dressed in a more typical girly shirt (not jacket, sorry), and has her hair grown long (as many girls do), as well as a rather standard hairdo.
The choice of white hair at the resolution lets your eyes assume more fitting traits for the character (since the resolution is too small for little details like wrinkles and accessories), making the character seem more like an old woman than a young girl.
I'm out of time to talk about it though, so I hope I helped!
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(http://i.imgur.com/Ye7qXRQ.gif)
Here my little contribution, I think your character is a little bit too square, in minimalistic pixel art, every pixel is really important for define curves & personality you want to show, this edit is also closer to the rules 1/7 heads in the body, kinda more realistic in proportions... ( and 2 dots for eyes are not recommanded )
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thebombsauce, I think your sprite is a good start.
To be honest, I don't feel any of the edits go into the right direction, in my opinion. Simplification isn't necessarily the key here; moreover Nmb910's edit misses some contrast here between hair and face, which was there before and which was good. Also, it's just the same clumsy stature (i.e. not any more feminine), just with more skin showing
For my taste I think both of you took it quite far away from what was (I think) attempted to be portrayed, too. Not some skin-revealing sex bomb with a massive cleavage and a almots breaking wasp waist, but something like a woman in a somewhat cold weather clothing. I think one can make a feminine sprite without showing more skin or turning her body into a barbie doll ;)
But of course I could be wrong about thebombsauce's intention, and that's the point here, since for all we know thebombsauce could look just for what you did in the edits. Thing is, one needs to think about which direction it should go in terms of style (of pixeling), size, subject (sexy woman? sporty woman? hiking woman?...), style (of clothing), setting... Is the strong restraining in style intentional? the rigid pose, the (almost) lacking shading...
So, here are some edits of mine that keep her clothing, and add detail and more expression to her pose, and change her body proportions successively.
(http://oi58.tinypic.com/aw5hyg.jpg)
Not too happy with the legs though, I have to admit... :D
I think it would help if thebombsauce could try and tell us more detailed, where he wants to go with this.
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I agree with Imagician 100%. I was going to say the same stuff and make an edit when I had time, but he beat me to it.
Not every girl needs to look like Barbie, even at this size.
I also like the changes Imagician made to the head. But I agree that the legs are the weakest part of that edit. I also agree with Neirda that you may want to explore other ways of drawing the eyes.
I tried to make some changes to the legs here. I think the shoes had too much noise before, and they were too big for a normal woman. I also made the bottom of her knees brighter, which may seem dumb because you'd expect there to be shadow there, but it makes the broken line softer against the background, so the 90 degree angles at her knee don't seem so sharp.
(http://i.imgur.com/YYSJEdp.png)
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Alright so I studied what you guys did and while I don't really love the stylized way they look now (would look great in one of those old adventure games though) I like some of the different features and shading so I spent about 2 hours making some changes and making a guy version of it so I'd like to know what you guys think of it now and once again thank you very much for all the help
(http://imgur.com/HBpvwAF.png)
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i like your edits. nice touch you put her hair over her shoulder. legs look good, too (on this background color). i think her (and his) eyes look a bit like a visor Geordi LaForge had, maybe you should split that dark line in the middle. as for him, i think he could use a little bit more elaborate shading on his upper body. is his hairstyle meant to be a short mohawk or something similar? looks the part to me.
nice work, good progress :y:
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Yeah its mean't to be a small mohawk so I'm happy that its conveyed as such, can you elaborate on what you mean by splitting the dark line in the middle though?
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I simply meant dividing the line that's supposed to be their eyes into:
(http://oi60.tinypic.com/25fosj6.jpg)
I only changed 1px in each of them ;)
Maybe you want to give the man's eyes less contrast (i.e. make them less dark), so they look less obtrusive as in the girl, and less like prawn eyes ;)
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One more thing – maybe you could try an make his forehead 1px higher, this way he looks somewhat... mentally challenged ;). Reminiscent of Schlitzie, a little bit. :D
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I'll consider it, it should be easy to change later on if I feel its necessary, as it stands I think the line eye looks kind of cold and distant which fits what I'm doing better. That aside would you say I'd be safe to start animating these?
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I like your version with the line instead of dots for the eyes. I think it works stylistically. I agree that the heads need to be larger, so 1 pixel of extra forehead would be preferred I think.
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Alright well heres where I'm going to really need some help, I tried to start animating a running animation but all the references I found have an isometric-ish idle sprite (like mine) that goes into flat 2d when running. However I really like the idle sprite so if anyone has a reference of that sort of sprite doing a proper running animation or a way to make my flat 2d version look better I would truly be grateful. Heres what I have so far I only animated one leg before I realized how much I dislike the look of the sprite so everything else is either static or not yet in existence.
(http://i.imgur.com/8Gwdzvg.gif)
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haven't got much time right now, so just a short text ;)
after reading your text, i'm not exactly sure if you'd rather create your walk ani as a straight profile or slightly towards the viewer, as in your idle stance.
however it may be, i'd suggest you try not to create each limb's animation separately, but as a whole. looking only at a moving leg, it's hard to tell if it's gonna work out good or not.
i would try to go from animating a rough version of the full body, to refining the details after that. one way to do it (that's how i do it sometimes) is (if you have layers in your software), you create a separate layer for let's say, the head, the torso, one for each hand, one for each foot (not connected to the body with limbs yet). for a starting position of these body elements you can put your idle stance as a ref underneath. then you do a frame by frame ani of the unconnected elements (which would result in something looking like Rayman). once you're happy with how this animation looks, you try and add the limbs and neck etc. in between for each frame.
but of course, that's just one possibility.
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to illustrate what i was talking about, here's from a very simple 4-frame (that's really kinda minimum*; 8 would be better) tiger run animation I created recently:
(* for certain styles, 3 or even 2 frames is also possible, of course)
i created something like an idle stance first, then cut the body elements into seperate layers. looked like this:
(http://oi61.tinypic.com/5fgd1e.jpg)
Then I created frame by frame and moved the layers a bit on each step, and so on.
after that was finished, I made a copy of the elements so each frame would have their own for me to freely modify (not always neccessary), and added some connection stuff here and there (layers looked pretty messy after that, not shown here :D)
(http://oi59.tinypic.com/2uejgk0.jpg)
resulting animation:
(http://i.imgur.com/BB2IxzK.gif)
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another thing you can try is "rotoscoping" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotoscoping (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotoscoping)). some would consider this kind of tracing as a violation of their pixel artists ethic probably, though. but I personally don't view it this strict.
here's for some reference, feel free to find more. https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=walking%20reference&sm=3 (https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=walking%20reference&sm=3)
looking forward to your work ;)
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Thank you very much for all of these references and the encouraging words! Here is what I have thus far, I'm aware the head needs to bob, hair needs to move and the body needs to rotate but those are very complex and I would like to get the basic limb stuff as good as I can get it, as usual any criticisms you all have
(http://i.imgur.com/hUTHHkd.gif)
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that's good progress from what you showed last time (the moving leg). :y:
I think what I'm missing most here, is something you didn't exactly mention: an up-and-down motion of the torso (i.e. the big center chunk). alas, since you already did the limbs (arms and legs), repositioning the trunk they connect to, means redoing them.
my suggestion would be trying the following things in this order:
- moving the torso up and down (with head stiffly connected for starters) (here's a ref: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JiS0g04BHrg, where the up-and-down motion is quite strong, since she's running)
- when you're happy with that, try the rotation (maybe even twisting) of the torso that you mentioned (I think, 1px towards each side would be enough here)
- when you consider this done, redo the limbs, as the might not connect to the torso correctly anymore
- head bouncing and details, like hair moving, if you feel so inclined...
that's of course just a suggestion, go and see if it works for you this way.
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alright i took all of your thoughts into consideration and have ended up with this, I'm starting to like the look of it but I still think it needs work
(http://i.imgur.com/XjYKycB.gif)
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sorry, but it looks like you didn't move her torso up and down, but instead back and forth. only thing that moves and and down is the end of her jacket, making it look like it's getting magically longer and shorter.
besides, the x-position of the torso should stay in place, otherwise when implemented into a game it will look like the character is not running with a steady speed, but somehow jerking forward.
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i strongly suggest you take another close look at refs, e.g. from the youtube links i provided.
her legs are basically just sliding back and forth, alternatingly. i downloaded your previous gif to play around with the torso. in doing so, i tried to find the points where either foot hits the ground, and it's really kind hard to tell, because this is not really happening.
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Yeah I agree that I need to redo the legs they are the worst part, but how exactly do you move the torso up and down without extending its size? wouldnt it just disconnect from the rest of the sprite?
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so, here's a very basic edit i did. still many things to fix. just to show what i was talking about:
(http://i.imgur.com/RdmLmlV.gif)
- body is lowest when foot hits the ground (or, depeding on the walking style, there's some "follow through", see here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/12_basic_principles_of_animation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/12_basic_principles_of_animation))
- body is highest in the middle between the points when it's the lowest, when you pushed yourself up from the ground
- head bouncing is basically a kind of "follow through", too. so it bounces down e.g. 1 frame after the torso was lowest
another thing i didn't point out before is that her crotch is strangely low, and the legs start to bend away even lower. normally they would extend from the waist, but in the woman's sprite they extend from somewhere below the crotch.
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Yeah I agree that I need to redo the legs they are the worst part, but how exactly do you move the torso up and down without extending its size? wouldnt it just disconnect from the rest of the sprite?
thats why i suggested you connect the feet and hands (that means, creating the limbs) AFTER having finally animated the elements they connect ;)
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as i said above, think of creating a Rayman-type animation first. here's on from the net:
(http://i68.servimg.com/u/f68/12/98/77/58/rayman11.gif)
after that step is completed, do the connecting limbs.
that's of course just one possible way, but in most cases it works for me. you can try and see how it works for you ;)
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So first off I want to thank you immensely for going above and beyond to help me improve my art. As for your suggestions the Rayman one was very helpful and I used it to make better legs and arms by just connecting the shoes and hands after I draw them, as for the body bob I did the best that I could but I had to change the timing a bit since if the timing is too jerky it will look bad regardless. As for the crotch criticism I took a line off of the pants but I honestly can't completely perceive what you are talking about.
here is what I have now after about an entire night of doing and redoing
(http://i.imgur.com/oKArKgB.gif)
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quite an improvement from your former version ;)
just two quick things here:
- the up-movement is a bit jerky, because when she pushes away from the ground, you immediately put her to the highest position, instead of moving her up more smoothly. i must point out though, that even though the up-and-down motion is not linear*, it feels a bit too rapid here. (*but instead the vertical speed is higher the lower the body is, and is slower the closer to the peak it is (because of gravitational pull downwards)).
- concerning the upper joint of the upper leg: it should bend away from the body somewhere around the crotch region, but in your case it looks as if the leg is connected to low.
(http://oi58.tinypic.com/2qs5ds8.jpg)
EDIT:
another thing you could try: as she's running quite sporty now, maybe it would look less stiff if she's leaning a little front. here's a dirty edit to show what i mean:
(http://i.imgur.com/TtYPmzi.gif)
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I fixed the bob according to your first point, and the I think the crotch thing we are just going to have to agree to disagree thought I will shade the top of the pants to maybe give them some motion, I was actually looking at action poses and I think just a simple lean into the run looks good, I'm really liking the look of this and I'm thinking after I shade the legs I'll be ready to call this done if you haven't anymore qualms
(http://i.imgur.com/k8Qi3Eh.gif)
also unrelated to this but how long have you been drawing, spriting and animating and do you do this professionally?
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i think it looks nice and even though there's always something one can "optimize" calling this done soon would be quite ok.
anyways, about the upper leg , i still think it's bending away to low, and i'd consider this objectively not corresponding to "normal" anatomy. but i guess it could be worse, so have it your way ;)
since you asked, been pixeling from an early age, with varying intensity (my first piece was a picture of ALF on an east german computer called KC85 or KC87, must have been late 80s or ealry 90's). doing pixel animations from like '93 or '94 or something, using Deluxe Paint II (PC). it's part of what i do for living now (alongside interface design). ;)
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Alright well here is what I am ready to call a finished product, once again thank you so much for all your help
(http://i.imgur.com/dI6umNs.gif)
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looks good, you really made some progress on this piece :y:
one last pet peeve upon closer inspection (only indirectly mentioned yet) is that her "thigh gap" as it's infamously called nowadays doesn't move up or down as her body does.
try to take your learnings from this piece and apply it to your next ;) looking forward to see more.
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You should rotate the shoulders and hips.
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Or just fill in the thigh gap altogether. Just a pixel or two.
I just wanted to say that it's awesome that you rolled with all the critique and made according adjustments.
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Alright I hadn't worked on this for awhile (been practicing drawing) but I started it back up. In the game I figure different body parts can take damage altering movement or accuracy drastically. I am making legs animations and have been working on a limp (a crawl would be the next phase, that's gonna be tough). I went through two revisions I made from a youtube reference that I scrapped since I wasn't proud of them. For this third one I just limped around a bit and thought of how it worked, I think its well on its way to being decent but I need some advice or help improving it. Thank You!
(http://i.imgur.com/0L4wIYX.gif)
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You should study anatomy. She has 3 knees per leg right now, in every animation so far.
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I'm willing to hear you out and you may very well be right. So for example this quick 3 frame loop I just made. Does it not have properly outlined anatomy (thigh, knee, shin, foot). Or are there problems with it? Can you point them out specifically? (http://i.imgur.com/8n8XBqZ.gif)
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As said above, it's hard to judge if a partial animation will look good in the final result (with all the other moving parts added), because even though it might look okay if animated separately, it might look strange or unfitting in ensemble with the other limbs. so creating the thing as a whole (maybe with feet and hands separated for starters, as in the Rayman example) would give a more judgeable picture.
what's the animation to become anyway? still the limp walk? currently it looks more like she's kicking away some cigarette butt or something ;). nevertheless, one thing that might look already strange (to me though, that is), is that the leg doesn't get shorter when lifting it, which it probably should, since it's being moved away from the viewer (because she's turned slightly looking towards us, and not fully sideways). so, now it looks more to me as if she's kicking halfway to the side, not straight back. also, I think she's lifting the leg to high, but that's once again better to tell if one can see the whole movement. ;)
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No the limp walk is the real thing I'm working on, the last one is just a quick leg bend mockup so I could hear anatomy complaints, so thank you for stating those. I'll try to finish the limp today and see what you think.
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Alright this took a very long time, and obviously its not done but I think it has a lot of the important aspects of a limp within it, would love to hear critique. (http://i.imgur.com/1oPQ19J.gif)
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is her upper body paralyzed? ;) reminds me more of Riverdance or that Jumpstyle "dance", to be honest ;)
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No I should probably move the arms though huh now that I look at it.
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on a side note, i think the "stomping" is possibly a bit to strong. i guess her knee moves up to much, and the foot comes down to forcefully (to speedy), hence making it look like an energetic dance move rather than dragging oneself exhaustingly forward. so maybe try taming down the lower body movement a little, i would suggest.
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Alright so I took some of your critiscms into account and made the leg movements less exaggerated, while also animating arms. What do you think (http://i.imgur.com/XFo6GW1.gif)
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maybe still a bit too "energetic" (in terms of amplitude and speed) for someone meant to look exhausted and injured, but definitely an improvement. I think it would be good to check how this looks in the game now which it is meant to be used in.
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This thread continually reminds me of this scene from Jurassic Park.
Maybe her body motion can help...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PscRUlsvhtI#t=166 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PscRUlsvhtI#t=166)
She is sorta running and I feel as if it is fairly exaggerated, but it's not an unbelievable performance.
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Okay I need help with a new thing, so I've got this fully animated hunting rifle shooting animation and it looks great but when its rotated it looks horrible, I'm aware I must redraw the sprite at different angles, but how many would you suggest. Heres the animation if you are interested (http://i.imgur.com/Dz9kAlN.gif)
Edit: Well I figured out that if I went this method the transitions between even just two rotated sprites looks strange so I would have to use only rotated sprites at super small intervals which would leave me with way too much work for the amount of weapons I'm looking to put in. So I simply went through and found which things look weird at which angles and created slightly different versions of the sprite to appear at these angles that had the offending bits chopped off or altered.
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Alright working on the prone/crawling now but before I even think of animating this I wanna get some opinions on the admittely rough base. The massive perspective shift threw me for a loop but overall I think it looks much better than what I would've thrown out at the beginning of this thread. (http://i.imgur.com/bPzuDPK.png)
edit: worked on it a bit but I'm pretty stuck on improving this
(http://i.imgur.com/X7mMBoH.png)