[WIP] Marcus Phoenix Sprite

[Ellmo]

Hey guys and girls, First just wanted to say I am new here and new to Pixel art. I am going to art school but this is literally my first day ever trying out Pixel art at all, I never really even thought about the fact that anyone actually did that for some odd reason even though I love older fighting games like MvC 1 and 2. Well anyway I did this today in about 3 hours and was looking for some advice on how to make it better and just improve on technique in general.



I looked at several different pics of concept art from Gears of War 3 for the clothes and armor design and looked at Ryu's stance from Street Fighter as a reference for his stance. I was trying to make his the same size as the Street Fighter or old Marvel Sprites but he seems sorta small, He is 106 pixels tall right now.

Overall I just wanted any and all opinions and suggestions about him, Like I said keep in mind today is the first day I have ever tried doing this. Oh and I am using Pixen btw.
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I cleaned a few things up on him some more. Added more armor and his rifle and cleaned up his boots and pants some.



Again any input is appreciated.

Also does anyone know how to get Pixen to stop changing random pixels to different shades of the same color? it keeps messing up my pallet.

[kriss]

hello i'm glad you're working on a battle sprite. You're guy remember me my favorite kof fighter : Ralf JONES ^^
As i like kof series, i can give you some advice, but i'm not a very good spriter, so i'm sorry if i changed too many your work.

I'm thinking your sprite is too big : as you can see with maxima, he's legs are smaller than your's sprite.
I reduced the chest and changed a bit the stance.
You should add some lighting (i added a little on the bandana).
I change a little the leg according to the king'stance (knee shouldn't be at the same height with the current stance)

The worst problem imo, is the boots aren't enough rounded.

So this is my work, i hope that will be help you a little



you can see all kof series's sprite. some sprite can be found here : http://sdb.drshnaps.com/system.php?sys=15 (search for "The King of Fighters")

[Ellmo]

@Kriss - Thanks a lot for your input it was extremely helpful. I worked on Marcus a bit more based on your suggestions and I changed his skin tone and made some more depth in shading over all.



Now to do the rest of his stance frames and then animating him which I still need to actually learn how to do lol.

[Helm]

Go back to the flatshade. Even more than in my edit. Look at readability there, and consider how to light and shade these surfaces with 1. as little confusion as possible 2. as few colors as possible. Readability is a much bigger concern than muscle tone right now.

[jams0988]

Edit: The more I look at them, the more I like the flat-shaded one...I take back my decision, heheh.
It still seems a bit under-detailed, though. The anatomy is better in the flat shaded version, but I think a compromise between the two would be best.

[slym]

Flat-shade for sure.

[kriss]

Ellmo : here a link to download all battles frames from some characters : http://www.mediafire.com/?84orz89rc78zg#63v1zz4x6lk44

Ralf for exemple (1mo) : http://www.mediafire.com/?1tjm4kzdg17.

Right now you need to know wich game you want to make :
- versus fighting with mugen ?
- original versus fighting with an other software?
- no versus game (beat'em all, maybe )?
- no game, just for fun?

I prefer the new color and i'm not sure the flat-shaded is better. It's true the flat-shaded version has a better anatomy (neck, shoulder), but i prefer to see more details. Your first version is near than kof style, so you don't need to over-shaded 

Joe higashi seams to be a good sprite to see anatomy: http://www.mediafire.com/?2zww2aw2jsc

[Helm]

I am not advocating flatshaded fighter sprites. I am saying he should go back to the flatshade for purposes of reworking from that position back to full shading of the style of his choice.

[kriss]

oh ok Helm, sorry for the mistunderstanding ^^

[Ellmo]

@Helm - I see what you are saying, working on starting shading again from flat to make it not as "busy" I guess would be the word. Don't have an update to post quite yet though, hectic life of a 18 hour collage work load. I am having a problem with color though bc the program Pixen is buggy as hell and making pallet continuity incredibly difficult.

@Kriss - First thank you so much for the link to that site, over the last few days I have been looking everywhere for a Site like that with everything all in one place. Google searching for specific characters sprites only gets you so far. As for game type I am really mostly just doing it for the fun of it, I mean I want my sprites to look like they could be in a game obviously but right now I am not really looking to develop anything. I have a friend who is a programmer and he does stuff with Mugen a lot so maybe eventually I might move in that direction.