Trying to get into Pixel Art - Sprite and a couple tiles

[d13f00l]

I've been doing pixel art on and off for a while.  I don't have a whole lot of artistic talent.  I made this by drawing a blob and removing from it, and copy/paste flipping the image back and forth until it looked somewhat human, and then just added colors to try and give it a little depth.  I spent like 6+ hours on it.   

It still needs work.  Maybe more frames, more colors?   I had to bring the legs closer together to make it animate right at all.  If I make the arms move too much, it looks really bad, but the arms don't quite look right as is right now.  Do i _NEED_ more frames? 

Any ideas?

Also working on a couple tiles, less than done, but am I heading in the right direction?


I need to make the grass tile a bit better, and fix the wall a bit.


This is for a game in Java I'm writing.   Admittedly, drawing is more fun than the code.   

[Organ_House]

First off I'd suggest changing the anatomy of the figure. The body is ok in most places, but the head seems too short and wide compared to the rest of the body, and the face from the side doesn't match the face from the front.

I'd also go back and change the hair. The hair should be a visually appealing silhouette, then go back and add highlights and shadows to it. Also the color of her hair is very saturated compared to the rest of her body (and her face is far paler than her arms.)

Lastly I'd avoid the pillow shading on her body. Check out the tutorial section on shading. It should be realistically shaded from a single light source (above the character, not in front of.)

Also make her upper-arm and fist move up more on the animation, and have one leg overlap the other more (maybe by 1-2 pixels?)

Also, just noticed the face doesn't match up on the side pose compared to the front pose.

[d13f00l]

Check out the tutorial section on shading. It should be realistically shaded from a single light source (above the character, not in front of.)

Thanks!  I personally like the side view face better, so I'm going to try and make the front more similar.

Where is this tutorial section?  Having trouble finding it.

[d13f00l]

Is this a step in the right direction?  Didn't touch the hair yet, but before I do this to the rest of the frames, it'd be cool to get opinions.  It does look way better, though, IMO.  Thanks!

[heyy13]

How come the skin on his face is such a differant colour than that on his arms?

Also this forum has a zoom function so please don't post zoomed versions of your art. : )

There doesn't seem to be consistant shading. On this new version you seem like you want him to be lit form the right (by his clothing) but neither the pantleg, his hair or his face are lit the same way.

Likewise the hair is abit haphazard and two dimentional. Like you've pasted it on the front of his head. Were that his real hairstyle you'd be able to see some hair at the back hanging down between the bangs and the face. Where you've currently got background.

I may do an edit to show you what i mean tomorrow. It's too late now to start one. (2am)

[d13f00l]

How come the skin on his face is such a differant colour than that on his arms?

Also this forum has a zoom function so please don't post zoomed versions of your art. : )

There doesn't seem to be consistant shading. On this new version you seem like you want him to be lit form the right (by his clothing) but neither the pantleg, his hair or his face are lit the same way.

Likewise the hair is abit haphazard and two dimentional. Like you've pasted it on the front of his head. Were that his real hairstyle you'd be able to see some hair at the back hanging down between the bangs and the face. Where you've currently got background.

I may do an edit to show you what i mean tomorrow. It's too late now to start one. (2am)

I didn't touch the head yet, is the pantleg too subtle?  I was going for upper-right.

[Fatalis67]

I like the body, but the head needs some work. The shape is definitely off, looks like it belongs on a much more cartoon-ish character and it appears to be very long and pointed forward from the side view. Also, his face is way too light. It should be the same color as the rest of his skin.

[d13f00l]

I like the body, but the head needs some work. The shape is definitely off, looks like it belongs on a much more cartoon-ish character and it appears to be very long and pointed forward from the side view. Also, his face is way too light. It should be the same color as the rest of his skin.

I was trying to go for a anime-ish look, huge eyes, kinda pointy, but I'm having a lot of trouble with the head. 

[d13f00l]

This was supposed to originally be male anyway.  Closer?

[d13f00l]

Is this head more in proportion? 



Any pointers?  Can't quite get the face how I want it.  I want it to turn a little, but showing more hair and moving the face left or right 1 pixel looks like too much change...hrm...maybe I just need a break

[d13f00l]

I'm having trouble with the front hair, how can I give it a bit more depth?  It almost looks like a MegaMan helmet.   
Maybe I should just keep the widow peak spike...

Edit: Edited...

[Souly]

Do you plan for this character to walk on those isometric tiles?

[d13f00l]

Do you plan for this character to walk on those isometric tiles?

Yeah.  I'll probably do an 8 way view.  It looks OK to me. 

[tocky]

Contrast. He's hard to spot, with that brickwork. I think you should add more saturation, more red to the sprite.

[d13f00l]

Added a darker outline, cleaned up the pallet, recolored, tried to add contrast and fix the shading a bit...not sure if there's too much I can do about the bricks and his hair, I can recolor the bricks, to be gray or red.  I think they're just too close to the same color. 

Obviously not EVERY sprite can stand out against EVERY background/tile in every case, right?  Or should I make a conscious effort when doing tiles and different heads/hair?

[tocky]

It's kind of difficult starting out, but you can come up with some general rules, and so long as you're consistant it'll usually work out pretty well. For instance, it's common to use brighter, warmer, or more saturated colours for foreground stuff than you would for background tiles. If you keep your palettes small it's relatively easy to keep track of what stands out against what. You don't have to switch out everything drastically - just change enough to make it obvious that there's a guy there.



not that you can't see him anyway - just that he should stand out.

I think red is a good choice, because it complements the green of the grass, and it's warm so it'll pull forward naturally. But any colour will work if you find the right shade, you just have to mess with it till it looks right.