Which color set do you think looks better, that would be more appealing in a game setting? Mostly the only change between them is that darks got darker, and the outline changed from a very dark saturated reddish to pitch black. I really like the dark saturated reddish, but the pitch black ones seem to pop more. I don't know. I'd really like some advice on this sort of coloring. A lot of my favorite artists never use full on pitch black, but I'm wondering if it has a place in games?

I agree with eishiya on much of what was pointed out (especially environmental), but there are some other things to consider as well:

Firstly, back in the SNES days, pure black was only rarely used because even "black" could be made into a "warm" or "cool" color to sell the overall mood of the scene by simply changing its hue to a very dark red/maroon or a very dark blue/indigo. The eye would still read it as "black" but the brain would read it as "cold" or "warm" depending on the color chosen.

Square games did this a lot (FF6 and Chrono Trigger are particular examples -- get any screengrab from the game and color pick to check the color and you'll see).


Another thing to consider is that the eye has less work to do if the contrast between the lightest "light" and the darkest "dark" is not too far way. For example, old-school gameboy games were easy to understand visually because there were only 4 "colors" to sort through. Games such as Kirby's Dreamland looked great on gameboy (arguably better than on the NES in some cases) because it made the games seem a lot more light and airish since they used less colors -- the eye naturally felt less burdened, and by extension, so did the brain because it was not burdened with having to process all the extra color information. It stopped at contrast (which is the first thing, along with silhouette, and before movement, that the eye registers anyway).

To be more clear about how this is applicable to your case -- It is important to ensure that if the environment has a particular "light" and "dark" range (and it should!), the character sprites that sit on top of it should have a separate "light" and "dark" range too (that accounts for the environment's range) that ensures they always stand out. This range, however, from the darkest dark on the environment background to the lightest light of the characters, should probably be as "close" as possible, depending on how strenuous you want to make the processing of contrast to your player.

A game with more "airy" feel to it generally uses lighter (pastel) colors and the darkest darks are as dark as the middle-most shade of most other games sporting more "serious" moods or themes. In those other games, the player NEEDS to think, but in a game like Kirby or Yoshi's epic yarn, the point of the game isn't to make you think -- it's to help you relax -- and lower contrast between blacks and whites will help you accomplish this. This is the reason why pastels work so well -- You'd be hard-pressed to find a black "black" in a palette of pastels. Although the reason for this might seem "obvious" when put that way, it is the contrast of the colors (and not the hues or particular shades of the colors themselves) that make them feel "airy" and "calming" to look at. These same colors could be "gray" -- but as long as the shades of gray remain at the same contrast when used in an "airy" feeling game (again, see the gameboy and various gameboy emulators that let you change the gray palette to various other "colored" grays for proof of this), the "airy" feel will remain. This is the reason why contrast is an often-forgotten key to how your art makes the player feel.

The hue is important for this also (because it describes warm/cool), but it is still secondary to contrast because a game can still retain a certain "mood" or "tone" without any hue whatsoever simply by using either more "light" colors or "dark" colors in the world or environment.


Whew.

Sorry for that long post, but I wanted to put this out there because it is an often-overlooked problem of some games that nobody ever really mentions but always somehow "sees" -- even if it's at the back of their mind.


So to answer your question -- the B4 "gold" guy and the after "grey" guy are the better color choices imo. This is because of the contrast of the "gold" guy gives a more "inspirational" or "airy" feel than the dingy "heavy" feel of the gray armor portrays. The mood is optimistic on the B4 "gold" guy, while the mood is meh and dull on the not-so-shiny grey/iron/metal B4 knights. The issue with the B4 grey knights is that the grey sucks the life out of the rest of the sprite (since there is not enough "dark" there in the "color" of the sleeves/cape/helmet-hair-thingy to contrast with the armor itself), whereas in the "after" grey knight, this contrast is increased and the grey metal seems somehow "shinier" than it is thanks to this additional contrast provided by the darker sleeves/cape/etc. -- and as an added advantage -- this new contrast gives them more "volume" and "presence" as well.

Sorry for the long read, but I hope it was informative.

I hope this helps identify some things you might want to think about in the future!

Hi winged doom!

Just my two-cents.... Get ready!!

lol

First off, the girl looks like she's hurt and/or falling asleep animation-wise. She could just bounce back and forth like a typical "fighter" or streets of rage kind of animation (but more subtle of course) so that you can emphasize that she's a girl. With the back of a big-muscled brawler, you kind of need details like hair flowing in the wind or some subpixel animation to emphasize at least one or two traits that say "girl" -- and unfortunately the "dress" / "skirt" doesn't do that well enough since it reads more as a tail or something else than a skirt/dress thing to me.

As for the flying-female -- I was seriously convinced this was a Sephiroth-style male (since the breasts didn't really come across to me with the dark clothing). The silhouette was unfortunately what kills it completely for me though -- the waist isn't small enough to emphasize the "heart" shape of the hips from this angle.

Take a look at Ayla from Chrono Trigger.



She definitely comes across more as female (and in less pixels too!) than your boss character, so there is definitely something you can do if you study her a bit. She's at a similar angle to your character (albeit a little less stylized), so she's definitely a good study case.


You've got a great-looking setup with your environment there -- I like it a lot. It made me think of old games like YS too.

I also like the Imp and fire animations -- but, for some reason, they (when combined with the whole image there) make me want stylized human characters too (to match the "character" of the imps a bit more -- They seem really charming and lively compared to the two "main" characters, who are a bit less "colorful" comparatively-speaking.)

Sorry if my critique was too heavy-handed -- To me, it's more valuable to hear what others really see in my hard work than for them to just give me praise for it. I'd rather be shot down early (rather than later, after the game is released) since I can fix it better now than I can later... ;P

Overall though, I like it a lot! -- I'd really like to see an improved version of the characters!

I'll try to help.

First, the Death animation seems like the character is sort of "rolling" flat across the ground very gradually. It acts as if it is being smashed by a steamroller rather than actually "falling" down. The reason for this is because the head moves at a very constant spacing across the length of the animation rather than "easing-in" and stopping suddenly (which is probably more like what you're going for here).

Second, the Walk animation doesn't take into account the shifting of the shoulders or hips. The reason for this is because the distant (back) leg does not shift even a pixel backwards below his belly when the leg is moving back. The front (closer) leg hinges on the crotch (which should actually move as his hips turn toward the camera). The arms (particularly the shoulders) need to shift more across the middle of the body as it turns away from the camera, and the distant shoulder needs to go closer to the neck (which is why the breast looks weird on that side -- the shoulder is too far forward when it should be back more).

The Attack animation --  actually isn't bad.
Again, for the distant arm (shoulders) and the legs (the hip joints, in particular), remember to turn them a bit more to give a little more "3D" while also giving a better sense of movement. Even though we are doing 2D, we always have to give the illusion that our animations have "depth" too! The belly button moves, but why don't the hip-joints and upper-thighs move with it? The body is connected after all. You move one thing, and then most everything else requires movement too!

Hopefully that gives some direction on improving these!

I know this is an older thread, but I just wanted to mention that this particular problem is a very common one newbies face when trying pixel-based animation that also rarely gets addressed.

First off, to "fix" this problem, one starts with solid colored masses (not fully-colored heads, or portions of the body). If the silhouettes of the movement look correct, then you can start adding things like outlines and basic form.

Unfortunately, when trying to add outlines to small resolutions like this, animation can get very "floppy" and "muddy" as MysteryMeat pointed out about the wet or "sand-filled" floppy socks.

Most importantly -- do NOT animate pixel art in Photoshop! Get something like Graphics Gale (free!) or Asesprite, which has OnionSkinning capabilities so that you can see your silhouette (for the moment, I suggest Graphics Gale for animation, but Asesprite is definitely catching up!) Graphics Gale has a keyboard shortcut where you can map the F10, F11, F12 keys to the mouse wheel so you can flip quickly between animation frames. This is how you can check your silhouette more easily.

Finally, regarding "volume" -- please remember that outlines are a "post-processing" effect. They are generated AFTER the volume itself. So when animating the silhouette, your are animating only VOLUME and not outlines or details or lighting or shadow. Only volume. Therefore, no matter what you do, consider how heavy these volumes are as you flip-flop between frames to study them as they move. Ensure they remain of consistent size and proportion to what kind of materials they are.

Sorry for the necro-post -- but this section is not very lively these days, so I wanted to help infuse it with a little know-how if I could. I want to see a little more life here in this section of the forums.