Pixelation
Critique => Pixel Art => Topic started by: Seefour on December 25, 2015, 06:56:21 pm
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Hey there, I am new here, I am a game designer with a background in programming and music. I just picked up pixel art recently, because I refuse to allow my games to have "programmer art."
I've been browsing the art here, and I must say some of it is really impressive.
(http://i.imgur.com/jtxMI5i.jpg)
Meet Agnus.
Any tips or criticism would be highly appreciated.
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Well here a few things I noticed:
1. you should use a gray background (or the background your game actually uses) because you can choose colors easier that way.
2. the dithering on the shield looks kinda weird as it doesn't match with a normal shields shading.
3. The position itself looks too stiff (or at least I think so)
4. The line you made with the darkest skin color looks kinda weird. (the dark blue line on the back as well)
5. I can't really tell what gender this person is lol
6. Has this person only 1 foot?
Hope this helps I would love to see a enhanced version of this :D
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Hey there, thanks for the reply. Anything helps, and I appreciate the time spent sharing your thoughts.
I am having a lot of trouble getting that "side-scroller" perspective, though i am learning to kind of think of the character in 3d, and rotate it, if that makes sense.
Would there be a way I could hint at the other foot? If she were standing with her feet together, and you were looking in profile, maybe you would not see it? I dunno :P
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http://imgur.com/f0CMHPU (http://imgur.com/f0CMHPU) (for some reason the img tags won't work. :n:
Not the same sprite, but the same concept, took some of putsy's advice into account in the making.
I think the perspective is a little better.
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you gotta rightclick the img, copy it's address and then img tags will work with it
regarding the sprite
the character is interesting! alhough a it's current state, i doubt that that will be enough to grab atenttion
the sword could use some shine (give it shades and highlights) and the shield some detail , it seems wooden, so search for wood and add details accordingly
would edit but currently no mouse
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Looks way better now! :D
But ,for a player sprite, this looks way to boring. You need contrast with your colors! Also a nice texture (and not just plain shading) wouldn't hurt either.
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I think that you would greatly benefit for working smaller. You might want to try working at 16 pixels wide by 32 pixels high. Then you'd only have 512 pixels to get right. If you're working on an chin, for example, you could actually try out every possible chin and get the one that looks right for its face.
Also the sex is unclear. If it is supposed to be female add some breasts, otherwise add a beard.
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Size of the canvas matters far less than general drawing ability. Even if you intend to draw cartoon characters you need to tighten up your general drawing skill. Which can only be done by practice.
Which is possible via pixel art, but far easier and practical to pick up paper and pencil and start doodling away.
As far as your sprite goes. I'm really not sure what direction you are trying to take it. But work on the silhouette. As it stands now it is very straight very boring. Try to make thing a bit more dynamic.
Quick sketch:
(http://i.imgur.com/Ya82zZJ.png)
Here is a much much smaller swordsman I did awhile ago
(http://orig07.deviantart.net/a5da/f/2014/263/3/2/knightcharacterv2_by_straightsjacket-d7uff1q.png)
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oh hey, thanks everyone for the critique.
this sprite will probably not end up in a game, that being said, I will work on her some and try to make her a little more interesting (and gender specific)
I've been coming across a lot of tutorials that say beginners should first work with smaller canvases, so there is that. I think i got what I wanted out of this sprite though, which was to get any 2d perspective to "work"
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(http://i.imgur.com/VX7sdce.gif)
An updated version of Agnus. :)
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Wow! You've already made great improvements! ;D It's great to see someone who is extremely eager to learn! :y:
Since we're on to some learning, I wanted to talk about lighting and stepping in shades. First with Lighting, it appears there are two light sources. One from the front and one from above. (Image below diagram thingy) Now, this is all determined by location, and since I wasn't sure exactly what the setting was, I decided to go with an outside light source (the sun) Often a frontal light source would be like a cavern or cave with candles lighting the way, but then you wouldn't have the light source at the top, because there is no sun.
(http://i.imgur.com/Q3Zz2rQ.png)
Removing the frontal lighting leaves us with this:
(http://i.imgur.com/cGLvKhV.png)
Now I'm 800% certain someone can do a better shading job than I did, but it's just a basic example of how the hair would be shaded and how the face would also attempt to take on some of the light from the light source.
The next thing to talk about is the shading and stepping. Usually, when something is hit with a light source, it takes on properties from the light. When a leaf is hit by the sunlight, it is more yellow*. If a leaf is hit with light from a fire, it is more orange or red. (Once again playing to the setting aspect of video gaming.)
I tired to do some basic stepping, staying away from being too drastic, but this is what I came up with:
(http://i.imgur.com/tc9mekX.png) It's a bit bright, too bright for a dungeon, but when you're out in the sun, that's probably the direction you should head towards.
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Thank you Digivox for the informative post.
I wasn't looking at the light-sources as separate, but that certainly makes a lot of sense.
have a good new year!