Pixelation
Critique => Pixel Art => Topic started by: HarveyDentMustDie on January 18, 2014, 05:15:46 pm
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Hi guys, it's me again. I need your opinion on this work.
It's still WIP, but I'm not very satisfied with her face. Any idea how to make it more "womanly"? Also any advice about posture and shading is very appreciated. ;D
(http://i.imgur.com/lmUhOu2.png)
Last version:
(http://i.imgur.com/38E4aJF.gif)
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Well, I started messing with her head, and then decided to keep going on with my edit, and I moved pretty far away from what I think your intentions are, but I hope you can still apply some of my information.
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v350/Daroge/lmUhOu2ke3_zps0819caa2.gif)
First, there is too much noisy detail that doesn't contribute to the whole picture. The hair, for example, doesn't have a very hairlike appearance—not because you didn't use a hair texture, but because it just gets lost in such a small space. It's more important to hint at textures instead of actually create them at this size. Let the volumes get the most attention.
Second, I'm not sure what sort of character you're going for, but to me, it looks like a ditsy corporate girl freaked out by the robber that just burst through the office door. She happens to have a gun that she hasn't even fired since she bought it, and will most surely miss if she fired. Personally, I like to draw girls that know how to defend themselves and always dress in something she can move in no matter how small the chances of a robber showing up are. That's the direction my edit took, so I apologize if the stance I chose doesn't really fit the style. However! There are a couple things that stood out to me that lead me to change the pose. One of them was that her torso looks oddly large compared to her legs, another was how she's a little off balance. Those two things aggravate each other. I adjusted those slightly, and got myself a little bit carried away by the end as you can tell. making her legs and hips a little bigger to even out her form, then shifting her top half to the left a pixel or two should be all you need to do to make the pose you have work.
As for the womanliness of her face, try to trim her jaw down a little bit, and find a hairstyle that's more feminine. Yours looks little bit like a bowl cut right now. If you were going for a bob, I'd say make it just a pixel longer, deepen the shadows around her face, and really emphasize where her part is.
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@Kcilc Thank you so much for your edit and constructive criticism. :D
I agree about hair, your solution is way better. I've tried to incorporate it in my edit.
She is a character from horror game. She's teenage girl that never fired gun before, and she must use it to survive.
This was created as sidescroller sprite, and I don't see how she's out of balance. She is leaned back, her left leg support that position, and right leg gives her balance. I was going for almost 3/4 view.
Here is an update. I think that is much better now.
(http://i.imgur.com/1Xqeum2.png)
I'm still having trouble with her right hand, and I'm not sure about shadow that her arm is casting on torso (is it on the right spot, and should it be more darker?).
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For what it's worth, I think Kcilc has drawn a much better and more correct stance for firing a pistol. But Harvey's version is probably more appropriate for this kind of character. The normal mistake when firing a pistol is not have a good stance or good grip that absorbs the recoil. In Harvey's version, it looks like she's almost trying to lean away from the pistol, which is what you would expect a teenage girl to do.
I see where Kcilc is coming from, I have a thing for girls who can defend themselves. But I also love the female protagonist who doesn't know how to fight / shoot, but finds a way to survive anyway, through sheer willpower. Like Alabama (Patricia Arquette) in True Romance. Now, if you make a character with this sort of helpless appearance, and give her the aim of Wyatt Earp, then it would make no sense.
At the moment, I think her exaggerated curves (huge breasts, tiny waist) are a bit at odds with a more realistic looking face ( and an overall semi-realistic style. I like what Kcilc did with the skirt. I don't think it needs a huge split, but a bit of loose fabric gives her more freedom of motion and also lets you do those nice fabric highlights which help to convey movement and create dramatic-looking poses.
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@cels thank you for your comment, I agree that Kcilc pose is very good but it's for more trained shooter. :)
I exaggerated her hips and breasts on purpose, I'm aiming for specific style.
That's a miniskirt, and it shouldn't have split. I'll see how it will all going when i animate her walk, but I think that skirt won't be a problem. :)
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I thought the same - Harvey's pose looks more feminine and like she's not sure what she's doing, or even scared to fire the pistol.
Kcilc's pose, which is very well drawn, does look like a more experienced firearm handler.
Which pose fits better depends on the nature of the character.
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Early WIP shooting animation. Every comment is very appreciated. ;D
(http://i.imgur.com/Ea1Ptli.gif)
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Cool animation! It does lots of things well, I think you have a good eye for animation. One thing I think might help you though, is the way you time each frame. Right now, many frames have different timings. This might seem good at first, but it really makes things way more complicated and difficult. With a regular frame timing, each frame represents a certain amount of time, and more importantly each unit of space represents a certain amount of movement between frames. For instance, if you have a single pixel moving one pixel every frame, a regular frame timing would give you regular movement. If the frames all had different timings, making that pixel move at a steady pace would be very difficult. With animation, everything involves the change in position between frames. So with an irregular frame timing, you need to account for both the amount of movement and the amount of time represented by that frame. Very very tricky.
I can see you are trying to make quick things happen quickly by reducing the frame time. But there are better ways to represent the speed of an action. Remember that the distance an object moves between frames corresponds to it's speed. For the gun recoil, it is meant to move quickly up and then slow down as she gets control of it. The motion blur you use for the gun, is actually a product of film. In film, each frame represents some unit of time (same as in animation). If the shutter speed is too slow, all movement occurring within that frame time will be captured (making a blur). That's why a motion blur makes things look quick, it represents to the eye a lot of motion in a short amount of time.
(http://s16.postimg.org/4ia7qxnf5/Ea1_Ptli.gif?noCache=1391426023)
In the edit, I did a few very simple things. I made the frame timings regular. Then, I combined the muzzle flash frame (too quick to be represented by its own frame) with the first recoil frame. Finally, I increased the amount of recoil experienced and the response to it. The edit is still flawed. It seems to "catch" a bit before the recoil. This is because the muzzle flash frame has a small amount of change in position from the last frame. The frame after moves a lot more. Anyway, hope it helps a little bit.
Keep up the good work, I like what I'm seeing overall.
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Very interesting post, NaCl.
I was wondering, if you make all the frames have the same timing, is duplication a good thing to try ? Then you'll have the possibility to have a regular movement if you want to but it also offers the possibility to double the time of a frame if it seems to make the animation look better.
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@NaCl Thank you for your comment and very useful and thorough explanation. I agree, it looks better now. I'll try to make all frame timings the same, I wasn't thinking about that. :)
This was my first version of animation (created in amount of time that I had last night), and after I posted it, I saw that I need to add couple more frames at the end (after recoil) to make everything smooth, and maybe add gun shell ejection after a shot.
Also in one very short frame during the shot I made top of the gun slide back, but it's barely visible mainly because the next frame is a blur frame. I should fix that to. ;)
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was wondering, if you make all the frames have the same timing, is duplication a good thing to try ?
Yes.
This way you can time out an entire animation with only a few frames and then replace duplicates with a new drawing without disturbing the length and overall timing.
It also gives you room to add slight variations to similar frames.
It also allows you to add in content that runs at a different rate than the rest of the animation.
This is very important for follow thru elements/etc and also if you plan on drawing effects directly into the frames ---> rather than using separate objs in a particle system.
If you change the delays of each frame then everything else will also be locked into that speed.
I usually set all my animations to a baseline low delay, defining a single frame as the fastest speed possible.
Then anything slower is duplicated numerous times.
Some thoughts.
(http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-PKPCXukh8cA/UvDOOYe5JeI/AAAAAAAAJBY/DkpDc7cdpBI/s1600/Ea1_Ptli.gif) (http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-fLLs-OD0Chk/UvDOOVAXrYI/AAAAAAAAJBk/mlvJtgFtDUo/s1600/shootStuff_1.gif) (http://3.bp.blogspot.com/--QFfsyMKhAQ/UvDOOuuOq_I/AAAAAAAAJBc/70Tj1_41GkY/s1600/shootStuff_2.gif) (http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-y3s1DTwJUhk/UvDOPBWmAlI/AAAAAAAAJBs/KHF6IL0U0lI/s1600/shootStuff_3.gif)
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@PixelPiledriver Thank you very much. For a long time I'm a big fan of your very useful edits. :D I really like the third version.
I love animating, and when I made my first animation two years ago, I used a lot of frames with same timing. Later on, I started using different timings to speed up the process and until now I didn't know that it wasn't very smart idea. :( I was adding more frames with low timings only when I needed to add something faster to the animation.
I'll fix some frames, add more details, and post new version soon. :)
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Hi guys. This is a new update. I still have to fix some pixels and maybe tweak couple of frames, but I'm satisfied how things currently develop. :) As always every comment is more than appreciated. ;)
(http://i.imgur.com/VxXFjt7.gif)
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The timing of the bang seems weird to me, I feel like it should go at the same time as the gun. I hear myself going "pow-bang" in my head and it just seems awkward.
Maybe also have the bang like explode at you and have it go to the screen then come back a bit, you know what I mean.
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@Mr. Fahrenheit
You are right, there is a delay between bang and shot. I tried out different things and that was most neutral solution.
How about something like this? :) I tried not to cover up character with letters, so I put "Bang!" behind her.
(http://i.imgur.com/wOGdAJJ.gif)
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Very charming animation. Well done :) I think in terms of shading and palette there's still some things you could improve upon. Quite a bit of pixel noise and low contrast on the skirt especially that Kcilc's edit takes care of.
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@ ErekT
Thank you. ;D Kcilc made very useful edit but it has to be miniskirt without any slits. I agree that it needs some corrections, and I'll see what I can do about that. ;) For now I increased skirt color contrast, slightly fixed bullet shell trajectory and add another shot. There's still some glitch frames, and some pixels to fix.
(http://i.imgur.com/38E4aJF.gif)
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Here's a small thought on palette, this being for a horror setting. Also tried to clean up some pixels.
(http://i834.photobucket.com/albums/zz263/ErekT_Pixel/HDMD_zps8f30e6e8.gif)
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@ErekT
Thanks for edit. I like what you did with a skirt, and some shading fixes. Your pallet make her more pale, almost dead looking like the enemy characters. It's true that it would make it more creepy, but I've intentionally used more vibrant colors to show that she don't belong to that world and that she is still alive. I will fix shading, and clean animation to make it more fluent.
What do you think about "Bang!" effect?
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The large orange cluster on her chest catches my eye a lot.
I'm not sure if it's supposed to be part of her shirt or a bit of flesh tone, but it feels.... out of place sort of.
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It's part of her orange blouse underneath white vest. Maybe I should add a turtle neck.
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It's part of her orange blouse underneath white vest. Maybe I should add a turtle neck.
With the space you have to try and suggest that things are going to get pretty difficult. :/
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Why doesn't anyone on this site openly admit to drawing an established character? ???
Heather Mason, Silent Hill 3:
(http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20100518172255/silenthill/de/images/c/c0/Heather_Mason.png)
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@tehwexxl0rz
;D Do you think that it can be hidden? That I'm representing myself as Masahiro Ito.:D In my previous treads I always said that drawings are for the Silent Hill animation, but people were not very interested. I didn't get any comments for a long time, especially when I made Pyramid head. This time didn't want to insist on that, because I wanted from people to look it as it is, a girl with a gun. This way I could get some original suggestions that are not influenced directly from a game. Anyone who played the game can recognize her in a second, so it's not an attempt to sell it as my own OC. If that's bad, you can blame it on me.
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Sure, the muted palette is just my personal taste :) What I really wanted to show was how hue-shifting can make your colors more dynamic and interesting to look at. In your sprite there's no hue-shifts going on. But real world colors don't work quite like that, at least not in terms of how our eyes perceive them. In areas with less light, like the underside of arms and such, colors will appear cooler and less saturated.
Here's a more saturated version with skin colors shifted a bit more towards orange:
(http://i834.photobucket.com/albums/zz263/ErekT_Pixel/hdmd_2_zps0d482aa0.gif)
About the newest bang: Looks cool. Gives it a bit more upbeat, cartoonish feel than the grimness onslaught of Silent Hill tho if that's what you're going for.
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I understand, you are right. I just used darker color tone for shades, and I didn't think about hue-shift. That's very helpful, thank you. :) I will work on that.