Pixelation

Critique => Pixel Art => Topic started by: imonk on July 15, 2019, 05:51:31 am

Title: Help me with Bloodborne Hunter
Post by: imonk on July 15, 2019, 05:51:31 am
Help me with Bloodborne Hunter...
Title: Re: Help me with Bloodborne Hunter
Post by: daramon on July 16, 2019, 10:43:25 am
Quick disclaimer: I'm pretty new to all this and just learning myself. There's some good work here, you should be happy with this as a first draft!

Given that, a quick few points:

1: I love the shapes you have here, but it looks like you've taken almost every shape and just shaded from one side to the other. This is forcing unnatural angles for any given light source. Pick a light source direction and imagine which bits would be bright and which in shadow. I compare this style to pillow shading, where a standard pattern is applied to all shading areas regardless of light source, angle of component, etc. There are a few places where you've added in shadows, think about where else in the figure shadows would occur, and how shading will flow naturally around shapes.

2: The rear leg and arm may look better if they're one shade darker across the board. This will give z-axis information and provide more depth. The same for the rear side of the front of the coat, if you see what I mean.

3: The tops of the boots and the left side of the buttons down the middle are crying out for some shadows...

4: There are some jaggies in the outlines that could be tidied up. IMO outlines are best kept thin, one pixel thick, without clumping or steps at the diagonals. As they don't convey any actual information, another option is to just go round the edge and create an "inside outline" by using a darker shade (one value darker for each pixel) for all edge pixels. But it's a matter of style and preference.

5: The arms are a touch short, especially his right arm (our left). If you imagine straightening out his left arm, it will extend just past the waist. His right arm barely gets there. If you stand up and relax your arms, you'll probably see that they extend a little way into your thighs.

6: Shading again. Instead of taking roughly equal "bands" of shade and roughing them up with noise, have the bands occur very near each other with large areas of the same shade. thus you reduce "banding" and create more realism. If you look at how things are shaded around curves in reality, you'll probably see what looks like a sharp cut-off of shade from bright to dark across the face of the object.

7: Everything looks like the same material. Matt and dull. Pick some bright colors and add specular highlights to shiny objects. What is the jacket made of? Shiny leather? Matt suede? Are the boots polished to a shine? Is anything made of metal? Anything that's shiny should have point or near-point highlights to represent shininess. Larger areas of dull highlights (as seen across this image) convey matt surfaces like skin, wool, etc.

8: The only place where the outline of the coat reflects the crumpled nature of material is the lower part of his left arm. The rest shows straight, smooth edges but  contains noise attempting to suggest creases and folds. This confuses my brain somewhat. I'd like to see what happened with fewer folds, that match up to the edge disruption.

Phew! This is probably a lot to take in. I may have time to do a quick edit in a few hours, to demonstrate some of what I'm talking about. In the meantime, ask me about anything that I've been unclear about and I'll at least attempt to back it up with examples of other work! ;)

Edited to add:

When I started playing with this image, I noticed something. All the lines seem to be pointing down.

 - The hat is pointing to the ground.
 - The face is looking down.
 - The shoulders are rounded and hunched.
 - The weapons are angled downwards.
 - The arms are hanging a little limply.

I'm guessing you want to get across a fierce, dynamic character. Some things you could try:

 - Separate his right arm from the body to show he's putting some effort into the pose.
 - Square off the shoulders, thrust out the chest, pull the chin up, maybe add some neck height. The coat can pinch in the middle a little to emphasize the big chest and the flare of the coat lower down.
 - Try a more dynamic use of the gun. You could point it at an imagined enemy or even at the viewer. With the former we would be able to see more gun detail.
Title: Re: Help me with Bloodborne Hunter
Post by: daramon on July 16, 2019, 11:26:02 pm
OK, this is a bit of a mess but all I can hope is you get some ideas from it.

(https://i.imgur.com/3dbPX5I.png)

I tried to lift the saw blade and handle away from the body by lightening the color values. It was blending in a bit. I also added shading to follow the light source. The rear of the handle I made darker to place it behind the figure.

If you look at the feet, the rear foot is darker so looks more in the background.

With the hat, I tried to imply texture without drawing lines all the way across. Also, the shading follows the light source.

There are specular highlights on the saw blade, the gun barrel, the hair and the tape on the handle. Also on the buttons.

The rest is an abortive attempt to smooth out the jacket. Ignore.

When it comes to the pose, I cheated and very roughly traced an action figure, then filled the areas with color:

(https://i.imgur.com/L86ufAT.png)

Then smoothed the lines:

(https://i.imgur.com/nVHDrAw.png)

Here I've started to add some detail. Where I'm adding creases to the cloth, I'm roughing up the outline appropriately.

(https://i.imgur.com/ts4KYbE.png)

In this one I attempt to add an internal outline to the arm and part of the side:

(https://i.imgur.com/BWOuaiu.png)

Edited to add:

This is my first attempt at a 256x256 figure. I'm normally at 64x64 or less. Working at this scale is very different!

Also this is my first attempt at a detailed character and folds in cloth. Thanks for the challenge! I may even finish this guy. :)
Title: Re: Help me with Bloodborne Hunter
Post by: imonk on July 17, 2019, 11:59:37 am
Wow, a dedicated helper. I like what you did with the lighting to mine and the cloth wrinkles to yours. I agree, I think my hunter's feet still look uneven, hands too small, pose too bored torso too long, legs too short. But seriously thanks for going out your way to demonstrate your points. I'll touch up on the original and update here.
Title: Re: Help me with Bloodborne Hunter
Post by: Chris2balls on July 17, 2019, 01:41:35 pm
Daramon did a great job with that post! I thought I'd point out something too:

(https://i.imgur.com/o9ZwNih.png)
Notice how you can understand what's happening in Daramon's piece: the arms are not against the body, the gun's outline is recognisable, you can see a part of the weapon... you know what it is just by looking at the silhouette. By putting more detail in the outline, you give the viewer more information to work on to figure out what they're looking at.

Now an edit of your sprite's outline:
(https://i.imgur.com/8hEhtbh.png)
I separated the arm holding the blade from the body, so I was able to put more detail into it; I did the same with the pistold wielding arm. I took away more of the cloak and put it to the left, so that you could see more of the legs; I made the scarf smaller so you could understand that it's close to the face, etc.

Hope this helps  :)
Title: Re: Help me with Bloodborne Hunter
Post by: daramon on July 17, 2019, 09:43:48 pm
Wow, I certainly learned something from that one. Thanks Chris2balls!
Title: Re: Help me with Bloodborne Hunter
Post by: imonk on July 19, 2019, 04:40:45 am
Chris2balls yeah I see what you mean. That's actually crazy to think about tbh, the silhouette is so detailed anyone could recognize the subject just from the silhouette alone. Mine looks more like a 1950s trenchcoat guy. Slouching and tucked away. Gotta fix that.
Title: Re: Help me with Bloodborne Hunter
Post by: imonk on July 21, 2019, 06:39:16 am
Here's the 2nd draft, the original was overwritten here i guess... it would've been nice to see the changes for others to learn but i feel like people can still learn from this one alone, further criticism is still welcome though, always willing to update when i have time.(http://pixeljoint.com/files/icons/full/hunter__r15631432941.png)
Title: Re: Help me with Bloodborne Hunter
Post by: MysteryMeat on July 22, 2019, 04:03:42 am
you're still not thinking with silhouettes and good posing in mind. Redo the pose! Make his gun and razor scythe more distinct from his body!
Title: Re: Help me with Bloodborne Hunter
Post by: daramon on July 22, 2019, 03:53:27 pm
Try doing a quick Google search for "how to draw folds in clothes". Or "wrinkles" or "creases". There's a lot of information out there about the direction that the fold lines follow, given different material thicknesses and areas of the body.

While the lower arm is showing marked improvement, right now a couple of the folds of the upper arm are in parallel to each other and don't seem to marry up with a crumple zone or a stress zone. To me this gives a slightly unnatural look to the material, which has taken on the feel of mud flowing over an object in that area.

What happens if you make the creases more at right angles to the arm? That might give more of a "leather" look. Or alternatively, find the points of stress and follow those radially. For example, the elbow would be catching and stretching the cloth, but you only have one crease coming from that point. The rest are at different angles. What would happen if more creases radiated from that point? Or if you radiated out from the arm pit where the material would be getting stretched?

Here's a quick reference on Deviantart:

https://www.deviantart.com/cgcookie/art/Clothing-Wrinkles-and-Fabric-Folding-Reference-413780588

And one on Pinterest. (Sorry. I can't find the source right now):

https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/358106607850492533/?autologin=true

There's lots more out there!


Above all, don't be discouraged. Necessarily everything on this board will come across as negative, but my first reaction to your original post was "wow, that's pretty cool!"

We're just trying to help you make your art the best it can be! :)
Title: Re: Help me with Bloodborne Hunter
Post by: imonk on July 23, 2019, 05:38:39 am
 ;D No worries. I know it's still not 100 percent and I was actually aware of the unnatural creases as it's something I've always struggled with. I just wanted to show you guys that I was still working on it and I think I work better fixing a few aspects at a time rather than all at once. I mainly tried to get better lighting, proportions, and detail this time around (forgot saw teeth woops). I'm still deciding on what the best pose is.
Title: Re: Help me with Bloodborne Hunter
Post by: Chris2balls on July 23, 2019, 06:41:45 am
If you're hesitating on the pose, ask yourself what expression you want your character to convey, and don't be afraid of trying several poses. There's a lot of trial and error in any case ;)


Keep at it, and we're here when you need more advice as you progress!