Pixelation
Critique => Pixel Art => Topic started by: Rosse on November 21, 2008, 01:41:16 pm
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Hi fellow pixlers
I did this sprite with a ape/rat hybrid in mind, but didn't work well. I thought rat head, ape body. Didn't use any references, tho :(
Things I'm unsure:
- ape body?
- colors. Neither monkey nor rat it seems. Any ideas?
- highlights or not?
- rear leg, position?
(http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c62/markusrosse/pixel/ape_rat.png)
(currently 7 colors, max. 8 intended)
I hope you can help me with this small varmint.
[edit]
History (old to new):
(http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c62/markusrosse/pixel/ape_rat.png)
(http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c62/markusrosse/pixel/rat1.gif)
(http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c62/markusrosse/pixel/rat2.gif)
(http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c62/markusrosse/pixel/rat3.gif)
(http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c62/markusrosse/pixel/rat4.gif)
(http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c62/markusrosse/pixel/rat4colors.gif)
(http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c62/markusrosse/pixel/rat5.gif)
(http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c62/markusrosse/pixel/rat6.gif)
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Currently, it looks more like a squirrel. Mostly, that's because of the tail. Apes have short stubby tails, while rats have pink, furless tails. Rats also tend to have red eyes, though red eyes usually signify villains in video games, so that depends on what you want him to be. Apes also have much broader, blockier bodies. They also tend to have short necks and hunched shoulders... right now the arms seem to connect at the waist.
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the background color dont let me see the sprite
could you remove that?
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(http://www.mindcrank.com/ape_rat2.png)
I definitely thought it was a squirrel at first glance due to the head and tail. Rodent qualities. I thought your leg placement and color choices needed the most work, so In my edit I offer some suggestions on lightening up your palette while showing you what i thought the leg should look like. It currently looks like he is trying to squat to go to the bathroom or is a stuffed animal just kind of sitting there.
Even with my quick 10 minute edit, there are still some issues with anatomy and whatnot, but I wanted to give you my impression of your cute critter. Can't wait to see some updates :)
HOpe this helps.
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I throw the idea with the ape/rat hybrid away and made it to a rat only (kinda)
Currently, it looks more like a squirrel. Mostly, that's because of the tail. Apes have short stubby tails, while rats have pink, furless tails. Rats also tend to have red eyes, though red eyes usually signify villains in video games, so that depends on what you want him to be. Apes also have much broader, blockier bodies. They also tend to have short necks and hunched shoulders... right now the arms seem to connect at the waist.
Yes, you're absolutely right. My first problem was my wrong idea about a "ape". There are primates, and what I had in mind was a chimpanzee. And those doesn't have any tail at all. When doing a image next time I really should use reference pics when not knowing how something looks like.
(http://www.mindcrank.com/ape_rat2.png)
I definitely thought it was a squirrel at first glance due to the head and tail. Rodent qualities. I thought your leg placement and color choices needed the most work, so In my edit I offer some suggestions on lightening up your palette while showing you what i thought the leg should look like. It currently looks like he is trying to squat to go to the bathroom or is a stuffed animal just kind of sitting there.
Even with my quick 10 minute edit, there are still some issues with anatomy and whatnot, but I wanted to give you my impression of your cute critter. Can't wait to see some updates :)
HOpe this helps.
Thanks for your edit. I hope I have the problem solved with the unclear animal form and everybody sees a rat now. Your palette is much brighter, but I'm not sure how to do it correctly. I kinda like the nearly black outline. It makes it look unrealistic, cartoon-like. But I'm still not happy with the colors. Maybe the shading is the main problem?
About your altered posture. It's more realistic for a rodent, but I intended a more cartoony look (didn't mentioned it, sorry). With the unnatural posture I tried to give it a more personal posture. It should be a real character and not just a generic rodent. I'm not sure if I achieved that, tho.
new <-> old
(http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c62/markusrosse/pixel/rat1.gif) (http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c62/markusrosse/pixel/ape_rat.png)
(8 colors now)
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Now he's definitely more rat-like, less squirrelly... and the pose resolves itself better. When I first posted, I was reading his legs as arms and vice-versa, probably because you said the word "ape." I saw him standing and kind of hunched forward, with big beefy forearms. Judging by Dogmeat's edit, he saw the same thing. Now I see that he's sitting down (before he had his hands beside him, now they're on his knees).
I don't know how to make him look like a chimp with a rat head... it will be very difficult with such a small image. Chimps are very close to humans, so it's tough to communicate "rat-chimp" rather than just "anthropomorphic rat." Extremely long limbs and shaggy fur, I guess. Right now he's too smooth and shiny to be a chimp. Rats and most rodents have short, sleek fur, whereas chimps are furrier. Might be hard to get a convincing fur texture with so few pixels, but you'll have to try.
EDIT: Oh, I see you've changed the thread title to "just rat now." That being the case, I think you've succeeded.
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some parts of the tail and the hear need more curves work.
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Thanks for your critiques. I know criticize such a small sprite is hard, but I'm thankful for every small crit.
some parts of the tail and the hear need more curves work.
I tried to adress your crits. I'm not sure about the tail. I think it's better but I'm not sure how to make it more curvy. I don't want to AA into the background (it's a sprite), and I think I need the negative space to show it's a tail (seperate it from the body). Any ideas to solve this problem?
I made a slightly palette change, not sure about it too.
new <-> old
(http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c62/markusrosse/pixel/rat2.gif) (http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c62/markusrosse/pixel/rat1.gif)
I don't mind nitpicks, please help me with this small sprite. It's very hard to be objective about the own work when working that long at a single piece.
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Hey Rosse, cute sprite
The only issue I have with it, is that the front leg seems kind of disconnected from the body. It is difficult to see his pose because of that. I believe I created another problem or two in this edit, but sort of solved the disconnected leg problem, at least enough so you can understand what I mean.
(http://i34.tinypic.com/5tsz9c.png)
All I really did was reduce the lighting on his front leg, so it looked more connected to the rest of the body.
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Hey Rosse, cute sprite
The only issue I have with it, is that the front leg seems kind of disconnected from the body. It is difficult to see his pose because of that. I believe I created another problem or two in this edit, but sort of solved the disconnected leg problem, at least enough so you can understand what I mean.
(http://i34.tinypic.com/5tsz9c.png)
All I really did was reduce the lighting on his front leg, so it looked more connected to the rest of the body.
Thanks, I see what you mean. The leg looks really disconnected, but I kinda like how "it goes into the space". I tried to paint the problem:
(http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c62/markusrosse/rat_line.jpg) (http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c62/markusrosse/rat_alt_line.jpg)
(http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c62/markusrosse/rat.jpg) (http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c62/markusrosse/rat_alt.jpg)
Your version looks less interesting but correct illuminated, while my version looks disconnected and wrongly illuminated. I think a hybrid version between the two would be the best. Any ideas how to achieve this?
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I see what you're saying. I made another edit, and what I did was
- connect the leg to the body, by reducing the darkest pixels between it and the body
- scooted the butt back so that his angle was correct for his leg to stick out. Right now his body is almost directly sideways. I made him a little more angled
- left a lot of highlights on the leg, as you like
My edit doesn't look great, but I think if you just rotate his butt slightly clockwise, and reduce the light different between the leg and body it will be good.
(http://i34.tinypic.com/k2zhab.png)
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I see what you're saying. I made another edit, and what I did was
- connect the leg to the body, by reducing the darkest pixels between it and the body
- scooted the butt back so that his angle was correct for his leg to stick out. Right now his body is almost directly sideways. I made him a little more angled
- left a lot of highlights on the leg, as you like
My edit doesn't look great, but I think if you just rotate his butt slightly clockwise, and reduce the light different between the leg and body it will be good.
(http://i34.tinypic.com/k2zhab.png)
Thanks a lot. I tried to adress your crits in my new version.
I made a new attempt of this sprite. I abandoned the "full shading" because it's hard to make it believable at that size while having enough color identity (my old sprite lacked in that) and making it easy to read (pose). I tried a "flat shading" style now to make it more readable and giving it a "easy to read" color. Additionally I broke the outline where the butt and the feet meet the ground to meld them together.
I lost a lot of volume with this step, but I hope to win a lot of "clarity" which is very important in pixelart.
flat-shaded <-> full-shaded
(http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c62/markusrosse/pixel/rat3.gif) (http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c62/markusrosse/pixel/rat2.gif)
Any thoughts?
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The flat shading looks like a game character, and the other like a web logo, any chance you could tell us what its for?
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I much prefer the flat shaded. The other one is hard to read for me, and the eye and ear merge into one. In fact, those ears could probably do with being a pixel further back, they're very close to the eyes right now.
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The flat shading looks like a game character, and the other like a web logo, any chance you could tell us what its for?
Hmm, it should be a game character. Thats the reason I use a outline and don't AA into the background. But I had no intentions to use it for a game or something. It's just for practice.
I much prefer the flat shaded. The other one is hard to read for me, and the eye and ear merge into one. In fact, those ears could probably do with being a pixel further back, they're very close to the eyes right now.
Thanks a lot dock. Your right about the ear and eye of the full-shade version. Since I threw that version away I won't work futher on it but I will pay attention to make a better seperation between details in future sprites. Thanks for pointing that out.
In the latest version I just changed one pixel in the ear/mouth and made a slightly palette alteration. It's very hard for me to choose nice looking colors in ProMotion just with the RGB+HSB sliders. I like the photoshop-way much better (with the preview).
new <-> old
(http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c62/markusrosse/pixel/rat4.gif) (http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c62/markusrosse/pixel/rat3.gif)
Should I call it final?
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mmmm, in my book yes, but you might wanna change it, I cant see nothing though.
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mmmm, in my book yes, but you might wanna change it, I cant see nothing though.
Sorry, I don't understand what you mean. Could you explain it in other words? (english is not my first language)
I have no idea how to color that sprite, so I opened it in photoshop and played a bit with it. But I haven't found any inspiration to continue. When nobody has a idea how to color that sprite I think I stop here.
(http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c62/markusrosse/pixel/rat4colors.gif)
Then let's call it finished and make a final comparison.
newest <-> oldest
(http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c62/markusrosse/pixel/rat4.gif) (http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c62/markusrosse/pixel/ape_rat.png)
Thanks again to all which tried to help me.
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B4, really. It just has that hint of more contrast. For a flat shaded version this is fine, for a more realistic shaded version, you shouldn't go as you have done so far, but just add surface and texture information in the shading transitions and add a slight bit of contrast in the darkest and deepest part. It shouldn't be all smothed out with 4 more colours, actually 1 or 2 would be enough if you apply it to define more information, rather than more smoothness.
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I myself prefer A2, just because it's nice and vibrant. 1A doesn't have enough saturation for my taste. Well it can work.
But not a a fun cartoony mouse.
It think B4 is also nice, but A2 is a little more interesting.
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I feel like something was lost in the process. It seems almost like you completely dropped the structure of the character and instead of polishing/shading/whatevering him, you opted for a simple mode with basic colors. I really think this could use some lighting and a little more definition.
If I had to choose though, any of the ones in row 3 are awesome, especially 3D which is my fav :)
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Thanks a lot for your answers. You motivated me to continue on the sprite.
First I changed the palette in the flat-shaded version:
new <-> old
(http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c62/markusrosse/pixel/rat5.gif) (http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c62/markusrosse/pixel/rat4.gif)
I think it's a mixture between A1 (old) and A2.
Then I was motivated to continue on a full-shaded version of the sprite. First I tried to reshade it on a pixel level, but I completely failed. Therefore I painted a big version and resized it and cleaned it up at pixel level:
(http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c62/markusrosse/rat_color.jpg)
resized+cleaned up <-> old
(http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c62/markusrosse/pixel/rat6.gif) (http://i25.photobucket.com/albums/c62/markusrosse/pixel/rat2.gif)
I think I like the newest one the best (from the full-shaded ones), but I believe it still looks resized. I not sure why, tho.
What do you think?
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Oh I love that new one! The first one was going for too much of a realistic look and the second was too simplistic.
But this is a perfect combo of those 2. Nicely done!