Ok, I have 2 fighter sprites here, both are based on axel from SOR2 which I've used as a reference, mostly on the shading/detail end of things. The second one I feel deviated right from the start, but the dead giveaway is the shoes.
In my head, the second one is just me hitting the streets.
I haven't done much pixel work before this, mabey 2-3 very small pieces over the years, like my EGA adventure game avatar. I've watched some tutorial spriting and read the various posts about color, etc. but I'm finding applying it to my own stuff extremely difficult. I can't draw at all and only have a basic understanding of anatomy, so I find blotting/outlining the initial character before coloring the hardest/most time consuming part, and alot of trial and error. Just keep that in mind when looking at these -- I need lots of practice. So yes, I'm biting off mabey more than I can chew here, but I dont really have a choice if I want to finish my project.
I started on a opengl 2d lib last Nov, which took roughly 4 months to get all of the gfx/sound/ui stuff worked out, and then I decided to work on a little oldschool nintendo style beatemup game. Which at the time the logic was - simple machanics, low art reqs, and I could just finish it. I was going for something like double dragon 2 for graphics and streets of rage 2 for gameplay. Here was my mistake though, which I'll get into later.
First up, the sprite I abandoned. The goal here was to make a 40 pixel tall guy based on axel for a couple reasons, 1) as an art test to see how things would look in game. 2) to learn something about pixeling, and 3) to see if I could even hack it by myself.
The height is the same as the guys from DD2, however, once I put it in game I realized the reason those sprites worked is they were very "fat" looking, and my guy looked REALLY small on screen. This is where I wondered if I should even bother continuing to do this myself and tried to rationalize handing over one of my paychecks to someone like Helm.
You can see my terrible progression here -- this actually took like a week for me, looking at the time stamps -- mostly because I would get frustrated and have to walk away from it.
Postmortem: 6 days total from start to finish.
It took like 3 days to even get this going. There was a point at where I gave up trying to make the shoes on my own and I looked at the shoes axel had in sor2 and realized the only reason they looked like shoes to me was the stripe on his sneakers. I had a really hard time visualizing what I was trying to pixel staring at a white canvas. So after that sometimes I would just put some little detail in like that and work from there instead of trying to do that last. Also, the head wasn't as hard as I thought it would be, even though it sucks, I was pretty happy with it at the time. Color wise this is a total mess, I was still picking colors using the wheel or adjusting RGB values instead of using the HSB sliders. Overall I would say it's a god damned tragedy, but I liked the legs/stance I ended up with, and I probably spent the most time on that part.
*sing it
Anything that we want to go from just a beginner to a pro,
You need a montage (montage)
Ohhhhh it takes a montage (montage)
aaandd here we are. I decided to make him a compromise between DD2 and SOR2 in size, 60ish tall. Axel from SOR2 was roughly 80. This time the initial blot/outline didn't take nearly as long, only a couple of hours, it was basically the same as the other one just a bit bigger so it wasn't as hard to wrap my head around. There are alot of details taken from the SOR2 axel, like the shoe stripe, the seam/pocket on the pants, etc. It's there if you look. The face, which I thought we be super hard, wasn't too bad, though a bit too anime for me, that's really all I could come up with that didn't look terrible.
Postmortem: 7 days from start to finish.
BLOT/LINEART: Not terrible, I actually managed to blot the shape in a couple hours at my friends house. I reused my feet/legs from the first guy in terms of positioning. It's pretty much how I stand in front of the mirror conincidentally.
His right foot still feels very weak to me, but I'm not sure how to fix it.
COLORS: I tried to be better on the color picking this time around but I think it needs alot of work. If you look at the difference between frame 3rd and 4th row you'll notice his skin tones change alot. This is where I absolutely gave up trying to pick them myself and found some website that had like 20 skin tones in a graph and I used that heavily to get the 4 colors I ended up with.
It was driving me crazy for hours. I'm getting better at it, trying to pay attention to the values and how I can make better choices, but oy vei, I have a long way to go here.
SHADING: A mess. You know, I've seen tons of this stuff, watched tutorials, etc, but I draw a blank looking at my own stuff. The pants are very close to sor2 axel in terms of shading because I ended up working off of the details I added based on that sprite, like the pant seam. I honestly don't know if I should have went in that direction but I couldn't think of another way without pillow shading him.
I don't really have a true lightsource, I mean, it's sorta from above/back a little, but I found myself just using the colors to show definition instead, like, showing you where his knee is, or where his leg bends. I dunno, I was totally lost on this. I just put some details in that worked and moped around those until it looked like something. I was hoping to get a bit of help with this I guess, but damnit if it doesn't feel like I've commited myself to this look now.
ANATOMY: oy vei. I spent a couple days working on his arms and I still think they are terrible, and I still don't know how to fix them. It looks "okay" to me right now. I wish his right arm was held higher, I know I don't hold a high guard with one arm and not the other, but I didnt want to cover his neck with his hand. This also made me feel like the skin colors I had picked were inadequate. His shirt changed from gray to white because of the arms as well. Damn you axel. Overall he looks "okay" to me, but not great. Mabey his arms are too short? Waist too long? The hands probably could be better but I'm not sure how.
CLOSING: The whole time I was working on this guy I felt like I was going to get away from axel more and more, but looking at him now, yeah. Haha. I think I just identify with this look, as this is how I see myself in a game. So I would REALLY like to get some feedback and be able to clean this guy up and call him "finished". I would love to start on some animations. Also, if your saying to yourself, bah, he did nothing new - realize that this is not about creating a 100% origional sprite, so much as learning to pixel without being overwhelmed and having something to throw into a game at the end of the day.
Here's what he looks like in my game even though the pitch-black background kinda swallows him a bit. Also, don't be afraid to get mean, tear that crap apart.
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