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Messages - AimlessZealot
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I'm with SimeonTemplar and MysteryMeat. Great start, but the shading and skewed proportions should be pretty high on your objective list. I took a quick crack at adjusting them a little to give you a nice side-by-side comparison. Also, you'll notice that I marked the jaw line rather than letting it continue into the neck. This is because assuming you're going with the standard 3/4ths view, it would not be possible to see it as a continuous strip from this perspective. Thing 1 is the original, Thing 2 the revised.

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Pixel Art / Re: Fighting Game Animations
« on: September 07, 2015, 03:53:15 am »
I think you might consider making his back hand (right hand) during the ice pillar an open palm pushing towards the ice pillar. Currently while it all is beginning to gel, the ice pillar is happening behind him, in a direction he's making no clear initiating gesture, while he is facing away. It seems less like something he is doing as something that someone is doing near him. Either his body language or the particles need to better indicate a relationship between his actions and that pillar forming, otherwise it's really offputting.

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Pixel Art / Re: First attempts with isometric Pixel Art, questions & CC
« on: September 05, 2015, 04:50:18 pm »
Really nice work. I wouldn't have guessed that it was your first, to be honest.

So, a few things:

The shadows that you laid down are incorrect based upon the rest of your picture. You made an isometric perspective which means that perspective skew does not exist. You cannot show the viewer that foreground and background are not impacted by perspective skew but then lay a stretched shadow on it. The more complex the scenes you build like that, the more obvious that dissonance is going to become. This is part of the reason why light sources are almost always assumed directly over a target in this genre especially.

In most isometric games either the tile sets beneath are kept relatively clean while the characters on them have greater level of detail and complexity OR the characters are given a huge amount of outlining and strong blacks to help sharpen them. This helps the eye focus on the character and get a sense of distance that the perspective would not otherwise permit because we expect that distance makes things less distinct. You've chosen to do the opposite and it flattens the character on the tiles you laid down.

The problem you had with connecting the tiles actually comes from the fact that the standard is not 64x32, it's 64x31 with either the top or bottom row left empty. This allows you to stack the tiles without the overlapping issues you did before. The resolution itself is totally acceptable and has been used by many famous tactical RPGs.

The landscape is very readable but a bit cool. The character is even more cool colors. It steals some of the sense of motion.

Nobody can really tell you if animating characters of that size is "too time-consuming". The answer will be heavily hedged on how you intend to use them, how fast you work, and how complex the motions are. To give you some helpful thoughts on the matter... I'll do some back-of-the-napkin math for you:

Think of how long that one static character image took. Assume that every frame will take that time because even if you are just adjusting them, you're going to have work to do to get the animation smooth. Imagine that a smooth idle animation might take between 2 and 6 frames reasonably. A walk might take between 5 and 12 frames reasonably. If you choose to have 4 direction motion sometimes it's going to look a little silly as they zigzag, but if you choose to have 8 direction motion, it will double the workload.

I'll call T the unit of time that you spent on that one character.
Just to have them idle and walk around in 4 directions would require a minimum potential timeframe of
(4) * (2) T units for 4-way idle.
(4) * (5) T units for 4-way walking
(Total: 28 T units)
or a maximum reasonable potential timeframe of
(4) * (5) T units for 4-way idle.
(4) * (12) T units for 4-way walking
(Total: 68 T units)

That's a range of 28-68 T Units for 4-way and twice that for 8-way (56-136 T units)

If the character you showed took you 1 hour to be happy with, then you can expect 28-68 hours of work for 4-way basics and 56-136 hours for 8-way. You of course can use tricks to reuse plenty of things from one character to the next, but future characters are likely to require similar time frames to keep quality and uniqueness up.

You seem to be a technically proficient pixel artist and certainly capable of the task but only you can judge the scope of your goals. Honestly, isometric is seen less than most of the other perspectives because it is a very time-consuming perspective to work within. The fact that it is so striking when seen beside top-down and sidescroller games is one of the only reasons I've tolerated the demands it places on the artists.  I hope this breakdown was useful to you.

Great work and good luck!

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Pixel Art / Re: [WIP] Grass and dirt texture
« on: August 30, 2015, 03:29:16 pm »
I want to begin by saying that I love the feel and the palette of this set.

That said, my personal advice here is as follows:

Less is more when it comes to suggesting grass and dirt. The grass's level of detail and personality is very dense compared to the dirt next to it. I think you're trying to pack way too much visual information into each tile in an attempt to make it more "real". You may either want to:
1) reduce the contrast between lit and dull grass sections to make it smoother, as well as adding more texture to the dirt to make it equally visually interesting

OR

2) Simplify the grass or change it to a more suggestive design so that it is no longer being "framed" by the dirt like it is in your current scene.

Here is an example of each:

This is Seiken Densetsu 3, one of the games that many a pixel artist feels represents the ideal in lush tile-based worlds. Note they have a very dense grass pattern but they keep the shades closer to each other so that the eye slides easily over the detail where yours is such a bright/dark contrast that it urges the eye to stop and examine the details.



This is Mother 3 and it attempts the exact opposite : incredibly simplified tiles that use darker green grass blade symbols sprinkled into the light green to suggest the presence of grass. You know grass looks nothing like that, but it's so simplified that we accept it as a symbol and it helps us focus on the characters within the scene.

Your grass currently is closer to Seiken Densetsu 3 while your dirt is closer to Mother 3.

Hope that helps,
Great work and good luck!

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Pixel Art / Re: [WIP][C+C] Luna sketch
« on: August 11, 2015, 12:21:26 pm »
I've always thought of the sort of minimalist pixel art form you're doing for her as being similar to gesture drawing. When you gesture draw, it is vital to avoid drawing the idea of a thing instead of its reality. The cat you're doing is very stylized and represents the idea of the character more than the reality. It's a big cat. As a result, you've exaggerated proportions to make it read as a big house cat. I went through and played with proportions (though possibly taking out some of your spaghetti length in the process):



(Full disclosure, I'd never actually seen this character before looking it up to see what I could do)

When I studied some reference images some of the proportions that jumped out at me were:
* Its head is only slightly wider than her hips.
* Its paws are the same size as her shoulders.
* Its eyes are as high above its nose as its nose is above the bottom of its jaw.
* Its tail is half the length of its body.

Even this I ultimately didn't really feel conveyed the proportions very well so I did a quick anatomical breakdown using different colors to represent each appendage. I heavily recommend this technique when dealing with any new/unusual anatomy as a way of blocking out forms:



I've changed its pose a little but I hope this stuff helps you find the information you need to correct your initial sketch and I look forward to seeing what you come up with.

Good luck and great work!

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Portfolios / Re: Cyangmou's Pixel Art for Games
« on: August 11, 2015, 04:28:21 am »
I dunno how packed your schedule is at the moment but I dropped you an email. Hope to hear from you!

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Pixel Art / Re: Ninja HUD/GUI
« on: August 10, 2015, 10:43:18 pm »
You are missing shading on the right side of the dowel. Your light source appears to be directly infront of the scroll so if the left side is curved enough to be shaded, the right side should as well.

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Pixel Art / Re: Ninja HUD/GUI
« on: August 10, 2015, 07:53:34 pm »
I strongly believe when in doubt, analyze real life sources.



I notice in this ancient scroll that there's a lot of blotchy aging of the paper from wear and tear. The shading across the rolls varies pretty smoothly and the glossy quality of the paper makes even ancient paper have highlight shines from smoothness. There is also heavier shading under the rolls from the shadow made by the rolls. Also, if this is a japanese hand scroll like it looks, there is only one wooden core (notice in the reference above there is only one rod in it). Two rods are for larger messenger/archival scrolls that tie shut and then you're missing the ribbon.

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Pixel Art / Re: Ninja HUD/GUI
« on: August 10, 2015, 07:23:28 pm »
I don't know if the project you're doing allows for this dynamic of sprites, but you might consider borrowing from Chinese Calligraphy strokes instead of using bars as it will better fit the aesthetic. I stuck to using the colors that you used in the piece already to give you a mockup of how using calligraphic strokes would change the piece:



With a few more colors mixed in to create smoother gradients, I think you could make them very sharp and you might consider animating the bar removal as dissolving the ink and leaving behind a stain on the paper to show their size afterwards.

Feel free to use anything in the image above. I hope it helps :)

Good luck and great job!

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Pixel Art / Re: [C&C] Seated Pose
« on: August 10, 2015, 05:52:44 pm »
You might be right, though I think that model's vertical leg is cocked slightly out and all of the quickly searched images appear to suggest the same thing for others in a similarly supported position. That said, that might be a quirk of not searching/experimenting enough myself and your description is certainly a good one. I retract much of my crit. Live and learn!

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