Allright, I had some fun with Pro Motion but then I realized I couldn't save as anything relevant since I was using the trial (I bought the lite version, but they haven't sent me a key yet) so I went back to photoshop for these. I'll play with Pro Motion some more when I have a key. (I noticed while looking for promotion tutorials there are a lot of Hax to unlock promotion, its always strange to me when a company makes it easier to hack a program then buy it legitimately)

So I didn't mess with the shape of the ninja too much, though all you crits on the character design were valid.

I did rework the head a bit to reflect the concept art as well as take into account light source etc.

Here's some color tests I came up with. I still can't really do the multicolor runs, but I did get away from a pure brightness ramp. I played with some sort of angry (red) color faces as well as some cooler ones. I took your advice on simplifying the shading overall. I don't think any one of these guys uses more then 16 colors, and most of them closer to 12. (though I haven't checked)

What I did was I reduced the ninja to line-art and then built him up with different color sets from there...

[Origional]


[Color Tests]


EDIT: Just realized I really like what you did with the shoulder and arm on the left side of the image, gonna have to steal that

FINAL EDIT: So I finally tore myself away from my own design and did a best of all worlds edit... I'm liking this one...

[Final ?]

Ohh lots of good feedback.  Thanks! I think I learned something ( a few thing actually )

So the image started out as this...



then I resized it to a size that would work with the resolution and tilesize i wanted in game, that's probably where all the one of colors came from photoshop resize. I did the animation in ImageReady. :|

The concept for the ninja actually came from some concept art a french guy did for a game I was working on a long time ago. Game is on hold.. but I still love the concept...

http://www.raincitygames.com/images/ShiKatsu.jpg

I liked his sort of hybrid French / Japanese's style though I didn't capture it entirely.

That, and I'm inspired by a flawed but incredibly fun platformer

http://tigsource.com/articles/2007/06/11/nikujin

(WTF Ninja's at day??)

So the concept was, what if I took the katsu concept and stuck him in a nikujin style game.

Anyway, to your excellent crits.

2. Yes, you are correct when I pick colors in photoshop i pick a base color and then vary the brightness slider and if i'm feeling really daring I switch over to the saturation slider but usually no. I don't really know where to start making a color ramp that includes more then one color (something you've always done well).

3. I like how you cleaned the face up, I'm definitely going to borrow some of those elements.

4. Noted, and good advice.

5. Yeah the concept isn't really a serious ninja, what kind of ninja would wear a metal chestpiece (or a crotch lock??), but hey that's what the concept had and I liked it.

6. Sleeves cut short is a great edit.

7. Agreed, will redouble my efforts. I'm having fun with this sprite so I don't mind spending a few more evenings getting it right.
I should really just go get promotion while I'm at it. I've been putting it off for years.

Overall, awesome crit. I think I learned a lot and will really improve the sprite.

Hello Kable. Long time no see.

The last piece suffers from banding, pillow-shading, very vague shading. You need to do more traditional studies with simple geometric shapes under single lightsources and move onwards. Your ghrasp of light needs a lot of work. I like the low contrast pieces, but they hide a very real artistic limitation. Furthermore the last image suffers from bad posture, and arm movements that don't signify anything/are uncomfortable. Think more about why a character would stand as we does, and always try the stances yourself against a mirror and see if they look natural.

Yeah, I did the cyber samurai piece some time ago, and looking back on it now I agree completely about the posture. I still like the character design and proportions, the pillow shading was actually an attempt to get smooth metal look to it, but obviously I didn't quite pull it off. Color and shading have never been strong points for me.

@ndeal: hey man

From hellgate London. The concept is not original but the pose and composition are mine...

I wanted to capture the essence of a weary warrior, but one that doesn't know the meaning of the word quit.

Hey zoggles had a part of that old thread, he sent it over to me so....

http://raincitygames.com/magic/iBTopicMagnificently%20Magical%20Pixel%20Challenge%20A.htm

http://raincitygames.com/magic/iBTopicMagnificently%20Magical%20Pixel%20Challenge%20B.htm

Enjoy..