Wizard Character  -  Avatar Creation [tested in engine]

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A quick point on the gameplay front. The "Save Station" looks incredible and the animation is completely gorgeous. However, it does go on a bit. I can imagine loving it the first time I saw it, then quickly getting to resent it as I see it run through for the nth time. I could also imagine avoiding using a save just because I'll have to wait so many seconds to do it.

Metroidvanias happen to be my favourite kind of platform game. Possibly my favourite kind of game. But if I compare the save point in Axiom Verge for example (several seconds) to Hollow Knight (probably less than a second, if you don't want to hang around) or Ori & the Blind Forest (just a long button press) I much prefer the latter two.

But that's an opinion and nothing more, take it with a pinch of salt.

A more objective way to think about it might be putting it in the context of the game. Is gameplay going to be fast and frenetic? Or slow and methodical exploration? If the latter it may make more sense in context. If the former, it may be a bit incongruous.

Anyway, I'll be watching this with interest. Not least because I'm also in the first stages of putting a Metroidvania together.

Updated.

Hope I helped! I know I had a lot of criticism, but I really do think they look great, and I especially love the question mark tee on the little guy! They just need a little refining is all.

I was hopping that someone will critique my work
I was struggeling with the colors, so this video helped me atleast how can I ("level" down or up those color depending on the light (dark area, bright area))

I tried to make the same color pattern according to your correction (find those colors on my own. It's pretty unfair to use already finished art without struggeling with it )
Filling this gap between arm and body is a really good idea (it just look a lot better) + deleting outlines (I was just used to my old works )

This is my second attempt (also I fixed a bit this kid, I think it looks pretty decent now.)



and I tried to make this guy look better but I have a filling that his arm is kind a off. Maybe it's just me. I'll try to change it
later, this is just a leak (don't edit it !!!)



PS. I also thought about changing a bit his arm (her is a second version)

Here’s a tweaked version:



I think the three main takeaways here are the direction of the light, the volume of the character, and HSV shifting.

Light should always (usually) shine from a specific direction. In your case, it seems to be somewhere off in front of the character, to the right of the canvas; however the shoulders and hair contradict this. If you shade under the arms and the highlight the right side of the hair instead of the left, the sprite looks more consistent so it’s easier to tell what’s going on.

When you shade a character, you’re literally telling your audience “This is the bit that’s in shadow”. If your shading is only one pixel wide (on a big sprite, that is), that suggests that your character is paper-thin, which probably isn’t actually the case. If you widen the shaded area, it gives a better idea of the character’s volume.

Finally, HSV shifting sounds like a crazy technical thing, but it really isn’t. All it means is taking the color of light into account. During the day, the sun shines yellow, so you want your highlights to be yellow-ish, and your shadows to have less yellow (or more blue) in them. Mortmort has a great video on choosing colors that I recommend here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhgSM_tnPM4

A few misc things:

I messed with the positioning of the right arm. I think it’s personal preference which you think is better, just thought I’d put it out there.

Always exaggerate colors. They tend to look over-the-top close-up (the skin tones certainly did), but when you zoom out they’ll fit together better. If it still looks bad when you zoom out, that’s when you tone them down.

I continued the pattern on the clothes into the shadowed area. Again, personal preference.

I only HSV shifted the skin and shirt. The hair, pants etc haven’t been done. Then again, the pants are already blue so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ And of course you have the other sprites.

I noticed an extra shade of blue on the pants, which could be easily replaced by the other one.

I noticed that the pattern on the left and right side of the shirt is uneven, so I went ahead and mended that.

Hope I helped! I know I had a lot of criticism, but I really do think they look great, and I especially love the question mark tee on the little guy! They just need a little refining is all.