[WIP] [Nudity] Vampire hunting teen sprite

[Razoric480]

Hey there. First time poster, though I've lurked here on a number of occasions. I've been interested in doing sprites for a while with varying amounts of success (and not so varying amounts of failure). Figured I'd start displaying for critique and comments, since it's by hearing those who know what they're doing that improve.

The character is this here: Selena Davies, a 16 yo teenager thrust into the occult to battle dangerous vampires. It's from a tabletop game I'm part of that plays out like a fictional TV show. A bit of inspiration from Buffy (and uses a system kind of like it).

In any case, I sprited her, these being one of my more successful spriting attempts:



Would like to hear comments about it, so I can improve.

[MadHatter]

the biggest problem i see is that she looks like shes humping the air. I would tone that down a bit.

[Tourist]

You asked for comment by those that know what they're doing, so I probably don't qualify, but here's what I see.

Colors:
Something in your tools or process flow is spawning extra colors.  Hair, skin, eye, red clothing, other clothing at 3-5 colors each suggests around 16-20 colors overall, but I count 53. 

Your color ramps are all constant hue.  A common suggestion is to shift the hues as well as lightness to help make the character pop. 

The purple pixels on the scrunchy are too small to notice as a distinct color.  Consider making the scrunchy all one color.


Character design:
It's unclear in your post if you are responsible for the character design or not. 

The hair in front of the face is distracting.  I can't figure out where such a large mass of hair is coming from.  Or why there's not a part going sideways across her head.

Your figure has an oversized head, which is good for adding expressions to such a small sprite, but she doesn't have a face.  No nose, no mouth, only one eye, and half the face covered up by hair.  This seems to defeat one of the main reasons for an oversized head. 


Anatomy:
Her head is wider (left/right) than deep (front/back).  I think it should be the other way around.

Maybe try bulging the hip out instead of in on the two center images.  Or maybe just less of a sharp corner.

Other:
On the first and last sprites, the belly lines up with the jacket edge and it makes the rest of the upper torso look odd.

Shoes?

Hope this helps,
Tourist

[Razoric480]

The prior character from my opening post is undergoing a redesign, so sprites about it will wait a bit till it's hammered out.

As for these... obviously not the same character (or setting), but the build for them is similar. I made two different styles of it. Pointers were taken about the prior sprite for them, and I was inspiring myself a bit more from other sprites and trying stuff out. C+C encouraged.

This one was sketched out real fast. It follows my typical proportions for characters of that age-style (which is some 5 heads tall), only it was sketched at 60x100. I then cut it down and did the spriting. It has an outline for the body, obviously.


Again I sketched it out, though it's a bit more chibified in that the character is about 3.5 to 4 heads tall. Again I sketched rough at large size before bringing it down to sprite. Unlike the above one, I didn't do an outline... I tried to shade blocked-in shapes instead and see how things work out.


Main issues for both is the cloth and hair. I'm probably using more colors and my anti-alias is still newbish. I have no dithering, since I don't really know how to apply it to such small pixel real-estate, let alone to make it look like folds in cloth like some people can.

Still, one step at a time.

Cheers.

[Razoric480]

Back to the first character, even if she looks quite different. Trying a different style, and she underwent a haircut ^^

Didn't put her in clothes yet. One thing I did differently is actually hammer out a 16 color palette before I started spriting. Had to tweak it a bit. Only used 13, since the other colors were for her t-shirt and jeans (though reading my own statement again, 3 colors isn't alot for t-shirt, jeans and boots).

I also worked a fair bit larger, so it was a bit easier to work with. Was hard enough, let alone the art some people can do with 256 pixels.

[Malor]

hmm. There's something wonky going on with the legs. And the arm on our right has some strange lumps, perhaps she has a collection of tumors? Either way, I would suggest studying the basics of anatomy, and then once you've learned the actual proportions of the human body, you can make pieces with exaggerated cartoon anatomies, while still making sense. Really, I liked the first one. It had a fun style, although the complete lack of a right eye is a bit disturbing.

[LordZorinthrox]

I personally liked the cartoony stuff more, but this shows potential for dynamic characterization.

Yeah, your anatomy is indeed off a bit.  The blue is the stick figure of what you have right now.  The right upper arm is far too too short as are both thighs.  The second part of all the limbs should be about  3/4 the length of the first part, measuring from the joints.  Also, there is no way her spine can bend that way, and you haven't left enough room for her chest.

You are going for "loose and ready for action," so don't lock her knees; they should be bent a bit so she can react quickly.  Similarly, make sure the center of her mass is centered on the spread on her feet; she'll look like she is falling over otherwise.

The red sticks are my adjustments.  I like the right one more, but the left is also an option ( though it looks like she is skulking a bit)

[Razoric480]

Consensus was towards the cartoon, however I have to say I didn't really like the huge head look as much. I decided to try and strike a compromise. I'll admit some inspiration from Orkimides' sprites, which move very well but still have a nice balance between cartoony and shape that I like. Hard to describe, but we'll say I just like the style.

I want to thank LordZorinthrox, too. I drew a skeleton beforehand on the other sprites, but I didn't really shape it out with ribcage and hips. Adding those really helped to keep a form.

Here's the latest incarnation. Less realism and bringing some cartoonishry, without going into the huge headed chibi-ism:



Added some anti-alias, hopefully not too willy-nilly. The hair came out a lot better than her 5 headed counterpart, I find. She weighs at 21 colors without clothes, which seems a bit hefty to me, but the look came out fairly nice. Again, C+C is more than welcome.

Sorry for changing styles so much, but hey, gotta find the niche

Cheers,

Edit:
Here be clothing:

[IvanX]

I'd Redo the nude sprite before going on to the clothing.
There's some issues with the anatomy.
Hopefully this edit will help you address those problems.

[Razoric480]

Hiya. Here's a new rev, taking some of what was mentioned to heart.



Cheers,