CSW Style Character

[Moribund]

Ugghh I can not even begin to approach doing hands. This is my mostly complete character in Card Saga Wars/Tales Of style.

C&C greatly appreciated in both spriting technique and character design. I think he might need a fourth colour I dunno. Maybe a tie?

Thank you!

[Kidfrommars]

I made a crappy edit. But I took off a colour and it looks pretty much the same. I also attempted a crappy hand.
The hand would probably look better with something in it.

[Kcilc]

Hello! I also made you an edit.


Some things to remember are that when working at this size, you're implying much much more than defining. The prime example I see in your sprite is the buttons on his shirt. They are unnecessary, and clutter up your image so that the more important things get lost in the details. Just try to imply hands, don't actually draw them.

You seem to be pillow shading—or not defining a light source and making things lighter as they move towards the middle of the section—instead of actually shading. There are really three different "stages" of shading evolution in an artist. The first is what I just talked about, the second is contour shading, where you shade each section by its shape in two dimensions—sometimes disregarding how each part reacts to the other. And then finally form shading where you shade a lot like a sculptor, cutting and curving, trying to dig into the canvas and really bring out the third dimension. Really strive to get to this form shading.

Your character's anatomy seems a little bit disjointed. I'm not sure what say for this other than, look at naked people! Or as little clothing as you can stand. Then look at people with clothes on to see how the fabric works. Please note that my edit is not even close to perfect in this regard.

EDIT: I'd also suggest to lower the value of your skin tones a bit. I didn't play with the colors of your sprite that much, so just keep that in mind.

[Moribund]

Thanks a lot you guys!

@Kidfrommars I really appreciate the quick reply, the colour bit was a good observation.

@Kcilc I studied your edit for like, 20 minutes. Thank you so much, there are so many things I see now. I think I'll try another character soon. Mine looks so muddy and undefined and awkward next to yours, but I don't need to tell you that.

As for looking at naked people, I'm sure that could be arranged. *suggestive eyebrow raising*

PS: If anyone's interested, I was trying to go for this style.

Edit: How would I be able to incorporate your many meaningful changes into the style I was attempting?

[st0ven]

PS: If anyone's interested, I was trying to go for this style.

anyone know if either ahruon or ork lurk here in the forums using like a different alias or something? id love to hear them comment on their work or give a demonstration ^_^.

Id like to add that with a sprite of this size, posture is pretty important, and also tricky, to nail down. Kcilic does a good job of balancing the weight properly on the feet but your pose is altogether a bit uninteresting. 

[Moribund]

I tried again and I think the stance and proportions are better- but to my eyes the shading is a lot worse. :/ How do I make his right leg look more like it is in the background? If I shade harder it just looks weird.

Kcilc, I stole your hand for this one I hope that's ok? I want to get the basics down before I try hard stuff like tiny hands.

[Ai]

The shading is a lot BETTER. One of the things that I can see in pro work when I look, is the importance of flats. When you don't have large flat areas, nothing looks round.. it just looks amorphous, as a rule. That's a problem that your first version had a lot, which is much improved on your latest sprite. You
could still take it much further.

Edit:



Changes:
* use flats to emphasize depth a lot more (eg. non-fluffy hair, stiff-ish shirt, jeans folding


* increase color contrast



* poke the face a bit. make two similar colors non-similar (better contrast)

[Moribund]

Wow thanks! I'm sorry for the late reply- I wanted to wait until I sprited another thing. I kind of get what you mean by contrasting flat and rounded/irreguler surfaces.



Is the stomache enough flat area? Is there a ratio I should pay attention to? Also, is there a tutorial on small hands anywhere? I tried to make the pants crumply-er, did I do it right?

PS: Sorry I'm not incorporating all the changes at once- I'm not ignoring them I'm just having a hard time wrapping my head around all these new concepts.

Edit: Added the original blue pants version.

[Ai]

Some quick comments:

* I prefer the greyish pants better, as they balance the lightness of the shirt.
* The shirt does not look like a shirt, as you've currently drawn it.
   the dark line along the bottom suggests a garment that is rolled UNDER at   the bottom. whereas a shirt generally either fits and doesn't roll under or outwards, or rolls outwards during movement.
   That whole row could be replaced with the lighter color just above it, then it would look more shirt-y and less jumper-y
* it would be good if you could cite some specific references. I've seen some youtube videos of CSW, but it would help people to provide better critique if you could show the sprites you are trying to imitate the style of. Even better if you can cite photo references for the pose or materials you are trying to represent.
* you have this thing going on where her boobs each look very similar to her shoulder. I'll check that out when I get back later today, it should be fixable.

[Kcilc]

Her breasts are really high. I think you need some room for her neck and collar bone. Also remember that when she's got a shirt like that on, you won't be able to see the separate breasts because the fabric will stretch over the cleavage.

Her pants seem really baggy too. I know that when I started spriting, I always accidentally made my characters' pants and shoes way huge. Just keep that in mind.

Don't be afraid to have really sharp spots in your art. Notice that you've outlined where the shirt connects with her left (our right) arm, not just once, but twice. I'd say in that situation, it would look better if you dragged the lighter part of the shirt all the way to the skin, so that it looks more like the shirt is casting a shadow on the arm than just making an outline.

Resist the urge to use all of the different shades so evenly. The fewer times you use a shade in your piece, the more valuable it is to our eyes—the reverse can be true if you have a powerful color. Use that to your advantage as often as you possibly can.

[Tourist]

Looking at the latest figure you posted.  The face and head are nicely done.  I agree with Kcilc's critique.  The two main problems I see are anatomy and the flatness of the base.

The base character is flat flat flat.  Legs are in the same depth plane.  Arms are in the same depth plane as each other and the torso.  The face, the arm on our left should protrude into 3d space.  Since the character is at a 3/4 view, this means towards the camera and to the side.  

For example, the neck grows from the shoulders to support the head, but the face extends beyond the neck; the head on this figure needs to move to the left a pixel or two so that the center line of the neck lines up with the center line of the chest.

Anatomy problems.  This is a female, right?  Boobs are too high.  Shoulders are too strong.  Women tend to carry more mass in the hips and thighs, this figure has no hips and twigs for thighs.  A book on drawing women for comic books advised that women need small forearms, even if they are brawny.  Somehow thick forearms just looks wrong.  I think that advice is correct.  

Here's an edit.  Moved the head a pixel or two to the left.  I wasn't sure what the arm on our right was doing, so I just stuck it in the air.  Thinned the arms, added some hips.  Torso is a bit long, I'd probably remove one row of pixels from the belly and use it to lengthen the legs instead, but I didn't get around to working on the legs.



Hope this helps,
Tourist

[Moribund]

First, thanks again everyone! So many replies- this is great!

@Ai

* The shirt does not look like a shirt, as you've currently drawn it.
   the dark line along the bottom suggests a garment that is rolled UNDER at   the bottom. whereas a shirt generally either fits and doesn't roll under or outwards, or rolls outwards during movement.
   That whole row could be replaced with the lighter color just above it, then it would look more shirt-y and less jumper-y

I don't understand this whole "roll part".Do you mean the dark line at the bottom of the shirt?

* it would be good if you could cite some specific references.

That is the card I used specifically, and this is the card gallery.

@Kcilc Aah, anatomy. I'll look at some anatomy sites and references.

Don't be afraid to have really sharp spots in your art. Notice that you've outlined where the shirt connects with her left (our right) arm, not just once, but twice. I'd say in that situation, it would look better if you dragged the lighter part of the shirt all the way to the skin, so that it looks more like the shirt is casting a shadow on the arm than just making an outline.

Woah technical stuff. So you're saying that I should only outline on one side of the colour shift? The shirt should be the lightest colour all the way to the barrier? I tried it, and it looks a lot better, thanks!

Resist the urge to use all of the different shades so evenly. The fewer times you use a shade in your piece, the more valuable it is to our eyes—the reverse can be true if you have a powerful color. Use that to your advantage as often as you possibly can.

Haha this comment was perfect. It is such an urge to, I guess, pillow shade. I'll try to fight it.

@Tourist

The base character is flat flat flat.  Legs are in the same depth plane.  Arms are in the same depth plane as each other and the torso.  The face, the arm on our left should protrude into 3d space.  Since the character is at a 3/4 view, this means towards the camera and to the side.  

Thanks, this is a good point. I meant for her right (our left) leg to be more in the background, but I now I see I should have put more time into that.

Anatomy problems.  This is a female, right?  Boobs are too high.  Shoulders are too strong.  Women tend to carry more mass in the hips and thighs, this figure has no hips and twigs for thighs.  A book on drawing women for comic books advised that women need small forearms, even if they are brawny.  Somehow thick forearms just looks wrong.  I think that advice is correct.  

Ahh more anatomy. :/ I hope no one catches me staring intently at naked women.

An edit. I didn't have enough time today to make a whole 'nother character again, so just an edit. I tried to make the left leg more in the background, make the shirt less clingy, the forearms smaller, and added a neck. I'm not sure how to work in curves at this point, I'll make a bombshell for my next one. I also tried messing with the shoulder, but I don't know how you did it, Tourist. You used one pixel less and make it look half as thick. I tried it but I just got a deformed shoulder.

[Ai]

quickly, an edit on the reference:



--
changes:
* show all the 'base colors' for different surfaces, to try to illustrate what I was saying about flats. the proportions between the colors used in a region identify it visually (in terms of picture priority and material. Depth is more a matter where the proportions stay similar while the shades used change).
* fix the arm, hair, and shoe (remove banding). These are errors that I would identify as typical of slightly rushed work - I've found if you are going to reference from something that is not directly life, it's very important to check that it actually makes good sense on the whole.. I've duplicated errors in the past by failing to check that.

And here are some edits on your latest sprite:





(the text should be synchronized with the image, above)

With some additional comments:
* antigravity boobs are amusing. (it might help you to think of injecting a large amount of fat into your chest, over your pectoral muscles -- because the reality is not much different from that, in terms of biology and physics. The actual firmness of breasts is influenced by pectoral strength, but bags of fat flop and squish; The only way to avoid that is to have practically none).
I note Lina Inverse is listed in the card gallery (#044), her appearance of femininity doesn't seem to suffer from her chestly modesty, so you might want to take some cues from there. Mostly the CSW art seems to try to conceal boobage with complex clothing, only the extremely well endowed (morrigan, shiva) even obviously have boobs.
* the shirt/jumper thing.. kcilc touched on this.. your current revision has slightly less bulge out in the surface of the shirt. I reduced this and actually made it look MORE form fitting (this is generally good -- pixel art tends to involve a lot of strategic exaggeration to convey features powerfully, similarly to comic art. The bulge I was talking about was not good, because it wasted pixels rather than conveying a consistent form -- it basically said to me HI I"M A BEVEL, SUP?.)
* strategic flatness: when you look at the 'squishier' step,  you'll see I do that by making most of the skin flatter and concentrating the highlights and curves.
* The pants. I find your version to lack definition and depth, while mine probably mismatches the style.
* Hair. Your current version looks floofier, more feminine, and more uniform,
   mine is somewhat less feminine, changes shading according to angle, and  IMO conforms to head shape better.
* kcilc is so right about the power of proportions between shades
* I've provided an example of how to fix the shoulder problem (IMO).. just a small shift inwards and some rounding.
* Good job on even doing style imitation. I hardly get around to doing that intentionally, myself. But it is a good ingredient for expanding your imagination's repetoire.

</ramble>

Edit: Awesome, the synchronized animation works.
Edit2: Here's a look at the palette. Some colors are used for only 1, 2, or 3 pixels. Other groups are so similar that it might be good to merge them. (the optimizations shown in the following image would reduce colorcount to <= 24, vs the current 31). YMMV because this might be a style thing. I do know that reducing the colorcount will allow you to make modifications quicker due to needing to track less colors.

[Helm]

Just wanted to say this sort of critique is why Pixelation is online. Here's a cookie, Ai.

[Moribund]

Oh man the good stuff. I really like this, even though I've spent an hour looking at it and still am not fully comfortable in my comprehension. Is there somewhere I can read on artistic theory?

On and no need to complement me on doing style imitation. I don't even have my own style, so I'm basically trying to leech as hard as I can right now.

[Ai]

Helm:
Thanks *virtually eats virtual cookie -- the only way for me to safely 'eat' cookies*


Moribund:
On artistic theory -- Harold Speed's "The Practice and Science of Drawing" comes very highly recommended in general: http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/14264
(I recommend getting the zipped HTML version)

he covers such subjects as:
* what is art and what are we doing when we draw
* how to capture ideas strongly/powerfully in your work (this is separate from having strong technique)
* General good practice for studies, and for artworks
* balancing expressiveness with accuracy to life.
* the difference between drawing what is really there and drawing what we see.
* generalities of how to treat
** outlining
** mass
** volume
** the intersection of lines
* the importance of planes in conveying mass (this relates to my comments about the importance of flat areas)
* line rhythm and variety
* "unity of mass" (this relates to my comments about how we visually identify a surface or region, and also strongly to composition)
* balance
* dealing with the quirks of our memory
* materials, and the importance of imposing limitations (for example, your sprites here could have been done with 16 colors or even 8, and may well have been significantly the better for it)

A quote I like particularly:
"""
Be extremely careful about the first few strokes you put on your paper: the quality of your drawing is often decided in these early stages. If they are vital and expressive, you have started along lines you can develop, and have some hope of doing a good drawing. If they are feeble and poor, the chances are greatly against your getting anything good built upon them. If your start has been bad, pull yourself together, turn your paper over and start afresh, trying to seize upon the big, significant lines and swings in your subject at once. Remember it is much easier to put down a statement correctly than to correct a wrong one; so out with the whole part if you are convinced it is wrong. Train yourself to make direct, accurate statements in your drawings, and don't waste time trying to manoeuvre a bad drawing into a good one. Stop as soon as you feel you have gone wrong and correct the work in its early stages, instead of rushing on upon a wrong foundation in the vague hope that it will all come right in the end. When out walking, if you find you have taken a wrong road you do not, if you are wise, go on in the hope that the wrong way will lead to the right one, but you turn round and go back to the point at which you left the right road. It is very much the same in drawing and painting."""

There is a focus on traditional media, owing partly to the vintage of the book.
I did not find this an obstacle at all, as most of these characteristics can be mimicked digitally and give the same effects Speed observes.

As for having your own style, it's only made up of your habits that come from a history of doing lots of drawing. Whether you consider yourself to not have a style.. well, if you take care of the substance of your drawings -- communicating what you meant to communicate -- style mostly takes care of itself.

[Helm]

Man, I'm going to read that book too.

[Mathias]

Never seen that site. Grabbed a copy of the book. Thanks for posting that, Ai!
I inserted "body {background-color:#b0c4de;} " into the page's CSS to get rid of the white bg. Much better.

As for the quote you included above, I think I disagree. If I started over every time I disliked the first strokes I'd probably never get anywhere. I tend to sketch quickly and lightly until I see what I want then go from there - possibly sketching the same arcing line(s) over and over, on top of each other until it's right, or good enough. Maybe when I get some actual skill I could heed Harold's advice.

[Atnas]

This is a good read! Oh and Mathias, I am the same way as you but there are times when I do get that first-try-drawing-in-ten-speedy-arcy-bold-lines and I have to say I feel like I just gain so much more experience each time it happens... although the feathery approach is just so safe to pass up most of the time. 

appropriatequote: Unity and Variety, qualities somewhat opposed to each other, as are harmony and contrast in the realm of colour. Unity is concerned with the relationship of all the parts to that oneness of conception that should control every detail of a work of art. All the more profound qualities, the deeper emotional notes, are on this side of the subject. On the other hand, variety holds the secrets of charm, vitality, and the picturesque, it is the "dither," the play between the larger parts, that makes for life and character. Without variety there can be no life.

[Moribund]

What should my artistic process look like? Following the tutorial on the CSW site, I make the head and then I draw blobs. Should I be doing stick figures or trying it out by hand first? I am even worse at sketching, should I be trying to improve my art in other fields to help my pixelling?

[Ai]

What should my artistic process look like? Following the tutorial on the CSW site, I make the head and then I draw blobs. Should I be doing stick figures or trying it out by hand first? I am even worse at sketching, should I be trying to improve my art in other fields to help my pixelling?

Your artistic process is really up to you; regarding the CSW tutorial, that is just a process that can be added in to your artistic process - it doesn't really explain much to inform overall art planning. As to whether you should be trying to improve in other fields.. YES. Every so often on Pixelation, someone observes that pixel art is just an art medium, so things you learn about art in general apply just as much to pixel art, and vice versa.

I personally agree that pixel art is only a medium, and as such, it's often unproductive to aim to become better at pixel art when your general art skills are lacking. I recommend instead, aiming to improve your general skills (in areas like.. of primary importance: Anatomy, perspective, composition. Of secondary importance: Color Contrast, Light/shadow, Color Tone.)

In particular, I would pick on your identified inability to sketch well. That is absolutely vital to fix; until you can sketch your ideas quickly and with acceptable accuracy, based on my experience you will often end up with wrong intentions -- trying to fix an ill-conceived picture rather than polishing one that makes fundamental sense to you. (btw, there is nothing wrong with doing bad sketches.. it's just a matter of keeping sketching the thing until you get something that works. that's why speed can help a lot.)

You suggest drawing stick figures -- this is a good idea IMO. I like to draw them one after another on a huge canvas (an app like MyPaint that implements an infinite canvas helps) so that I can have them interacting. The repetition also helps me to remember my mistakes and discoveries better.

Hope some of that helps

[Ai]

Never seen that site. Grabbed a copy of the book. Thanks for posting that, Ai!
I inserted "body {background-color:#b0c4de;} " into the page's CSS to get rid of the white bg. Much better.

As for the quote you included above, I think I disagree. If I started over every time I disliked the first strokes I'd probably never get anywhere. I tend to sketch quickly and lightly until I see what I want then go from there - possibly sketching the same arcing line(s) over and over, on top of each other until it's right, or good enough. Maybe when I get some actual skill I could heed Harold's advice.

.. I'd say he's not talking about being perfect artistically, but about being DECISIVE. If you keep on drawing the same curve over and over, I'd argue that means you don't know what that curve is FOR, what you intend with it.
(which means you can't know when you have succeeded (you're not performing a test, just messing around).. so Atnas' observervation* about learning more makes a lot of sense.)

* amusing typo intentionally preserved

[Moribund]

  I thought I'd be started on my game by now.

  ALRIGHT, I will be an ARTIST.

[Ai]

Did you say something about making a game, before? (EDIT: apparently you did -- sorry, I don't read the Introduce Yourself thread)

You can certainly reduce your requirements if you want to just make good-enough placeholder art for the time being:
* only use 2 shades per surface -- it's all that's strictly needed to distinguish an element enough. Knowing when to outline is also important.
* focus on correct proportion, relative positioning (as in animation), and coloring (particularly color priority). shape/form is definitely significant, but you can get away somewhat more with kludging the bits you don't quite understand, for faster moving game sprites.
* Ignore special effects like specular highlights and radiosity, except on materials like metal where they are really pronounced. (so on your latest sprite, the belly and hair highlights would be left out. This would leave the sprite with less pop, but more functional and much quicker to edit)
* Looking at Cortex Command, a sense of overall scene lighting seems to be required too.