Mega Man TT Pixel Work and a MEGA Request to Spriters

[CadmiumRED]

Hey everybody!  This is my first post in this forum, so I'll make it a good one at that.  First off, here's some examples of my pixel-work, mainly for my big Mega Man project.  Also, this fortress I have here isn't the final thing, I'm making a better one as we speak.






Also, here's a sketch I devised for how I would think of Nova Man's stage.  I tried doing it the way Keiji Inafune would do it, after studying the stage concept segments in the Mega Man Official Complete Works book by Udon.



Second, I'm the leader of a big project in the works called Mega Man Time Tangent, or Mega Man TT, if you want to shorten it.  It's a project that started with me designing 8 Robot Masters back in January of this year, and I was discovered by the likes of a person named MexicanSunflower in deviantart, who also is the moderator of FamiTracker Forums and is a well-known YTPMV artist.  He's in charge of programming and coding for the game as well as music, who's using the open-sourced engine that N64Mario has made so far for his Mega Man Engine.  It's still a WIP, but all us Mega Man fans hope he completes it soon, though that might be asking too much.  Anyway, that engine is currently being used for MegaPhilX's game, Mega Man Unlimited, a huge milestone in the Mega Man Classic area for all fans.

With MexicanSunflower, several other musicians, a co-spriter, and a storywriter, we all lack one thing for the game.. tiles.  Yes, the stages are as empty as the voids of intergalactic nothingness.  What I'm really asking is for anyone here with a great hand in tileset work to show me examples of their work, because without tiles, our game would be but dust in the wind.  If not any extra assistance for the game, some really helpful tips, pointers, or tutorials for tileset construction would also be of great help.  I'm REALLY aiming to make this one of the best games made from a fan, and no.. this won't be just another fangame either.  I plan to make this one look like CAPCOM actually created it.

My deviantart account can be accessed at http://cadmiumred.deviantart.com/ so you can see my other artwork, and I do more than just pixel art.  My Robot Masters are all in there so you all can see what they are and what they're like.

Thanks for reading this and I hope to hear from you all soon!

[buddy90]

First off, let me say that this is a really big project, and it's probably not going to look like Capcom's level of quality. They have several people (probably 30 or more) working on any game (just look at the credits for MegaMan 10).
With that being said, I still think you should try to do it, because you will learn a lot from it. Anyway, on to some critique...

You have alot of things here, but overall, your pixels suffer from jagged lines, anatomy and proportion issues, and banding.
I'm going to assume you're going to borrow some graphics from Capcom themselves.

The Castle. It looks like you edited one of Capcom's castles, keeping the skull and the satellite dish with minor changes, and then adding the big "fangs" and the weird hypno-dish. From a design and architectural view, these things don't seem to serve any function nor aesthetic. It doesn't really add much to a castle. A good study of buildings, from real ones to crazy artsy ones to ones in comic book and other Capcom castles, from a design perspective, you need to add features that are both functional and aesthetically pleasing.
MegaMan/Protoman. They have significant perspective and anatomy problems, in addition to poor color choices, banding, and jagged lines. Especially the feet. Again, the best way is to study anatomy, from real people, to cartoons, comics, and other MegaMan titles.
The City. It looks good for the most part, except the clouds and the "tube" in the lower half. Although I think this was a direct rip from other titles...

Generally, you need to study art, and pixel techniques. If you don't understand what jagged lines or banding are, there are great topics on here you can search for. For anatomy/architectural/color choices....unfortunately, that comes from study, study, study, and practice, practice, practice.

I hope I wasn't too harsh on you. But if you really want this to look like a MegaMan game, I should tell you the truth.

And now cute smileys. 

[RushJet1]

I am also working on this project (music) and want to let you know that the Wily Castle image is old--he realized it wasn't too great, so he is working on a new one.

That said, you're right about the jagged lines, in Capcom games they did some slight anti aliasing on most lines.

As for the city, the colors & basic design ideas were taken from Mega Man 9, but it's totally new art.

edit: tried my hand at the anti aliasing idea (keep in mind that I am not a pixel artist or very good at art in general, but critique it anyway):

[CadmiumRED]

Buddy90, that was an insightful critique, BUT, you were a bit too harsh.

For starters, everything that I've created was done as a pencil sketch first; after creating the characters in an anatomical comic-style drawing (the skeleton, muscles, etc.), it was all scanned, then Thresheld in Photoshop to make it into sprite form, and then erased to make sure the lines weren't very jagged (at least I tried to not make it jagged).  Then coloring went into effect afterward with the NES palette.  But yeah, anti-aliasing was necessary in the coloring, since a lot of the sprites in older games used that kind of effect.

Second, I DID NOT steal parts from older castles when creating that one.  That castle was COMPLETELY done by hand.  I'll show you what I'm talking about.



You can say I was INFLUENCED, but no, I would never steal.  That's the low-life way of being an undetermined franken-spriter.  So never assume anything.

As for Mega Man and Proto Man, I realize they have issues, but bear in mind, these were made very early in the game's process; most likely they're going to be redone.  Lastly, how dare you say I need to study art.  I graduated college with a Bachelor's Degree in Fine Arts, and I continue to learn about it everyday without being told by anyone.  That was pretty rude.  But yeah, that's my two cents on that.

Plus, I have the Mega Man Official Complete Works book, that's like the Mega Man holy grail for understanding everything in the Mega Man art realm.  And with that book, I'll keep trying to make this game as legit as it can be.

Also, nice job on that anti-aliasing RushJet1.

[Cdaddr]

As someone who spent most of his childhood staring at Mega Man games, I think your original castle looks good enough to be authentic.  If you put it beside the castle from MM2 or MM3, I couldn't pick yours as different from the others.  And the proportions of the portraits are fine.  We're talking about an anime-style NES robot here.

In the Proto Man portraits, I think the shield should be a different color to push it into the background.  Or lose the shield, or have him holding it instead of having it on his back.  As it is, it completely obscures Proto Man's body.

The power meter things on their arm cannons also seem a bit odd.  Too 3-D perhaps?  In the official art I can recall, the power meter is recessed, but yours seems to be raised.  And the color seems off.  I always picture it as a row of lights, but it doesn't seem to be illuminated in your version.

Otherwise, I just want to encourage you to keep working on this game, because it looks awesome, and I can't get enough Mega Man.

(Are you concerned about copyright?  If your game is ever successful, my guess is that you're likely to get a nice letter from the lawyers at Capcom.)

[CadmiumRED]

I don't intend on ever making the game profitable, because THAT will really make lawyers at CAPCOM write letters.  As long as the game never makes money, then everything should be fine.

As for the weapon get images, they'll be getting revisions later on down the road.

Here's some eye candy I created last night.

http://CadmiumRED.deviantart.com/art/Inafune-style-Gryphon-Man-174318116?q=&qo=

[Kren]

I actually prefer the sketch than the current pixeled one, you should add the clock and improve how the DR.W at the head looks since it doesn't lookgood  due to those colors.

My Main concern is that you might not be using Nes Palette, something that is alright. I must say you are doing allright ! I really like your boss designs.

[CadmiumRED]

Like I said before, I'm NOT using that castle design.  I'm using a completely new one that me and MexicanSunflower worked together on.

[Mike]

Megaman's and Protoman's faces don't read well at 1x though that might be moot anyway since megaman games are at 2x resolution. Also why don't you make them look at the player?  It's awkward to have megaman just staring intensely at something off screen.  Overall I feel like you could do better seems to me you are rushing things a bit just on the pixel side of things though.  Oh and please for the big character sprites don't get inspiration from either 9 or 10 those look horrible.  I can't speak of the previous ones as I haven't seen them in awhile.

I would love to see the bigger sprites rendered like how they are in X4 those are crisp!

One more thing, you are coming off as a bit arrogant, sort of high and mighty.  Just so you know.