Average Guy

[Moribund]

I'm not sure whether I should go for a multicoloured outline. This seems to work fairly well with all the parts except the arms. I still don't know how to do hands and feet.



Edit: Updated with hand-hiding technology.

Edit2: Oops maybe I should have worked on this more myself before posting it. Better arms.



Edit3:

"So Moribund created man in his own image, in the image of Moribund he created him; male and female he created them."

I also tried a sharper outline, as I noticed the old one didn't work well when I wanted to do dark colours. Is this new outline too obnoxiously dark? Maybe a bit too saturated as well.

Edit4:

[Wootai]

Fist things i notice are:

The character's stance seems a bit odd, looks like he's pushing his pelvis out and arching his back. Like he put his hands on his hips an is doing hip thrusts.
The heart on his t-shit isnt in the same perspective as the shirt.

The girls hips seem very wide, or is she wearing a skirt over some leggings? i cant really tell. Also she looks like she is one pixel away from giving me the finger, which, if she is trying to do, then you're one pixel short.

I'm working on uploading my quick edit.

Edit: Got it!:

[Lukkas]

I think Edit 3 looks near perfect. No need to change the guy's stance. The only things I see that need improvement is the heart on his shirt, as Wootai said, and the girl's fingers on the raised hand are a little strange. I also think her other arm is a little too short. It is not in proportion to her torso. If her arm is going back behind her, it needs darker shading to show this.

I think her red skirt could use more shading and defining. I don't approve of ripping off entirely, but it needs something more.

My last bit of nitpicking - I really think your sprites looked better with the colored outlines. The dark ones do not do them full justice.

Excellent work. You've got some nice looking sprites on your hands.

[Moribund]

Hey guys thanks for the feedback and sorry for being late with my reply- I wanted to pair it with something to demonstrate that I understood and learned what you said. But there is my problem. I seem to be getting progressively worse. I am going to do something that is probably considered tasteless or faux pas-y here (I have no clue I am a noobie), and post my entire work page.



I don't know what's wrong. You can clearly see that the girl is inferior to the guy (in terms of quality of spritework), and the newest addition, hooded bro, is completely inferior in all of his forms. I can't even get any of the sprites into the same perspective as the first, and I had intended it to be a style that I would eventually make into a game. Can anyone see something in perhaps my work process which could be the cause? Is my modest muse just a fickle bitch?

[Wootai]

First note would be that as far as perspective, all your reference shots are in different perspectives, which could be throwing you off. Also about the feet position, i still think they need to be apart, try standing in the position that you have your character in and see if that is comfortable, I tried, it wasn't.

Perhaps if you give yourself a floor for them to stand on rather than the plain single color background that can help, you'll be able to see how the bodies look standing on a surface rather than floating in space.

[Moribund]

Thanks for the advice, I'll pay more attention to how my vision of the sprites compares to the reference.




More stuff! I'm thinking about making a beat 'em up with this guy, in which case I think I'll have to take a more sideways perspective. The more and more I sprite this guy the more I appreciate the proportions of chibi stuff. Maybe this is too small and complicated for my current skill level...

Ugh does anyone have any tips on arms?

[Tourist]

I think the characters are charming. 

Working that small means you have to imply shapes rather than explicitly pixel them.  I'm not that good at it myself, so I don't have many suggestions on how to do this. 

Avoid noise.  Use single pixel stubs only with much caution.

Edit (only the small figures).



For the female, only down to the shoulders.  There's not enough room to waste a pixel to outline the jaw, so I just used a darker shade on the neck.  Trimmed the hair a bit, added some pixels to the near shoulder to show that it is in front of the body - the saved pixel from the jawline came in handy here.  Oh, and lengthened her arms - they were too short by a lot.

Here I used as single pixel stub for the base of the neck to hint at form (neck/collar bones).  The face is a much simpler design, and she looks a bit like a smiley face, but it works ok, because that's what people recognize as a face.

The male suffered from the dread hunch.  His chest is caved in.  If this a hero, have him stand up straight and push out his manly chest.  This goofs up his arm a bit and I didn't correct that, but the basic stance looks more bold.

For both figures I used a 4th color (light brown) with the skin tones.  I find 4 colors is the minimum I can use for skin.  Others can do it with three, but I generally can't.  I also bumped up the saturation on the red skin tone to separate it from the newly used light brown.

edit: on arms,
look at your arms as a reference for dimensions.  When held straight down, elbows come down to around the bottom of the rib cage and wrists are almost the groin.  Keeping the elbow in it's place relative to arm length is more important than overall length.  For the muscles and whatnot, I recommend an anatomy book.

Hope this helps,
Tourist

[Moribund]

Thanks for the feedback!

Why does no one like the pose? I stand like that in real life all the time and I feel DAMN comfortable. I could sleep in that pose. I think I'm gonna try a more sideways, more dynamic fight-y stance for him next.

I really like the edit you did to the guy's neck. One of my main objectives I set out for myself when I was doing these was to use less colours then I usually do (2 main shades + an "AA" shade and only one for the whole outline)- But seeing your edit I think I might use just one more shade.

Also one more thing I forgot to ask, any advice on character design? He's based on me, mainly, so he's really boring. I want to add something and I think lower head to upper body is the area I want it in, as that's where the focus is right now. Scarf? A tie would conflict too much with the heart which I feel is nice and iconic-y. Should I redesign the shirt to make that more unique?

[meagz]

'Why does no one like the pose? I stand like that in real life all the time and I feel DAMN comfortable. I could sleep in that pose.'

Haha. Do you often crotch-thrust at people?

I think the pose looks off because of the heart - its facing forward, while the rest of the body is sorta pointing at an angle.
You could give him a sweet armband or a watch or something if you want to un-boring it?

[Tourist]

I think the character design is fine, and not boring at all.  A scarf would clutter up the figure a bit too much.

The pose...here try this:



Not my pic, it's from the freebie section of www.human-anatomy-for-artist.com.  I reduced the image size and added the white block over the genitals.  The lighting is different and the arms are in a different spot, but take a look at the torso.

The upper chest comes forward from the spine further than the belly or hips.  The line of the torso on the far side is almost pure vertical (on a thinner fellow the stomach might come in a bit, on a fatter fellow the belly might come out a bit). 

The standing pose of your guy is not just a slouch, the center of his chest is pushed back.  He has a spine like a question mark.  It looks uncomfortable and it conveys neither confidence nor prowess.  A different pose would be better.

To end on a positive note, your characters are fundamentally interesting, and I think they would make fine game characters in whichever genre you choose.

Tourist