[WIP] Sakura sprite

[Tenshi]

(Reference: http://www.tanime.net/fc-universe/databank/characters/enjeru_yasashii/yasashii_enjeru-1.jpg There are minor differences as I've some alterations to make to this reference )

This is the main character for my game / thesis project. Any blaring problems? I haven't pixeled in a very long time so I'm just now getting back into it so ... probably laden with errors.

[Helm]

Hi, Tenshi. Your sprite shows evidence of over-adherance to design and the lineart that denotes this design. The end result is nice looking, but I think several factors contribute to it feeling too noisy and overworked. First of all, the way you organise your palette, with every little design thing having its own 2-3 color ramp, makes the end result seem plastic and disjointed, as if it's not lit under the same light uniformly. Less colors sometimes are easier to look at. Furthermore, the way you keep to your vision of the sprite ("she has a tattoo here and a pendant there and her shoes are exactly like that") make for a busy sprite. The solution to this sadly is to simplify and remove a lot of detail that doesn't read at this sprite size.

The way you highlight everything makes the sprite overbright and as if its hit by flash photography lighting at that. The selout is outmodded technology which I sincerily suggest to you that you reconsider. What is it achieving that you cannot achieve with other means?

In my edit below, the sprite goes from 32 colors to 16 with, I hope, not too much information or detail loss. The more managable palette, with much of the highlight work removed, reveals a very sturdy and well-done sprite construction, which I think you're hurting by the way you're rendering. You also fall victim to banding here and there. Is the term banding new to you? If so, I can explain in a more detailed fashion, but generally it's where bands of pixels line up horisontially or vertically and spoil the illusion of fine resolution by showing the pixel grid.



I is the original, II is the removal of most highlight work while keeping the colors as they were. III is a significant rework of both pixel clusters and their color indexes, and my suggestion for an alternate way to work these sprites. Also below, the final edit for consideration without the nuisance of the animation.



Hope I helped.

[Tenshi]

Helm: Three colors would indeed be easier to work with considering I have animations to do do in 4 directions, just that next thing I knew I ended up with 4; I'll study this carefully. You make a good point about the removal of sel-out... your edit does look better without it and it seems more natural.

The removal of most of her details is a very hard consideration, I'm not very good about removing detail I find important but I do see how it does look so much cleaner without it. Hmm...

Thank you though, your edits have given me much to think about.

Edit: I see you went with the nose. Thanks, I actually thought about putting that in there, and then removed it again, but I definitely think I like it there rather than not.

[Helm]

I'm glad if I helped.

The problem with systemized methods for coloring is not that it's more easy/difficult to animate later, it's that the sprite lacks cohesion and looks like a toy. Green armband. Brown shoes. Blue shirt. All these different little straight ramps of primary colors make the whole look terribly artificial. If you can unify the palette and give it a flow, I wouldn't care even if it were 128 colors, cram as many as you want in there. As long as they have a purpose and the promote the look and feel of the character as an alive person.

You can always save the detail stuff for her up-close view in-game, can't you? Think of the sprites in old final fantasy games or something. It's not unheard of. In that case sure, bring back the tattoo even on the small sprite but just have it be a few pixels worth of a symbol 'there is a tattoo here', it doesn't have to be the literal shape of the up-close one.

As to the nose, I thought it worked. Personally I'd give her a mouth too for full-on Sierra On-lineification, but I realize that's crossing streams.

[Tenshi]

Yes you did. Here I thought my blaring problems would be anatomy but I should have been paying more attention to the colors.

I used GIMP to pixel with, and learned how to use the in-line color selection tool to speed things up (Hold CTRL while using the pencil tool). I'll tinker with it to see if there's a way to create colors that are blended from colors already in the sprite, since that's something I'm a bit new to.

Yes, I can save the detail for a closer-up version, it's just difficult to not use them because I know that they're there... but it's a learning process. As you can see from the years' old sprite on my avatar, it's something I just need to learn -- if anything, not worrying about where every spec of color for her flower tattoos will make it a little easier down the road since I have some deadlines to reach.

I like the mouth, it was in one version but I removed it because it didn't look very good with the selout, but without the selout it looks so much better so the mouth will definitely make it into the final version.

I'm using PNG sources directly in the game and moved to a library called SFML, so I can import images directly into the game, as so, to show the character's detail:


Though that's an older layout (I'm not working menus until I get a playable demo out for my Thesis and I ripped out all of that code and I've removed attribute caps and reduced/altered some of the attributes themselves) but *I guess* I can force myself to leave the detail there.


Still, you have been most helpful.

[Helm]

as far as anatomy goes the sprite looks pretty solid. The higher res reference is very good as well, but since you asked here's a few issues



a. seek reference on how the forearm muscles tuck away under the shouder and chest muscles. My guide is extremely simplistic, but it still sells it better than what you've got right now.

b. warrior woman would have to have very developed back muscles to handle swords and such. These would show around the neck more. Also don't deglect how necks work. Again, my guide is very simplistic, but it instantly makes her feel more like a human being.

c. just the line of the spine should help distribute the abdominal symbols. I'd personally go without such things because women, even when they are extremely fit, rarely get the 'washboard' look to their abs. That is, without steroids and the like. If you have to have them, make them flow better than what you've got right now. But still, please refer to this link for more realistic fit woman archetypes as far as abs go.

Very impressed with the other arm though, good construction. And I like the shape and feel of the legs. You're shading a bit oddly though, kinda like you do on your sprites. More science and simplification of scientific principles should be used to shade flesh, even in semi-anime semi-cartoony styles such as these.

[Tenshi]

Yes, I'll be redoing that image to correct those mistakes, and also to update her with some newer changes (also when I did that I was researching martial arts styles that would use effectively use a long sword, but I've settled on a long-handled sword more the Seung Mi-Na route instead which is why the sword is awkwardly drawn in the art -- because it was a polearm, then a sword, but now it's back to polearm now [though the style I researched, Grain Leaf/ "Maio Dao", works well with both polearms and long swords]).

I will also be adjusting her muscle definition to match her mixed racial background given the improved understanding; that much definition would be reserved more likely for a woman of African heritage given bodyfat, etc. and the link you provided backs that up -- thanks, I'll be bookmarking that.

I think I may have been a bit unclear in my post, sorry to make you go through the extra effort, it was the sprite's anatomy I was concerned about, but I do appreciate it, thank you.

Edit: Looks like GIMP does have a tool for creating a color from another color. I will tinker with that and see if I can come up with some acceptable colors on my own and apply what you've shown me to it. I'd given some thought to making her as dark as the set of colors you used based on the fact that a sunny environment would indeed darken her skin, but I decided to go with the lighter skin to highlight a different racial trait. She should freckle, and I have to find a way to work that in.

[Stickman]

Helm's edit makes far more sense especially if your going to be animating. On the sprite, you'll want to keep those limbs as clear and readable as possible, otherwise it will be a boiling mess when it starts moving.

[Tenshi]

This is where I am at currently. I searched for some documents on color unification (and actually ended up with a thread here). I am trying to make an effort to mix my colors together a bit more and still need to adjust the colors/shading on the outfit (blue parts) and gloves and shoes and to stay away from selout.. also read an article that ties into this about trying to increase the apparent resolution and I think trying to keep that in mind is helping me make some sense of all of this.

[Helm]

I think this is much more readable and pleasing to the eye. There's still broken outlines in various places but I can live with that, personally. Perhaps you should move on to new sprites?