Sephiroth Advent Children

[The Cold Mage]

i was going for a bit of SF3 style so the feet and hands would be slightly bigger to accomidate that style

[Ryumaru]

the way you tried to make the sword come toward the viewer also makes it look like the sword is ^ instead of straight.

[Darien]

That selout on the sword is really ugly, I don't think you really need it for the sword.  At the very least you only need the next darker shade, and not that really dark one.

[Ryuria]

I love it. <3

[The Cold Mage]

when I was AAing this guy, i did it on a black BG. it helps with sprites that have darker colors, but i guess the side effect of that sets me up to AA the outsides too dark. you put it on a black BG though it looks great =P

[Pawige]

Style or not, I still think it'd look better if they were just a tad smaller. I'd say it's rarely a good idea to let any "style" be more importance than aesthetics, especially if the style in question is an emulation of one not your own.

Ah, and here's why I say the sword's too long:


I would also suggest always using a neutral BG color like grey or some really desaturated color. It makes a lot of things easier.

Oh, if I've come across as cranky, I didn't mean it that way, just trying to be helpful! 

[Darien]

when I was AAing this guy, i did it on a black BG. it helps with sprites that have darker colors, but i guess the side effect of that sets me up to AA the outsides too dark. you put it on a black BG though it looks great =P

...then maybe you should put it on a black background. 

But if you're going to put it on a transparent background, think about what would be friendliest to as many backgrounds as possible.

[ndchristie]

the sword is dumb, but it is sephiroth, so w/e

i personally loved FF7 more than any game, but i hated the character art direction.  the costumes were cool, the style was crap.  still though, in game, the only reason for the small torso is to make room for the big head.  i think even in fanart, proper propotions still stand.  the art for ff7 was some of the worst, and id advise against emulating it.  costumes good, characters good, proportions? use ones that make sense.

[Helm]

lol, if you can't beat it, hate it XD

FF art direction stupid, Sepiroth stupid, long penisword stupid, haircuts stupid, clothes stupid. There's more to graphic design in video games than this. Rant out.


About the piece, as a fighter sprite, it stands pretty well, I don't think I could actually edit this to any pleasing effect... I'd just take the selout out. He's so dark and contrast-y you can place him on any background and he'll still pop out. Selout being useful is a myth.

[ndchristie]

Selout being useful is a myth.

i like to think of 'selout' practices only as a means of varying outline darkness; it serves little other porpose.  Selout in traditional work is refered to as rudementary line-weight control, more or less an absolute must.  in pixel art, it typically is just done as a one-way AA job that utterly fails in its purpose.  Games like KoF and SF were simply trying to emulate this very sexy ability of traditional art media like pencil and ink, and it has often been misinterpreted and misused which leads to the crap 'selout' were used to.  Proper understanding of selout only comes from working in these traditional media, and this really doesnt display it as anything but a not-so-great done-because-everyone-else-does technique.

still think the proportions could be made better unless you want to follow this art style, and also just noticed the color count is way too high, especially in the lower part of his coat