AuthorTopic: Female Space Marine  (Read 7764 times)

Offline un7

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Female Space Marine

on: February 17, 2012, 12:05:25 pm
I'm beginning to sprite for my recent game, what you guys think about it? It's supposed to be a female space marine, or something like that.
What do you think about the colors? She's going to be main character. I`m thinking about sticking with the white armor, but changing her "clothes".



Eariler concepts.
« Last Edit: February 17, 2012, 01:13:42 pm by un7 »

Offline un7

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Re: Female Space Marine

Reply #1 on: February 18, 2012, 05:09:32 am
I've tried some colors, but why bother posting when there are 140+ views and no feedback? :huh:

Offline Phlakes

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Re: Female Space Marine

Reply #2 on: February 18, 2012, 05:13:34 am
Like someone here said, you get a lot of feedback when it's either really bad or really good. It looks like you're pretty much on the right track. There might be a few issues with the pose, the torso should probably be a bit forward and her left leg a bit back, and I'm sure someone more experienced has more to say.

Offline StarRaven

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Re: Female Space Marine

Reply #3 on: February 18, 2012, 07:39:07 am
I don't have much to say other than "I like it." The black and white with the cyan accents looks really good.

If you posted alternate colors, you would probably at least get some "I like ____ better than _____" comments.

A lot of threads have really high views. Either there are a lot of lurkers on this site or a lot of bots. Or I'm just used to hanging out in dead forums, hehe.

Offline un7

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Re: Female Space Marine

Reply #4 on: February 18, 2012, 11:44:52 am
I'm afraid to say that Pixelation haven't changed much from 4 years ago, then. Noob and famous people get all the attention.
Oh, "You're on the right track" or "I like it" are valid feedback, really.

Let's see if a poll will help me:
- Does it seem a woman in a space suit? Is it too feminine or manly?
- You think all the armor pieces fit together?
- Would it fit in a game? Is her design and colors "catchy" enough?
- Which one of the colors fits a main character? Is there any design standing out of the cliché?

Offline Mike

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Re: Female Space Marine

Reply #5 on: February 18, 2012, 12:03:48 pm
Hey!  I totally agree with you.  And you StarRaven.  The pixel art community is a little bit dead.  And it's true it either has to be super bad or super good in order for me to comment on it.  I don't know how others feel though.

Also I animated this.  Took about 5-10 minutes it's probably crap but hey feel free to use it.(also I added highlights to her thigh and crotch)  Heres hoping the thread gets more replies



Offline tehwexxl0rz

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Re: Female Space Marine

Reply #6 on: February 19, 2012, 01:11:52 am
Oh, "You're on the right track" or "I like it" are valid feedback, really.

I agree. Unfortunately, (some of?) the admins here feel differently and will outright delete comments that give praise without critique. I've gotten positive feedback in the past that helped me move forward when I was paralyzed with doubt, only to see the comment deleted moments later. I think if the mods/admins' policy here regarding positive feedback were different, people would post a lot more freely and the boards would be a lot healthier in general.

Back on topic, these pixels look awesome. The biggest problem I can see is that it looks much more like a (badass) robot than a human, let alone a woman. The shape of the helmet is the biggest misdirection in that regard. The breadth of the shoulders is a bit masculine, but overall the character is pretty androgynous.

Offline Seiseki

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Re: Female Space Marine

Reply #7 on: February 19, 2012, 01:32:39 pm
I think it looks really cool, especially with the animation.
And it's fine if it doesn't look overly feminine.
I mean, look at Metroid and Samus.

Because of gender stereotyping people will automatically assume it's male unless it's overly feminine in it's design, but that doesn't mean you should make it pink or overemphasize the chest area.
You can always add like a portrait without the helmet, as long as people know it's a female it's fine.

Offline StarRaven

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Re: Female Space Marine

Reply #8 on: February 19, 2012, 05:21:51 pm
I'm afraid to say that Pixelation haven't changed much from 4 years ago, then. Noob and famous people get all the attention.
Oh, "You're on the right track" or "I like it" are valid feedback, really.

Let's see if a poll will help me:
- Does it seem a woman in a space suit? Is it too feminine or manly?
- You think all the armor pieces fit together?
- Would it fit in a game? Is her design and colors "catchy" enough?
- Which one of the colors fits a main character? Is there any design standing out of the cliché?


I've noticed that you might not get many comments on the first post, but if you keep posting then you'll get some attention. This is probably because so many people post something and then never come back. I have to disagree that noobs and famous people get all the attention -- the attention goes to stuff that's easy to critique.

Asking specific questions makes it easier for people to offer feedback on something that's already nice and solid like this, because otherwise we don't know what kind of feedback to offer. This looks pretty finished.

Anyhoo! To your questions:
- It is pretty androgynous, but it's not "manly"... what I'm trying to say is that while I might not know if it's male or female at first glance, I have no problem seeing it as a woman now that you've told me it is.
- All the armor pieces fit together. I'm not sure about the blocky head piece in some of the color schemes, though. I'm seeing it as a beret on that third one in your last post.
- It would definitely fit in a game. The design is very good, and whether the colors are catchy enough will depend on the background you're going to put her on.
- The first two, the blue and red, are very eye-catching. I think I would have made all the accents on the blue one pink, though, like so: The cyan doesn't stand out enough against the blue, in my opinion.

I experimented with pink a little. And chartreuse.

Offline Helm

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Re: Female Space Marine

Reply #9 on: February 19, 2012, 08:40:59 pm
Hi. I think your sprites are great! My favourite from your palettes is the one I edit below.



Looking from afar there's really not much to offer in terms of critique. Your designs are solid and your pixel skill smooth. The edit above is if you're really really interested in pixel placement and stuff like that. Most of what I did to your sprite is remove 45 degree angle banding. You're adding these intermediate shades between darkness and light to make gradiations, which is a solid idea as transferred from normal drawing in mediums where you're not confined to pixel grids. However there are some things in pixel art which are counter-intuitive about how 40 degree lines work. Take my edit with a grain of salt on this front, because it's related to how much you may or may not feel banding hurts a piece of pixel art. If you're okay with it, disregard that aspect of the edit. It's one of these 'once seen, can never be unseen' things for me, so removing of banding is a top priority for pixel art made to be displayed in crisp high resolution screens where the grid is very visible, but you might feel different.

Besides the de-banding, I messed around with the volume and the shapes of your character to suit a slightly more realistic sense of physique, again this is completely optional in my opinion, you don't have to make your anatomy any more realistic for what you're drawing (cyber space armor lady), but perhaps it'll be useful as a different vantage. I do think the way I re-shaded the upper legs is an improvement, because your original was lit in a strange fashion, as if the character's legs became darker the closer they moved towards the knee. I'm not sure if you're trying to convey some different sort of pants, perhaps more poofy, that what I went for.

There's also some spice added to the palette.

The biggest thing to take from my edit is that you light things too uniformly. The dark areas and the highlights are roughly equal in size, but highlights, in order to pop, need to be significantly smaller than the main color they're shading. But at the same time you need to avoid single pixels of detail, they just end up as noise for anyone who is not going to stare at your character standing still for 30 minutes at 2x zoom or more. I disambiguated the distinction between helmet and shoulder, for example. Made the eye structrure clearer. Lots of small stuff like that. If you switch between edit and original in your pixel app you'll find a lot of minute changes that may or may not be of some use to you. The principles with which I am editing, as always, can be found in the Ramblethread on the general discussion board.

And if I may quickly comment very quickly on the secondary topic raised: Pixelation does not currently consider 'I like it' or 'you're on the right track' to be valid pieces of critique. Encouragement is wonderful, but we try to keep the boards critique-packed. Every post, if possible, should have both positive and negative aspects highlighted. Any sort of one-liner, unless it's a completely 100% on point crit that nobody has noticed, usually is deleted. If you're looking for emotional support, a critique board is not where you should go. There are many places on the internet where creativity is celebrated in itself, but Pixelation is useful because it is not such a place. If you are not getting a lot of critique for your work that means that the people that browse didn't find anything glaringly wrong with your work. That is great! You should carry on with your project, in this case. Of course people whose artwork has glaring issues are going to recieve more attention, because that's the function of a critique board. What we celebrate here is artistic growth. If you're evidently all grown up already, why not start helping other people more instead of asking for attention for your own stuff?