Little help for a newbie

[chipbit]

Hi folks, first time poster and a very happy individual to have found this site. The huge amount of talent and promise around here has totally blown me away and really made me re-asses my own work.

First-off I'm slowly getting into game development. I think we've got a few classic ideas down on paper so I'm entering into the development stage.

So, I've spent the last few months hunting around for tutorials on pixel work and specifically working on graphics for games. To be honest I'm more of a photoshop brush man so working with the pencil tool and working at such small sizes is a bit alien to me. Starting off simple and basic with some stuff I threw together this weekend - Still WIP. This is all freeform. No sketching, no scanning, the normal way I'd work in photoshop.

These are elements for one game idea I'm working on. Based upon an office environment.



Also:
What is the best way for reproducing the sprites? I'm so used to creating one-off images, not used to mass production of a lot of elements.
Are there any tutorials anyone can suggest for actually producing a lot of sprites - character and otherwise for 2D platform games?

**Update with a simple office scene - needs some depth**



Any pointers I can get early are going to be really helpful.

Thanks folks.  

[chipbit]

Working on a Voodoo boss.
Again, any pointers, CC, etc. Very Helpful.

[Chis]

Hmm, I think you unintentionally used a bajillion colors. The sprites have alot of almost identical shades that could be combined. How are you doing your pixelling?
The robotic hand feels flat - try looking at real hands and shading with regards to the lightsource. Even if it's a cartoon hand, it should have more volume.
Voodoo boss looks good, but his arm is too straight maybe? Watch out for banding on the shirt.

[chipbit]

Cheers, Voodoo boss is more where I'm heading with regard to the actual sprite work. I'm trying to tie it down to an actual palet of colours.
The first round of sprites were much larger and shrunk down  - using bicubic which has resulted in a lot of unwanted noise.

[Grimsane]

did a quick edit, reduced the colours down to 16, and adjusted stuff, and yeah seriously what are you using to pixel? there is transparency all over the place which kinda breaks the pixel style of it, and it doesn't need that many transitioning shades for that size sprite.

hope it helps

Edit:
and voilą depth

also i might add there are quite a few issues on the 'voodoo boss' sprite even after adjusting it close to the above edit, the banding especially on the shirt as Chis pointed out, some shading on the head, the outlines, but overall the sprite has a nice readable toon style.

Oh and yeah i took his shoes off too namely to keep the colours down and have his feet identifiable and also because it makes sense in the context of the character, I wasn't willing to spend more than ten minutes on the edit, but hope it addressed some of the issues and helps you improve it.

[chipbit]

seriously what are you using to pixel? there is transparency all over the place which kinda breaks the pixel style of it, and it doesn't need that many transitioning shades for that size sprite

The process I'm going through at the moment is a transition from using traditional brush work in photoshop  - the way I've been working for a while now.
So, I'm deconstructing the way I work and moving into the pixel realm. So the first set of images are things I've put together using brushes and the plan is to re-work these.
Basically I'm starting from scratch and learning as I go.

also i might add there are quite a few issues on the 'voodoo boss' sprite even after adjusting it close to the above edit, the banding especially on the shirt as Chis pointed out, some shading on the head, the outlines, but overall the sprite has a nice readable toon style.

heh, not many issues then
To be honest, I'm finding it hard to apply my style to sprite work. Hard but not impossible.

hope it addressed some of the issues and helps you improve it.

Dude, it's a fantastic help. Thanks.

*update* I tried to use some of the issues with the shirt to add moobs and added some more shading to give the shirt a more taut feel.

[chipbit]

Back to the drawing board and working small - ie no resizing with the the resulting noise!

So, I've been playing around with my main character - the very normal and boring everyman nerd: Hopefully this is more in the spirit of the site, reduced colours, no brush work etc...

With some variations using his specs for facial expressions and trying to get some more detail and movement in the body. First time round was a bit static.

A very rough sketch for a "Thinker".


Still working on colours and something a bit more interesting for the floating platform. Also, pipes and the actual brain.

Oh, and a rough idea for a security bot / office trash bin.

[Grimsane]

this is my favourite from what I've seen so far, I dig that style, and looks the most pixel driven of your works, the noodle legs look cool, but might want to work on intergrating them a tad better, they don't transition onto the character very convincingly.

this one looks nice too, shading needs a tad of work, and that text is ugly, not the font type, but that overkill anti-aliasing, if its a real font, type it out with no anti-aliasing on, or if you can't just make sure its the right scale, and then do a pass with pixels and make it one character at a time, and create your own bitmap font, and construct a sheet similar to this



it'd be useful not only games but for mock ups, oh and it's a creative commons free use font, so help yourself. (I didn't do it btw, just did a quick google image search) and I have got quite a few of my own fonts, I might upload them in a new thread if i manage to find them. real low res fonts tend to look the same though due to the limitations on making the characters read, but feel free to make your own.

and this one, looks alright but not entirely keen on the legs, especially the foreground one just something about it. your voodoo one had more appealing legs

also the voodoo one has improved I can tell you continued working off the edit, but there are some issues you didn't resolve and your shirt folds don't look the most appealing, i was just going to do a lightning fast edit to show how to improve the folds, and went overboard again



didn't know what you were trying to achieve with the shirt, and experimented with doctors face mask, and collar. also just cleaned up your palette a little i think i removed a colour or so, and adjusted the contrast slightly, and arranged it to illustrate what you've done consciously or not is make a 2 tone ramp. which isn't necessarily a bad thing.

are you using any particular game creation tools? ie a WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) game engine? hope you persist and make at least a game demo, your art style and the visual narrative it alludes to is interesting 

[chipbit]

Again, thanks for your feedback. It's amazingly helpful and I hope that's apparent in my recent updates.

If its a real font, type it out with no anti-aliasing on, or if you can't just make sure its the right scale, and then do a pass with pixels and make it one character at a time

Heh, this was grabbed off of Blambot last thing. It's only there as a placeholder
But yeah, no excuses on this one, I'm going to have to put the effort into creating font sets.

Wow. I love the collar. I didn't even think of doing that.
I'm trying to keep some mass in the shirt. Essentially it's a lumpy fat guy with moobs and a bulging belly.
Also, I'm still a little in the dark when it comes to colour pallets. I always use the colour picker in photoshop.
This is an area I'll need to spend some research points on.

are you using any particular game creation tools? ie a WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) game engine? hope you persist and make at least a game demo, your art style and the visual narrative it alludes to is interesting 

At the moment I'm just working on character creation and building the worlds they will populate. So, it's all concept art and doodles in photoshop.
Pixel art was the one area I'd never tried my hand at. I was a tad arrogant thinking it'd be a breeze and was almost instantly humbled when I found this site. However, this is proving to be a very good thing.

[chipbit]

Back in Town after 3 weeks working state side. Also a welcome return to jetlag and pixeling.

Update to the art direction and a few more rough character designs.



Feels good to be back at the Wacom.

[Grimsane]

Welcome back 

and that's an interesting mob of characters  Definitely settling more into the pixel art style over your first posted attempts.

guy on the far right reminds me of Adam Savage from MythBusters 

[chipbit]

guy on the far right reminds me of Adam Savage from MythBusters 

Cheers dude, good to be back.
It's actually my best mate and co-conspirator. He gets that a lot! 

[Grundy]

Yeah, Characters tend to be very believable when you base them on people you know in real life.
I guess that is because you get all the details/combination of features you would'nt normally think of.
I read somewhere that Half-Life's Gordon Freeman is pretty much 100% based on Valve's sound guy at that time.

[Tourist]

There are some small areas of banding that can be cleaned up.  Banding can not always be avoided, but often it can.  This chart was made by Arachne:



Take a look at, for example, the arms on the fellow on the far right, and you'll see it.

Hope this helps,
Tourist