[WIP] Chilly Little Guy (CC requested)

[PunkRockGrrl]

Hey there! This is my first thread, so tell me if I did something terribly horribly wrong. I read the Rules and such, so I should be good, but you never know.

With that out of the way, I've been dreaming up a little platformer with inspirations from Ice Climber, Mario, and a tiny bit of Minecraft.
I'll be adding to the graphics in this thread as I go, but this guy is all I've done so far. He's going to be the main character, and is meant to be a sort of cute, daring guy. As you can see, he's got no arms, which was intended, but I may add arms depending on how my idea of mechanics ends up going.

the actual sprite
blown-up and backdrop added for your viewing convenience

My current concerns as far as this sprite goes are as follows:
1. He seems quite top-heavy, and I've tried a couple different things to alleviate that, but everything I do just makes him look even more awkward. He's not intended to be short for his size, just small.
2. I'm only using 4 colours in my palette (which I've included in the upper-left of the sprite), so I'm not really sure how to add detail (buttons, buckle, etc) without it blending oddly with the rest of him. I'll work on it though.

Anyhow, I'd appreciate it if you could give me your thoughts on this. Thanks!

[Grimsane]

figured I'd have a try at pushing the character around a little, figured it'd be worthwhile sharing, take it as an explorative suggestion on what you could conceivably do without breaking away from the core idea too much.


keep thinking on the armless thing, how will you depict him interacting with things? has he got invisible limbs and things just move in relation to where arms would likely be? like an item hovering at arms length and eg an ice pick swinging when you press the attack(/swing ice pick button  )

oh and a note, the forums have a zoom feature, left click to enlarge Shift+click to shrink, so hard scaling sprites isn't necessary (but the background tone is welcome, because the forum theme is horrible right now  )

[PixelPiledriver]

Try balancing the colors in different combinations:


From the topic title and you mention Ice Climber he's an eskimo sorta guy right?

[PunkRockGrrl]

Try balancing the colors in different combinations:
*snip*
From the topic title and you mention Ice Climber he's an eskimo sorta guy right?

Oh-kay! I was focusing too much on making sure his clothes were the 'right' colour. And, yes, he's an eskimo sorta guy sorry I forgot to mention that.

figured I'd have a try at pushing the character around a little, figured it'd be worthwhile sharing, take it as an explorative suggestion on what you could conceivably do without breaking away from the core idea too much.

I like what you did with his legs/torso to kinda re-balance him, but he comes off looking too beefy to me. Still, I'll put more effort in that direction.

Overall, thank you two for the input! I'm browsing on my dsi right now, so I can't post images of my new attempts. I'll be able to post some work soon though. (It's currently ~4am here now, so I'll post in the coming daytime )

[PunkRockGrrl]

Sorry I didn't post yesterday when I said I would. My internet connection decided to take the day off :/

So, as you can see from the image below, I decided to take some of your suggestions in mind, and I started the character again from scratch. I'll just run down the list from left to right.

1-4: I saw PixelPiledriver's images, and took inspiration from the third one. I added trim on his hood, hair, and made his skin the second lightest shade instead of the lightest. I love the pose here, but I found it hard to incorporate an ice-pick into his hands (not an issue if the swing animation is the only one with the pick in, sort of reminiscent of Link swinging his sword in The Legend of Zelda) I played with different button arrangements from 1-3, picked 3 as my favorite, and added boots (with trim, like his hood and the bottom and front of his coat) EDIT: my only concern as far as these four go, is that there's too much outline in my opinion. I can't think of a way to get rid of it and have it still look good, and it doesn't bother me all that much. But still...
5-7: I took a look at Grimsane's edit for inspiration here (also, stole your icepick design, hope you don't mind. It was just so awesome) and sort of ditched the long coat look for more of a snowsuit with a belt. In 6, he was looking pretty blobby, and not formed well, so I cleaned him up a bit in 7, which is my favorite of the three, but I'm not really happy with it, so I may stick with 4.


So, there we are. If you have input of any sort, I'd love to hear it.
Again, sorry for the delay.

[Grimsane]

the buttons on the left don't really read as buttons, they just kinda vaguely give the impression of tartan. Nice explorations definitely looking more Eskimo than before, and more little boy than cute little armless alien.

some suggestions



also a 5th colour would add alot to the readability and seperation of the skin, also putting it on the background it'll logically be on to see how the colours read, you'll have to think and plan certain things, like if he is ontop the snow and no white in the background white on the character will be fine, if you want him to be 1 pixel touching the snow like implied here, then make sure the bottom boot pixels are anything but pure white.

what type of game are you going for? ^ ^ one suggestion for your first screen mockup if they aren't already planned would be to construct an igloo if outdoors, or some icicles and icy cavern themed tiles if indoors

[PunkRockGrrl]

what type of game are you going for? ^ ^ one suggestion for your first screen mockup if they aren't already planned would be to construct an igloo if outdoors, or some icicles and icy cavern themed tiles if indoors

I'm going for a puzzlish platformer with a simple, but charming story. Most of the game will be outdoors, but there will be a couple of cave/den stages. I've got a few ideas for mockups, but the igloo thing is fun, so it totally makes the list

In terms of colour, I'm thinking lots of blue, white, grey. The character will probably stand either on top of the ground, or a pixel in. (probably the latter, but I'll make that decision when it needs to be made.)

Nice explorations definitely looking more Eskimo than before, and more little boy than cute little armless alien.

Danke. I was going for something sort of effeminate, hence the "girly" pose in the first few. I see what you did to cut down on outline, and I'll work on that. And I totally agree about the fifth colour making it pop nicely. I was a tad scared to stray from the 4 colour palette (I'm still inexperienced, obviously.) but I'll try to be smart about it.

the buttons on the left don't really read as buttons, they just kinda vaguely give the impression of tartan.

Now, I know I'm very likely wrong here, but I'm not seeing tartan in those buttons. Again, probably just me. (unless you were just referring to the sprite on the very left, in which case, I totally see how that coul read as tartan.)

Thank you for the input! I'll be sure to keep the new stuff in mind while working on the sprite.

[Grimsane]

you're more than welcome,

regarding tartan, in combination with the arm outlining you form small patterns which is what I meant by implying tartan, I just should have said the buttons are somewhat clashing with the arm outline, minus the arm outline the buttons read perfectly as buttons.

[PunkRockGrrl]

Okay, I'm finished with this sprite for now. I'm going to start working on animating it (not my strong point, so more CC would be appreciated there too)

If there's anything glaringly wrong with this sprite, I'd appreciate a heads up, but other than that, I think I'm done.

[PunkRockGrrl]

Hey, I hate to be posting without any content again, but my computer took a dive, and I had to start from scratch, so I lost a fair bit of work.
I'm posting to let you know that I'm still working on this (I didn't abandon it) but it may be a couple days before I can get straight back to it.

Thank you for your patience.