AuthorTopic: Help me polish this penguin, beginner.  (Read 4079 times)

Offline hustlerinc

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Help me polish this penguin, beginner.

on: July 19, 2012, 03:44:37 pm
Hi, this is my first real pixel art project and I'm kind of stuck. Here's what I have sofar.

I think I got the general body quite good, but the colors feel abit off, and the wing looks wierd.
Could anyone please help me polish this one? All help appreciated.

Offline jams0988

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Re: Help me polish this penguin, beginner.

Reply #1 on: July 19, 2012, 04:14:34 pm
Welcome to the forums!

It's not a huge improvement over yours, though. X3
Didn't change the lineart, just the colors and shading. Picked some happier, more saturated colors, and picked a lightsource. When you shade, try to think hard about where the light is coming from, and then make sure your shadows fall accordingly. Sometimes it helps if you pick a darker color first, and then add the light on top of that, instead of the other way around. It's a little bit easier to think "where is the light falling?" than "since the light is falling here, shadows must be cast here," for some people.
« Last Edit: July 19, 2012, 04:17:46 pm by jams0988 »

Offline hustlerinc

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Re: Help me polish this penguin, beginner.

Reply #2 on: July 19, 2012, 06:09:01 pm
Thank you, hopefully I'll be able to learn a thing or two here. =)
You're right it looks way better in those colors. Got any suggestions on the wings, they still seem out of place.

Edit: Used your colors, and changed the angle of the wing a little, made 2 different modifications:
1st: 2nd:
Look's better but could still be improved. Tips anyone?

I get the impression he's either very angry, or extremely focused. How could i give him a more casual/happy look?
« Last Edit: July 19, 2012, 06:51:46 pm by hustlerinc »

Offline jams0988

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Re: Help me polish this penguin, beginner.

Reply #3 on: July 19, 2012, 06:33:05 pm
Not much, really. The shape is just a little off. I thought your penguin's wings were all the way back, from your lineart, so I shaded like they were. Looking at google images, it seems like they'd be coming toward us, too, out to the sides.
Also, the wing folds over and isn't pointed at the tip the way you drew it. Try your best to copy the reference, hahah. ^ ^
Make sure to find a reference that suits your drawing, and copy it as well as you can. "Draw what you see, instead of what you think you see." When using references, a lot of people don't really pay attention to the angles and such their reference is making. Instead, they make guesses about how their reference *should* look based on what they know about their reference. Try to look at your reference objectively, breaking down the shapes of your reference as well as you can in your head, and copying them.

Basically, pretend you're a robot, hahah. In red, I highlighted angles you could look at when trying to draw the wing. Instead of just looking at your reference real quick and drawing without thinking, make a conscious note of the angles the shapes of the wing and body make up where they meet. Pay close attention to the shape of the whole wing, breaking it down into smaller polygonal chunks if that makes it easier for you (it does for me!). In blue, I highlighted some areas of negative space I might look at if I were the one doing the drawing. If the spaces around your penguin (negative space) look wrong, that means your penguin itself (positive space) is wrong, too. Keep these things in mind while drawing, and good luck!

Edit: As an example of how helpful looking at negative space is, drawing the penguin itself looks pretty complicated, right? But if you just draw the simple blue triangles/pentagons I put around the penguin, the shape of the penguin/penguin's wing reveals itself easily. Remember to keep checking your negative vs positive space to be sure it's all in balance!

Check out "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain," too, if you want more advice like the above...the book talks way too much in my opinion, but there's some good info in there if you dig around. =)

Edit edit: Ah, you ninja'd me while I was posting, hustler! You fixed the pointiness of the wing in this one, which is good, but now it looks like his wing is pointing down and out to his side, like he's saying "hey, you want some of this?!" Try to get his wing pointing up again, heheh. Good luck! =)
« Last Edit: July 19, 2012, 06:52:03 pm by jams0988 »

Offline hustlerinc

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Re: Help me polish this penguin, beginner.

Reply #4 on: July 26, 2012, 05:35:06 am
Remade the penguin from scratch today. Now it has a tail and better wing, I dont like the feet though. Also I'm stuck at how I should animate this.
Does anyone have any suggestions?

Offline Ai

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Re: Help me polish this penguin, beginner.

Reply #5 on: July 26, 2012, 07:34:13 am
What kind of animation do you want to do.. walk cycle?

If you insist on being pessimistic about your own abilities, consider also being pessimistic about the accuracy of that pessimistic judgement.

Offline rikfuzz

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Re: Help me polish this penguin, beginner.

Reply #6 on: July 26, 2012, 07:34:53 am
If you'll excuse the oversized gif and the jump/glide parts of the animation this may be useful:



Just a penguin I pixeled for a game I never finished. I actually got to meet some penguins* this year (hey I like penguins okay?), and their actual walking is even funnier than a cartoony version.  (Arms out and back slightly, leaning forward, stumbling clumsily, rocking side to side) which would suit your penguin I reckon.

Couldn't get facebook to show me the videos I took, so just looked one up on youtube quickly:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MlbxRBfGAr0
(some stumbly walking action at 17 seconds in)

*One of them played on my 3ds

Offline hustlerinc

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Re: Help me polish this penguin, beginner.

Reply #7 on: July 26, 2012, 08:34:36 am
What kind of animation do you want to do.. walk cycle?
Yeah, wobbling back and forth (like penguins walk).

Just a penguin I pixeled for a game I never finished. I actually got to meet some penguins* this year (hey I like penguins okay?), and their actual walking is even funnier than a cartoony version.  (Arms out and back slightly, leaning forward, stumbling clumsily, rocking side to side) which would suit your penguin I reckon.
Yeah, that's kind of what I'm going for. I also started to like penguins alot, never realized how amazing animals they are until I got this game idea. Reading wikipedia I learned that they have 2 colors to camouflage under water, from above they are invisible because of the darkness below, from below they blend with the light on the surface. That blew my mind, nature is amazing.

Offline Ai

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Re: Help me polish this penguin, beginner.

Reply #8 on: July 26, 2012, 10:11:06 am
re:eye expression: Just give him eyelids. (the eye is large enough to use the top pixel row for them. You could also include a blink as part of the animation)

Here's a pretty rough animation edit. It includes the right basic elements (mainly spin during walk, and ensuring moving areas of light are consistent across the animation) but I haven't bothered to polish the details, and it's only half of the cycle. Please consider this as a demo rather than a suggestion per se, I would hope your finished animation has much more imagination in it than this.

« Last Edit: July 26, 2012, 10:13:23 am by Ai »
If you insist on being pessimistic about your own abilities, consider also being pessimistic about the accuracy of that pessimistic judgement.

Offline yaomon17

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Re: Help me polish this penguin, beginner.

Reply #9 on: July 26, 2012, 06:37:59 pm
If you'll excuse the oversized gif and the jump/glide parts of the animation this may be useful:



Just a penguin I pixeled for a game I never finished. I actually got to meet some penguins* this year (hey I like penguins okay?), and their actual walking is even funnier than a cartoony version.  (Arms out and back slightly, leaning forward, stumbling clumsily, rocking side to side) which would suit your penguin I reckon.

Couldn't get facebook to show me the videos I took, so just looked one up on youtube quickly:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MlbxRBfGAr0
(some stumbly walking action at 17 seconds in)

*One of them played on my 3ds
ooo, we should add each other's FC so we can discuss penguins
Started as an edit, ended as ehhhhh
It is very blue. Maybe you can get something from it anyways D: