(WIP) RPG Mugshots and Battle characters

[AquaXranoX]

I've had my times with pixel art, I'm extremely dissapointed with how I keep failing on these. I took a look at some of the tutorials on this site. I can bet that I have a lot of "banding" and "jaggies in these as well as the horrible outlines. 

This is just some of the Mugshots from my RPG game.



and this is my Battle Character from 011-013. Not satisfied at all.



I hope to learn a lot from this site and to reach my goal. Any pointers?

[yaomon17]

The outlines are cleaned up nicely (though there are a few jaggies here and there) but what I've noticed is (at least from the mugshots) that you attempted to add texture on the clothing by simply scribbling on the shade, leaving lots of jagged lines and random pixels. This clashes with the smoother shading of the hair and skin. There is also a few other inconsistencies such as the hair of the guy on the very left being a different style than the rest and odd reflected light on the person with he bandana. Overall, they still seem a bit sketchy.

[AquaXranoX]

I kinda see what you mean. I did find it strange about the woman with the bandanna, I'll have to toy around with it a bit for the bandanna.

As for the textures, err... I was trying to suggest folds and wrinkles but I guess that's the wrong way of doing it I suppose.

What I always ask my friends and other artists (like what you did to the guy with the headband) is, when do you know what colors to use for the parts of the outlines like you did in the picture? It's always confused me for ages! 

[PixelPiledriver]

You're collecting a large amount of visually confusing tangents.



Lines and areas of color can align in an unintentional way.
This can lead to the image looking flatter, as the perspective cannot be determined.
It can also make objects interact with each other when they shouldn't.

Put your forms inside of other forms.
Use overlap and other perspective cues.



I'm not saying you should design your character like this.
Just drawing over it to show what I mean.

Tangents can be used for good too to create certain visual effects.
Other issues still remain, but avoiding a mass of tangents will improve your ability to draw form and create interesting designs.

[AquaXranoX]

I'm trying to understand what you mean. I'm still not really good with my anatomy or light/shade but I kind of get what you're trying to say about the perspective portion, (I think i rushed through it when I did it) but in this new one that I just finished, I hope that I'm portraying what you mean...hopefully

Thank you for the help so far guys!



I also saw a Gameboy 4 palette thread about shading that way or the NES before going deep into color, so i tried it with my mascot Aqua. I can't seem to get the highlights on his body properly.




Uh Hi me again. I redid one of my old battle characters. When it comes to doing armor I can't ever get it done right even with reference, any pointers? Feedback? Criticsm? 




Pardon me, I had to update it, I noticed how hideous the lower middle part was.

[PixelPiledriver]

It's looking better. 

I'm trying to understand what you mean.

There are different kinds of tangents.
When I'm not too busy I'll get back with some diagrams.
Some are easy to see, others are harder.
Some are good for the image, some are bad.
Tangents will appear naturally in drawings, don't worry about making them when you draw.
Just learn to do another pass and clean them out.
The ones you'll usually want to remove are those made unintentionally.
If you place a tangent into you image on purpose for any reason, keep it.

Moving on to some other sprites is fine but the first set could still use a lot of work.
Take some time to make them cool.

For your new sprite:





Much of the character is described with the same colors without any breaks in between.
You have a lot of fun colors that are underused.
Try different compositions and ratios.

[AquaXranoX]

Wow !! I'd never thought of those kind of things, after all, I'm not good with armor designs 

[PixelPiledriver]

I'm not good with armor designs 

For the first few steps don't worry about designing armor.
Underlying what your drawing represents are shapes and colors.
Focus on creating color compositions that interest you.
These can be made quickly without attachment.



Then take one you like and clean it up, adding more details that describe the materials that you want to represent.

[AquaXranoX]

Ahh! See the thing that I usually do is outlines first, but reading these tutorials on the site, I notice that everyone starts with colors and Silhouettes, thanks for the advice PixelPiledriver, I'll try that, thank you so much  ;

[Tourist]

For what it is worth, there is a fairly good tutorial on tangents over at ConceptArt.Org. 

http://conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?258826-Tangent-City-How-to-Take-the-Detour

Tourist