GR#151 - Avatar Sprite

[Stava]

Hello !

Here's a sprite I made, planned to use on Pixeljoint as avatar... I rushed uploading a not finished version to test something about the avatar system on there..


Today I decided to polish it a little... here's the progress, I think it still has some issues, like the anatomy of the left arm/shading of it..
Any ideas what could be improved ? The size has to be 64x64
new:

Thanks in advance :- )

[Gamer36]

The left foot seems top be pointed towards his body in an awkward way (when I say left, I mean left from our point of view). His feet also have no toes :p. I'm on my phone, so I can't show you what I mean at this moment, but I hope you get the gist of it.

[Night]

lmao, strong muscle baby.

some points:
stance is pretty awkward, not sure what you were you trying to go for.
AA is pretty bad, what is the background colour it is intended to be used on?
pretty hard to explain in words what's wrong with the anatomy, since it's such a small picture (and body frame), but here's a quick edit, maybe it'll help a bit. You should look for some references if you can't remember where every muscle originates from and inserts, or simply study anatomy in general; it'll help you a bunch.

also, y no leg muscles?

[Stava]

lmao, strong muscle baby.

some points:
stance is pretty awkward, not sure what you were you trying to go for.
AA is pretty bad, what is the background colour it is intended to be used on?
pretty hard to explain in words what's wrong with the anatomy, since it's such a small picture (and body frame), but here's a quick edit, maybe it'll help a bit. You should look for some references if you can't remember where every muscle originates from and inserts, or simply study anatomy in general; it'll help you a bunch.

also, y no leg muscles?

haha
it's meant to be a silly sprite, not really perfect anatomy/ perfect muscles.. and not supposed to be hulk, but a skinny defined guy.
on the pose he is supposed to be flying, flexing muscles like left one (our view) would be forearm going up, and the right one (our view) would be forearm going down (also flexing though)
here's a sketch incase I didn't explain that well
I had the other arm going downwards so the abs would show.. on your edit the abs are hidden

some small edit, still don't know what to do with his left arm.. .. (and this is the background color)

Edit: as for legs.. since I planned out the sprite I wanted them to have feet facing each other, it's kind of 'stylistic' touch
thanks for your critique :- )

[HarveyDentMustDie]

Quick edit:    

[Stava]

Quick edit:    

That works on the white bg, but I'm using a dark grey bg color (the pixeljoint default theme)

edit: some small updates

[HarveyDentMustDie]

Another edit. I still don't like the lower part of the wings. I think that adding another dark color will be useful to achieve better AA.
I don't have the time to fix every pixel, but I hope that this will be helpful.

[Stava]

Another edit. I still don't like the lower part of the wings. I think that adding another dark color will be useful to achieve better AA.
I don't have the time to fix every pixel, but I hope that this will be helpful.

That's awesome! :- )
I think this is final..

Thanks a lot HarveyDentMustDie.. and thanks for sticking with the style in your edits

[Haze01]

I know you are feeling done with this so I hope you don't mind my throwing in my two cents, anyway.

As it stands, I want to title this Dispassionate Cherub Bodybuilder Flexes While Floating Awkwardly

The thing that gets me the most is the dispassionate look in his face.  Flexing like this, I feel like either he should be showing some seriousness/strain/concentration in his face or he should be giving a cheeky smirk and a wink.  It's fine that he's not engaging the viewer with his gaze; he could be thought of as engaging another character or, as a forum avatar, looking at a post... but that fact that he's not engaging the viewer seems to make him feel extra dispassionate.

You mentioned to Night that you don't want him to be a hulk but Night's edit wasn't that much bulkier than yours.  I feel that the width of his chest and abdomen, combined with the high-contrast shading down his stomach and sides, make it seem like he has a thick, bulky, upper-body that goes away from your sketch and your desire to draw a "skinny" but "defined" character.  The little bit of wing visible under his right arm in the latest edit is easily confused as being a deltoid or something, adding further bulk to the character.

I also felt that the posing of his left arm feels weird.  I understand you are trying to show him flexing his triceps but it looks more like he's flexing his bicep while resting his forearm on the arm of an invisible chair.  I feel like the arm should be more straight-up-and-down and did a google search to find references.  I like these two images; the guy seems to have the kind of build you stated you wanted to depict:
Largely facing front, flexing triceps
Turned a little to the side, flexing triceps

Lastly, I want to second the comments about his legs.  It feels really awkward, to me, for him to be like that, regardless of he is standing or floating.  It's weird to me that his legs are apart like they are, it's weird to me that he his feet are so strongly turned in towards each-other.  It doesn't feel like part of his "flexing" pose and it gives him this awkard backwards imbalance.

I tried making something of an edit but I just can't pixel at this level of detail - you did a great job with anti-aliasing and showing detail and muscle definition.  I'm afraid I didn't care for my results - I'm not terribly good anyway - and I'm also short on time.

Hope some of this is helpful.

[Stava]

I know you are feeling done with this so I hope you don't mind my throwing in my two cents, anyway.

As it stands, I want to title this Dispassionate Cherub Bodybuilder Flexes While Floating Awkwardly

The thing that gets me the most is the dispassionate look in his face.  Flexing like this, I feel like either he should be showing some seriousness/strain/concentration in his face or he should be giving a cheeky smirk and a wink.  It's fine that he's not engaging the viewer with his gaze; he could be thought of as engaging another character or, as a forum avatar, looking at a post... but that fact that he's not engaging the viewer seems to make him feel extra dispassionate.

Reason I'm feeling done is, I'm not getting any edits I was hoping for, I got to this point and I know most of the things that are wrong I just can't fix them.. Nights edit is pretty good but I think it changes too much of my idea..
And since avatar on pixeljoint breaks my 100x100 preview streak (70), I decided not to upload the avatar.. So any progress on this is just study/practice and not to be used..
I like the idea of changing his expression, a lot.. I didn't think of that.. 

You mentioned to Night that you don't want him to be a hulk but Night's edit wasn't that much bulkier than yours.  I feel that the width of his chest and abdomen, combined with the high-contrast shading down his stomach and sides, make it seem like he has a thick, bulky, upper-body that goes away from your sketch and your desire to draw a "skinny" but "defined" character.  The little bit of wing visible under his right arm in the latest edit is easily confused as being a deltoid or something, adding further bulk to the character.

Probably the reason it comes out more hulk-like than mine, is because of the squareness of the sprite and no outline makes him look wider. The little bit of wing, you are right it could be read as deltoid, but I kept it really dark to make it look like it's behind him.. I don't know what else I could have done to make it look better.. But I guess that's bad effort, since that wing part isn't necessary and in fact it probably shouldn't be there.. 

I also felt that the posing of his left arm feels weird.  I understand you are trying to show him flexing his triceps but it looks more like he's flexing his bicep while resting his forearm on the arm of an invisible chair.  I feel like the arm should be more straight-up-and-down and did a google search to find references.  I like these two images; the guy seems to have the kind of build you stated you wanted to depict:
Largely facing front, flexing triceps
Turned a little to the side, flexing triceps

Hehe I was just trying to avoid covering abs or wing, and wanted to fill that space under the wing, that's how the pose happen.. I totally agree that the left arm is a mess, the left arm is main reason I posted the sprite here.. But it feels like I just can't do better on this small sprite.

Lastly, I want to second the comments about his legs.  It feels really awkward, to me, for him to be like that, regardless of he is standing or floating.  It's weird to me that his legs are apart like they are, it's weird to me that he his feet are so strongly turned in towards each-other.  It doesn't feel like part of his "flexing" pose and it gives him this awkard backwards imbalance.

Well.. I'm pretty sure I seen some chibi-style drawings where they would have flying characters have their feet facing each other, it's sort of what I wanted to go for, sadly didn't find any reference.. I didn't really care about anatomy and how awkward it looked, just wanted it to be interesting and cute (-i hope it is-) 

I tried making something of an edit but I just can't pixel at this level of detail - you did a great job with anti-aliasing and showing detail and muscle definition.  I'm afraid I didn't care for my results - I'm not terribly good anyway - and I'm also short on time.

Haha now you see my pain ! And thanks for compliment about AA, I'm a little confused if it's good or bad now..

Hope some of this is helpful.

Well I liked reading your critique, it's really good, it does give me some ideas and some pointers for future work. 
Thank you very much.

Since your critique inspired me with possible edits, I decided to work on it some more:

[PixelPiledriver]

Whoooooooooosh

[Haze01]

Well.. I'm pretty sure I seen some chibi-style drawings where they would have flying characters have their feet facing each other, it's sort of what I wanted to go for, sadly didn't find any reference.. I didn't really care about anatomy and how awkward it looked, just wanted it to be interesting and cute (-i hope it is-) 

The pigeon-toed stance is something that makes a lot of characters look cute - I've seen it used often to good effect - but I felt it wasn't working with the desire to make a cute-and-tough pose of the angel flexing while flying.

Thanks for compliment about AA, I'm a little confused if it's good or bad now..

I don't know why you'd think the AA is bad... the exterior AA was looking odd against the default light background here because it is anti-aliased for a dark background but it looks great, in my opinion, on all of the images we've seen with the darker background color included.  All the interior detailing and antialising seem to work well, in my opinion.

Since your critique inspired me with possible edits, I decided to work on it some more:

Serious face.    I like it.  It seems you darkened the palette over-all; I think I liked it better lighter.

Whoooooooooosh

This is awesome.  I pictured an edit exactly like this: I didn't mention it before but I did feel that changing the awkward tricep flex for a second bicep flex would look better and feel more natural; you nailed the cocky expression appropriate to the pose; and your change to the legs gives the sprite a better silhouette and again feels more natural.  The clouds, swoosh and halo turn it from an avatar to a fun image with a lot of dynamic things going on that make it feel nicely composed, show action, and provide emphasis.  If you were to take out those aspects, the sprite would remain a great avatar in this pose.

[Stava]

Whoooooooooosh

This is what I was hoping for !

But you did change the canvas size, and it's probably alright now that I won't be using it as avatar on PJ, so 64x64 isn't a limit,
I still went with the 64x64 size,

Your edit inspires me to make an actual full piece with this sprite, since I love how you used the colors to make the dash/whoosh effect :- )

Thanks a lot !

I don't know why you'd think the AA is bad... the exterior AA was looking odd against the default light background here because it is anti-aliased for a dark background but it looks great, in my opinion, on all of the images we've seen with the darker background color included.  All the interior detailing and antialising seem to work well, in my opinion.

Because Night said it was bad so I was confused, but perhaps Night meant the AA is bad for white bg, I dunno.. :- )

Serious face.    I like it.  It seems you darkened the palette over-all; I think I liked it better lighter.

Hmm I changed some of the aaing, that might be the reason.. I didn't edit colors at all.

Thanks