[WIP] Improving my character & scenery-piece

[Lakelezz]

Dear community!
I am currently working on this piece which contains a character and a scenery/background.
It will be animated in the future therefore I am really trying to make it really good one - at least for my level.

I created two versions:

This is the original one with the character having a colored outline:


However I was unsure if the character "drowns" in the scenery. So I tried to focus it via a black outline:


Feel free to ignore the white background behind the glass. It will be fully removed in the end.
Also the right windows is freshly made. I am gonna add a shadow of it onto the wall, too.
For now, the white is just representing the outer part of the building.


The whole piece will get a dark frame in the end, too:


Though the frame is just secondary and might be changed to black.

I would appreciate help of you to get this piece better. Because I still feel that it is not "working".

Thanks for reading!

with best regards
Lakelezz 

[32]

Many of the individual pieces of this are quite good, especially the bar and the wall. Overall the main issue is the fact that everything is screaming for attention. You really want to choose a focal point to the piece and direct all of the attention there. With all the straight lines pointing in every direction it's hard to give the eye a rest and every part of the image has the same value range and very garish, overly saturated colours. The glass in particular draws far more attention than it should. And the character is almost lost in there, you need a wider range of contrast on the character (larger areas of highlights, more shadows) to bring them to the front.

I think the big thing you need to consider is that lighter colours tend to pop out and darker colours tend to recede. The window for example is brighter than the wall so it almost looks like it's closer than the wall, the shadow cast by the left one does not help with this illusion. The perspective is a bit off but I think you could mostly forgive all that if not for the floor pattern, it does not look like it exists within the scene at all. The character needs some serious anatomy work, her(?) legs and arms look far too short on that torso. Choose a light source and stick with it, the character is pillow shaded and lacks volume. I would also suggest getting rid of all the single pixel dots, they just look like noise.

Maybe post the character on it's own if you want particular advice on that. Otherwise keep working on it, it's looking good 

[Lakelezz]

Originally I wanted to add a lot of details but I guess it did not work out that good.
That the character is almost "lost" is pretty understandable and I really tried already to solve this problem. However my palette is restricted to 37 colors and not containing bright & strong colors due lack of usage in the whole piece.
How would you encounter this?

Changing colors could and probably would lead to a total destruction of the piece but I could also add more colors, which is rather feeling wrong because 37 colors are pretty much already.
I do not understand the part about the garish & overly saturated colors. The most saturation is about 40~50. As mentioned above, should I really rework my complete palette?

Hm, yeah. The window is a tough point for me. On the one hand, the lighter parts are making it more detailed and adding depth. On the other hand, they are really drawing the attention.
I am going to remove the little pixel dots on them and since I cannot change their bright highlights to a color with less luminosity, I can only remove it.

The character (it is a girl) was never meant to be pillow shaded but I probably failed. For example the hair is according to the light source from her left (those rays).
Her left leg is also hit by the light rays and then goes darker. The right one's upper surface would also get light from the source, so I decided to highlight it.
The points on her skin (not the face), were meant to be dirt and the even darker dots were shades. There was an older version, being more dirty and wasted. However I removed almost all those dirt in order to improve readability. Also her face got cleaned up.
I just removed the rest now, thanks.

Her chest is hit by the lighting to grant her more volume and some light. I failed again, I guess.
Additionally I removed her highlights on the hair now. I tried to create bigger highlights but then the color's saturations are too different.
I should adjust my palette but that will be really hard.

About the pattern on the ground. What do you think is making them feeling so unreal? They were meant to be cursive. However I could set them normally.

Here is she without background:




Thank you a lot for your help! Hopefully you can answer my questions

If everyone else want to give out his ideas, then of course feel free to do so!

[32]

It is a bit of a pain but yes reworking the palette would be the first thing to do. I would say the majority of colours in there have a saturation of 80+, regardless it's not the numbers that count but the impression and my impression is it burns haha. It's particularly the purples and the blues that need to get toned down. Don't be afraid to use any colour correction tools your program has, manually adjusting 37 colours will be a bit of a headache. Though you should consider whether you need all of those, I also don't think I see any greys in the image, greys are good cause they fit into any colour ramp and they'll help tone down the image as a whole

I can see the shading on the body now but you're fighting it with the colours on the dress which flattens out the whole torso. The lack of contrast in general is also making any shading you have done mostly imperceptible. Try studying the hair on sprites you like and see how they detail it. Generally hair is shiny so you really need a good deal of contrast to make it work.

The ground pattern is just out of perspective. Assuming it's on a layer of it's own grab it all and try compressing it to 50% of it's height. Though I would recommend ditching the pattern entirely and going with a plain coloured floor with some texture here and there like on the wall.

[Lakelezz]

So, I tried to turn the saturation down. I am not sure if it is looking "better" but I feel like the attention of many entities strongly lowered.

I am really struggling with the character. Looking at tutorials is even more confusing for me right now. I feel so limited due this color palette even after adding some new tones.
If somebody would have the time, it would be great to have an edit on her! I really want to learn more about the coloring (taking "risk" for new colors, changing colors or even the way of building a good lighting). For me it just feels like a pointless "dotting around" right now.
Specially the hair. I tried some little stuff but I poorly failed. At least I could manage to bring more lighting structure in it but this is rather an idea than well made.
The idea is just a part for me. Learning how to understand the basic lighting and adding volume could work. However I probably picked the wrong colors for this. Specially for the highlighting.
In an attempt before the latest and current one, I even tried to go with the yellow of her eyes/light rays. I was unsure again.
So if someone could make an edit of the character, I would be really thankfully. If there is something which just looks not right (except the ground pattern, I am gonna rework them later) and looks hard to explain, feel free to edit it, too.

Back to the ground pattern. Honestly, I was overwhelmed with trying to get the character done, so she became my priority. I am not quite sure how to change the ground. But as 32 already mentioned, I am probably going for a monotone color with some little scratches and so on here and there.


So, this is the current version:

I am probably also removing the bright green on the right side (on the door).

[32]

It's better in some respects but the problem now is everything is desaturated and it's still monotone. You want a big range of colours from all over the spectrum: light, dark, saturated and desaturated. The key is deciding what you want to draw peoples eyes to. Colour is a huge subject though and something I don't think I could explain, try reading about it and keep practicing outside this piece and eventually it will start to make sense.

If you describe what the scene is meant to be for I could give more specific advice but right now I don't have enough information, what is it for? what is the animation? what is the story? what is the mood?

I'd be happy to edit the character but again some context would be nice. Why did you choose the chibi/anime style? If you think that's important then I can show you how I would make her look in that style but maybe a more realistic style would be preferable. I don't just want to send you off in MY direction 

[Lakelezz]

Okay, I guess it is important to get the theme clear.
Of course it is a post-apocalypse. She is ran into this bar, after some monsters/zombies saw her, to kill them after and after.
The animation will be:
1. Idling, nothing happens
2. Door opens
3. Zombie enters
4. Zombie get shot
5. The zombie despawns / door gets closed (automatically).


To get the rough feeling of this scene, I played a little bit with effects.
Originally it was just meant for someone else and me.
They wont appear in the final version I guess, the would make the piece a NPA one.



No need to mention the logical mistakes there. It was just made from scratch.

Hm, the reason why I went for this style was mainly an inspiration of another piece. It probably simply does not fit.
Do you have an idea what I could use else as stylistic theme for the girl? You mentioned something more realistic, do you have any examples for this way?

Thank you so much for your help, 32!

[32]

Okay yeah I gathered that basically from the image so far so that's good. That NPA edit is a massive step in the right direction, If you can replicate a lighting scheme along those lines it would be much nicer. I can imagine now the door popping open which will throw light on the other side of the room and the zombie, and then a couple of flashes of light from the gun.

Can you show the piece you were inspired by? Just to see what you're aiming for. There's nothing wrong with the style necessarily but there are certain connotations with the giant head chibi style so I'd personally only go for it if I wanted people to think about all those pixel mmo's and what have you. Of course if you like it then go for it but if it was just on a whim then maybe consider other options if you're having to rework the character anyway.

When I talk realism and style it's mostly in reference to proportions, your character is ~3 heads where a normal person is ~8.

[Lakelezz]

I "killed" the inspiration. It was just the idea of creating a rather big head to display many emotions. I never aimed for "chibi" or "anime" style.
What automatically means that I am not aiming for my original inspiration anymore. It is a totally different style but I struggled at creating a valid and logical body so I tried to orientate myself on this a little bit.

However I guess, you might be right. Changing/Reworking her could be a good step. Though I am totally unsure how to create her this time.
Of course I do not want to copy a style but without any "guide-lines" I will probably create something really random. Because that is how I tried to create her in the first place.
I disliked it so much that I rejected it.

About the NPA piece. A lighting scheme along those lines? Do you mean the border between of shadow and lighting? It would create way too many colors if I create a dark and bright tone of every color, I guess.

[32]

Maybe not exactly the way you've done it but the single light source and pool of light and the darkened half of the bar.

You're definitely too caught up on the colour count. While I am a strong believer in palette management, it requires a better understanding of colour than you currently possess for a piece this size; don't worry about adding a few colours if it's for the overall betterment of the picture. The main thing to remember is that the same colour can be used in many different colour ramps (search the forum), you should be primarily considering the perceived brightness of a colour rather than the hue. You've done a bit of this with the purple on the tables but think about taking it further. Another thing to consider is whether the objects in complete darkness necessarily need 4 or 5 shades or will they only need 1 or 2?

I would suggest maybe even using an existing palette (Dawnbringers 32 colour palette is quite nice), this will give you a solid set of colours to use and teach you a lot about colour mixing. Though it is bit of a complicated task to switch a palette like this so maybe just keep it in mind for your next piece.

As far as the character goes just have a think about what character designs you like and how they're put together, the options are truly endless so I can't really give you much direction there. I'd say to fit with the style of the rest of the piece relatively cartoonish is the way to go, 4 or 5 heads at the most. I'll try doing a bit of an edit in the morning, hopefully you can post another update before then if you've been working on it.

[Lakelezz]

I already planned on using a color palette for the next time! Stava offered me one, maybe you know him, haha.
But that is for the future! I do not want to select one now.

What do you mean with the pool light source? The broken glass? I feel not ready to do such a huge step on lighting/shadowing. It would be the hell of a work to create a realistic copy of this NPA version. I simply could not even imagine how this could be done. Where to set the darker colors, how create the transitions (dithering?), ...
That is why I used effects. I have never seen a pixel (game) not using mass of effects for shadowing which will end in a lot of useless colors.

Sadly I did not really understand the "head"-system. What do you mean?

[32]

A pool as in only a small area of the image is well lit, while the rest is in relative darkness. It is a fair amount of work but so is the animation. Really depends on how much time you're willing to dedicate, your edit alone is enough proof to me that it would be time well spent though. If you're painting a dark object all you really need to do is just use the darkest colours you have, no need to add more colours into the mix, just a couple is all you need to give the impression that something is there. Here's a few examples.

When you count heads you're basically counting how many times taller their body is than their head. Like so.

Edit: Alright had a bit of a go at the character, obviously not finished but you get the idea.

I only changed two colours I think, the bright red in the hair and the light purple on the dress, I also added the light pink on the top. The really bright highlight colours help make the image pop and will give it some visual priority. I changed the pose because you say the first action is "idling" and your pose is a bit more active than that. Hopefully it helps.

Edit2: I had this open in graphics gale and I wanted to see what my edit looked like on the background then I couldn't help myself haha. Might be useful to you.

[Lakelezz]

Wow, this is an awesome edit! I am amazed!

However are those bold lines for some reason (pointing out specially the left leg ? Is this meant to be a huge shadow on the rather right side? Just to get the idea if this meant to be a part of the stylistic change or just a thing I can remove? Because I started to remove it and it still seems to work - even more accurate (even improving  readability).

While thinking about the whole shadow-thing, as you have shown in the examples, I tried to figure it out. Specially to learn to work with more contrast, with much more focusing the important parts and everything else.
Some things I made my minds up to: I guess, it is necessary to make it a night scene. I rather would go with a white lighting then because it feels more cold.
I also thought about the properties of glass. If I let the light only through the broken parts, what is about the rest? The light will shine through it, too.
Except this last thought, I tried to figure it out.
I stopped working when I came to some confusion points. Where is the logic maybe less important than the organization of a piece?

Original idea:


Logical idea:

The red lines show the usual way the light would run through the broken parts.

The question is, how can I actually combine both examples? Just ignoring open glass parts feels "wrong". Making the light ray shorter could be one way. However Dithering would be complicated into so many colors.

And about the idling. I meant to have "aiming" as idling. Since she is used to run forward with the gun just in case she needs to shoot quickly.
On the other hand, I really like this new way of idling!

I will of course keep on working with your edited ideas - however this was done before I had your edit.

Thank you a lot, again!

[32]

Yeah the bold lines are just cause I hadn't cleaned them up. Don't feel obliged to use the style I did, the core concepts of anatomy and colour were more what I was trying to communicate.

The question of lighting is a tricky one yes. I would say option b is better. I'm assuming the glass is opaque so the light beams through the holes makes sense and could look quite atmospheric. Consider though that there is only one real light source (the sun) so the beams should all be parallel rather than each coming in from their own angle. And yes always have composition in mind over realism, though ideally you would consider both when you're deciding how to set up the scene.

[Lakelezz]

Not keeping the style is pretty hard. You remade her really good! However I somehow think the style fits rather more to steampunk.
Coming with something completely new is totally impossible for me since I need to "compete" against what you made and due my lack of knowledge and specially skill is this hard.

But of course I wont give up. I just need to practice and practice.
Also if it is hard to pull off something more equal to your edit, I tried to work with the idea you gave me. I looked onto your structure, the lighting and everything.

It is of course not as good but I guess it is an improvement in terms of learning shadowing (should the right part of the cape be totally dark instead?).
However I am not pleased with what I do at all.



She feels so stiff. I simply pixel too stiff, too lifeless, too boring.
Her arms are really awkward and somehow I got back into the old scheme. I just do not know how to let her aim on a serious but not so boring way...
But when I try to add curves, they feel awkward and wrong.
Is there a way to get rid of this? What should I improve on this one? What could be fixed?
Or should just delete and do it again?

[32]

Well my method is always to delete and start again if something isn't working but that's really up to you. Always make sure it looks right in the rough stage before you move on. The most glaring anatomical error, and the one you made in your initial sprite is torso/leg ratio, from heel to crotch is usually about the same length as it is from crotch to the top of the head. Obviously with a big cartoony head this doesn't necessarily hold true but you really can't go wrong with longer legs and a shorter torso.

When you're posing a character pay attention to the line of action (google it) foremost, it looks stiff because your line of action is a big straight vertical line. Look up references for the pose, stand up and do it yourself, take a photo if you need to. Posing realistically from your mind is one of the hardest things in the world but standing up is one of the easiest  .

Pay a bit more attention to the hair, you're making it clump up too much, you want it to more or less read as one big mass and then you can add a couple little tufts or whatever that follow the general direction of that mass.

[Lakelezz]

So, I tried it again and even started to do the lighting.
The character might be a little bit better. I have to admit that I of course cannot compete with your edit but I can still try to learn from it.
Hopefully the hair is better this time, haha.



The lighting is still some buggy and a lot of old AA dots have to removed now since they are too bright for the darkness.
Too bad that the character is not in some sort of light source - I should fix this.
Maybe I should let the lighting rays stop onto the ground, too? Right now they just shine out via the bottom but letting them collide with the ground could add more "depth".

Also the gun is suffering. I liked the idea of a pure black one but with those window-frames they get sucked into the noun and you cannot see them anymore I will figure something out - changed them a little bit for this picture to make them more recognizable.

[32]

The thing about a light ray is it exists in the air, it's the particles floating in the air that reflect the light, the light is not necessarily shining on the objects beneath the light ray. When the light contacts a surface it will diffuse from that point, so the point where the light ray hits the inside of the room is actually the light source (as well as the light reflected from the particles in the air to some extent). The point being that you can be a bit more loose with how you light the scene, you only have to make sure that the lighting conditions loosely reflect the holes in the glass. And yes consider where the light rays land in the room and which object will be blocking the light. Right now the way it's lit is more like if the light source was coming from the direction of the camera through a slatted window or something, rather than them being light beams as such.

The character is looking better but she's still pretty stiff. Try drawing the pose roughly on paper a couple of times just to get a feeling for what direction the limbs go in and the curve in the back.

[Lakelezz]

This so much at once. Next time I will go for a scenery I will twice about it.

Some small changes. I tried to draw her back "into" her body while bottom is rounding up to this point. How it should be since she is holding her right leg into the front, which is moving her bottom to the side a little bit.


I cannot change the total back line since she is standing straight. Nobody would bow forwards to shoot due some distorting chances - I guess.

I could stress her backline much more, so I would dot into her.


The lighting is making me totally crazy. Since it is all from the angle, there should be different points of collision on the ground.
Then I thought about something much more problematic. Since light is entering the inner of the building via a geometric form the light wont enlighten the wall. So I would have to make the wall all in dark, should not I?
Due this form I should also change the look of the colliding point fitting to the entering form?

[32]

Actually leaning forward is a pretty good idea when you're about to fire a gun, you don't want the recoil to knock you off balance, like I said, look up references.

It's not entirely true when I say all lines are parallel because there is a single light source. The sunlight outside reflects off of all of the surfaces outside the window so a fair deal of scattered light can come in at different angles, depending on the time of day you could have perfectly straight sunbeams which just light up a point (yes shaped like the entryway) or a sun beam which expands or even no sunbeam at all, just diffuse light that comes in and lights up the whole room from every angle, even through a small entry point. The wall itself will likely be lit to some degree no matter the time of day because remember the light ray bounces of the floor and scatters through the entire room. When I said the beams should be parallel I meant in their general direction, not necessarily that they need to be perfectly straight.

This all leads me to my biggest point which is, don't worry about it too much. There's a million things that could be going on off screen to create the lighting conditions, as long as you're consistent it won't be a big deal if it doesn't perfectly obey the laws of physics.

[Lakelezz]

Oh, I mentioned it before. I changed the time to night. So the outside will rather be pretty dark and there would be no reflection on the outdoor.
The lighting is still a total mystery for me. I did no change on it since I am not quite sure how to handle the weak moonlight and also if the moonlight would even really be that strong like in this picture. Probably my shadowed are not purple/blue enough as a night is existing as a thought.



I tried to work with the reference and of course used my body, too. However it still looks terrible. I do not know what I am doing wrong but it feels like I am not making any progress.
The arm feels awkward but arms are difficult for me in such a low resolution.
In the end it is just me and I am not even quite sure if I will ever get this picture done. Everything is keeping me struggling so hard.

[Phoenix849]

Light falling through windows doesn't need outlines, it looks awkward.

Also google "handgun pose" and something like that. I think left elbow could be lower and bent. Or at least it usually looks that way in action movies. Also, human arms don't look like a straight stick, and they are usually thicker near the shoulders.

[astraldata]

Try not to focus too much on the lines of the arms -- try to focus more on the mass inside the lines because, as long as that looks correct, you're lines are secondary and will look correct by default. To improve the arms, try to make the angle of the shoulder to the elbow slightly lower than the elbow to the wrist/gun so that a clear angle is visible for the elbow and then try to do this with the wrist too if you can to straighten the hand back out to aim the gun forward. A straight line is the reason it's looking awkward because there are bones in there and the indication of those bones is crucial to recognizing it as a human's arms.

Also, try to avoid the 'warm' colors in the moonlight a little more by making them closer to blue where possible -- just don't go too extreme because you want the moonlight *almost* imperceptible (like it is just behind the character's body/feet area -- just on the windows instead). The current brightness/value you have right now looks like there might be a big spotlight out the window nearby -- or that a helicopter or something is shining its light into the windows to shoot at the player. Which is a good effect -- *if* that was what you were going for.

The main issue with the light's shape is when it hits the ground though -- it lands like a straight line no matter the shape of the hole in the window letting it through -- this is wrong. Either soften the way it lands or let it go offscreen or something. It wouldn't hit the ground like a razor blade.

Aside from all that, you've made some really solid improvements. I'm glad you went away from the gigantic head -- it didn't fit the scene you were putting it in. It would be like if a teletubby or cabage patch kid walked into Resident Evil with bright cheery anime-eyes and rainbows and started throwing peace signs and dancing around. I say this only because it helps a lot to be objective about what you feel like you're doing vs. what you're *actually* doing in the eyes of people who don't give two shits about what you're trying to do unless you did it right enough for them or anyone with eyes to see. Objectivity in pixel art is further hindered by the fact that you're zoomed-in a lot of the time. Unless you make liberal use of your preview window, and walk away from it periodically, you're going to lose sight of what it really looks like overall, thus losing any sense of objectivity that you had when you sat down to start it.

That said -- don't give up. This has evolved quite a bit and is looking really quite good compared to the first version. Just keep these tips in mind as you work.

[Lakelezz]

Thank you all!

I made some edits and tried to cover up all mentioned things.


On this one, I tried to make the contrasts much stronger. The character would stand in the light in the end.


The usual way it would look.

I might change the door, too.
Do you think the contrast is too strong?
The warm colors were eliminated. I like the new ones more. They express the night much better and have this cold breeze feeling which is laying in the air - just as a metaphor of course
Also I added some dither to the light beams.

Additionally I tried to fix the angle of the arm - rather adding the elbow. Also focused more on the volume than the outline, as astraldata, recommended.
Good tip! However I need to get used to this way of creating first, haha.

[astraldata]

Excellent improvement. The second one is much better in terms of contrast. It's a matter of taste, but it feels a lot more atmospheric than the first. The only thing I'd change is that I'd darken the color of the second image's door to something like in the first image.

The only way the first image colors would work, imo, is if pretty much everything were in shadow and only details periodically caught a ray of light here and there and poked out of the shadows.

Also, her pistol seems a little small and is hardly recognizable as a pistol (looks more like she's holding a bird or something). Additionally, you might consider moving one of the arms to hold the bottom of the hand holding the gun in order to stabilize it when it fires. It might read a lot better as a gun that way even if you didn't increase its size. And consider putting a highlight on the body/barrel of the weapon if you can fit it in order to draw the eye to it in such a dark environment.

[PixelPiledriver]

Or should just delete and do it again?

Starting over is fine, but don't delete anything.
You need to compare what you had to what you have.

[Lakelezz]

Yes, it is improving actually, at least, haha.



This are some really good tweaks and major fixes - I guess.
Stava helped me quite a lot with it. However I have to ask what do you think about the table? He said, they were looking flat and boring and somehow off.
Though the pattern might not fit. It could be some sub-shadows in the shadow but this would make no sense since the rest does not have such details.
Rather it represents the idea of some pattern on the surface. Should I work more on them and actually implement them (adding them on the other table).
Also thinking about adding it onto the bar (some similar pattern) or would this be too much? Because that is my fear. This got cleaned up so much which helped the readability quite a lot. It would be a shame to destroy it.

Thank you PixelPiledriver, I will of course keep my old steps. When I said "delete" I meant to try it again with no old base (or all kind of base) at all.
I really like your piece but the genre of it is not fitting, haha. For me it looks like a splatter-shooter But I will keep this body-logic in mind and also the way of 'development'.

Oh and yea, I went for the strong contrast since it gives me stronger feels. I still would like to take more opinions into account.

Thanks to all

[Fizzick]

I like the changes. Her legs and arms are completely straight, which gives an impression of unpreparedness, or lack of experience. If you want her to appear more capable you should have her poised more like in PPD's edit. 

[astraldata]

The girl definitely looks much better in the new version, but I really suggest either darkening her colors (which I would not recommend at all) or lightening the BG a little bit more (closer to the brightness of the second image in your previous edit -- your contrast is currently overkill and really rips the char from the world).

Also, currently that shadow on her extra waist shirt looks almost black (like its outline) at a quick glance (at least on my screen) -- a shade or two lighter and it should be useful again (see the shadow color in the second image of your last update -- it looked better and would be right enough to separate the char from the BG better as well as help you retain clarity in your character's shape against the bg).

Finally, I would suggest either removing the lines from the table altogether. The reason, again, is for clarity. If you absolutely needed them, I would suggest turning them completely horizontal (instead of diagonal) to keep the lines from the wall from drawing the eye to your table down to the stool (which is what happens right now). To keep from having to put lines on the stool at such a low resolution, like I said, removing them altogether is your best option. You've already achieved good texture in your image with the lines on the wall -- anything more texturing, imo, is too much. After all, you've achieved repetition in this image quite enough already by repeating both objects (stools/tables) and textures (lines on the wall across the image). It can easily stand on its own now without the need for anymore lines.

Composing images is about the harmony and balance of elements. If you used larger holes in the windows like the left-most hole all over the place, it'd look contrived. The variation of size/shape help create the 'chaotic' feel to the image. Adding lines to the table would be like adding holes in the wall shaped like the breaks in the glass -- it'd be overkill.

Hope that explains what I'm getting at a bit better. Just something to think about.

[Lakelezz]

So, I did some edits and also started animating the whole thing.
Sadly it feels really hard for me to change the contrast of it without destroying this certain feeling it gives me - I would appreciate to see an edit of your's, AstralData
And of course I am still looking for more opinion about the contrast and the general piece.

This is the static one, without animation:


Here is the animation:


It is of course only the base for the shooting and not completely worked into the progress. I still need to create the Zombie/Monster, the opening door, and so on.
Without these it would be pointless to perfectly adjust the shooting now.

I also did some changes on the table and improve the line direction !

[astraldata]

What you have now can work, but your biggest issue is the stark contrast of the moonlight -- tone that down a lot more and get it closer to the brightness of the room and not the character.

I'd personally go for something maybe just a *little* darker than this earlier version of the room (as a GIF animation, but as a game world, it'd be almost exactly this brightness/contrast/etc.):



As for the gun, I'd turn the barrel up a great deal more (almost vertical) and give it a little more kickback depending on the kind of power you want it to have (which means you'd bend her elbows just a bit more on the kickback frame). This looks little more powerful than maybe a dart gun -- so ensure you give the elbows/hands a lot more distance from their original location and turn the barrel more upwards from its initial position in order to increase that power.

[Lakelezz]

Some more changes!
I still did not work on the contrasts but I will take your feedback into account of course.
However it is rather easy to work on the palette in the end than working on the animation. So before I am going to struggle about the changes, I wanted to get some more other stuff done.




The recoil is now stronger, added one frame for it.
I added a opening door and converted the colors into the new palette.

Concerning the way the door opens and stops: I am still thinking about this. It was planned that the door opens and that the zombie runs into the screen behind from it.
Does the angle of the door look "off" in the last frame or at any frame? I am not entirely sure about this.


Additionally, should I give the door more depth? Is the door too flat?

[Phlakes]

I just realized something that's been bothering me, the lighting on the character seems to be coming from nowhere since the only light that affects the environment is coming from the windows behind her. Quick edit-



Obviously there's some issues with priority, but consistent lighting goes a long way in making things feel cohesive.

[Lakelezz]

Thank you for your feedback, Phlakes! It is true that the character is quite bright. Originally she was meant to stand in the light but I guess this is not gonna happen anymore.
But the lighting is not from nowhere. The lighting actually comes from the left.
I will have to make my mind up about this. Because one problem is the readability. You mentioned the priority problems already: If I would use the idea of your edit, she would probably drown in the piece again.
Also what astraldata recommended, to lower the contrast, is still an interesting idea. On the other hand I feel like it works even without lowering the contrast.
But I see that the ideas about the contrast are stacking up so I probably need to do something about it.

However I tried to show what I meant on this following picture - placing her into a light ray. She does not fit completely into it.

I also added a GUI, just as a test for now. Does it look okay or does it even destroy the picture?
Though I really wanted to try this idea out:




The usual one but with GUI:



And without GUI:

[Lakelezz]

I made quite some big changes or rather added new stuff.

The monster is now added but I feel like he is not really fitting due the lighting.
The GUI is changed now but I am still thinking of removing it. What do you think?

Also I tried to do some saturation changes:


Here is the original one, without saturation changes:


And here is how I think the monster should affect the viewer in terms of terrifying.
It melts into the background - is only partly visible, strong contrast.
But this wont work on my piece, I guess.

[astraldata]

The saturation-changed image is the best overall.

The GUI looks great, but I think they seem to lack importance for gameplay purposes -- i.e. the HP should either be represented fully visually or the numbers should be much easier to see than they are now. They are much too small to indicate that they're the most important feature up there. If you put the ammo (which kinda looks like a salt-shaker) immediately after the HP meter, it could work a bit better if you *must* retain the small text.

The brain should go on the far right of the large organs, and the large organs could potentially go on the bottom portion of the screen with the ammo/hp at the top, or if you want to keep them all at the top, put a large empty space between the two most vital stats (hp/ammo) and the large organs, which should be right-aligned with the view (i.e. brain on the end would give you this gap + right alignment, with ammo to the side of the HP -- keeping you from having to redesign the life/ammo to match the size of the other secondary stats).

Contrast-wise, you can keep what you've got -- it will definitely work.

As far as your monster goes, unless you kept that contrast of the last image (which is almost NES colors), your monster won't have the "ugly-face-in-a-nightclub" scary vibe you're going for with this image. To make up for that, make the monster appear a lot more threatening pose-wise and implements-of-death-wise. The way it's standing now, it's almost like "Come hither, pretty girl... Don't you want to give me a hug...??" and is showing no intent in its body-language of moving toward her at all. She's far enough away to pop a cap in it's ugly face, so there's no sense of danger there.

Put her next to the door, and make the monster more menacing-looking, or add more monsters in close to her, perhaps some dead ones, and there's a bit of fear that's going to occur, even with this sort of lighting, because of the feeling of "being overrun" is scary in the same way that one might fear a swathe of army ants swarming up your pants legs. Besides, even in the 'scary' lighting of the NES-looking image, you're thinking "she's got a gun and she's far away from the guy at the door (who only has a bone-finger and teeth to fight her gun), and according to the HUD, she's got infinite bullets -- what's she scared of?" Perhaps give the creature some sharp tendrils that whip across the room or some large scary-looking projectile blades it has ejected from its body and have them hurling in random arcs at her from across the room. You could have one busting out the wall from off-screen behind her at the same time the door busts open. These would all give a sense of danger to her situation if you didn't want to move her closer to the door, and all of these would work fine with the lighting.

Just my two-cents.

[Lakelezz]

Thanks a lot for your comprehensive feedback which is much more than "your two-cents", haha.

I edited the GUI a little bit. It was of course not sorted yet since I was not sure if I am going really to implement it, but I guess so.
About the HP, the number is just secondary. The bloodbag would lower it's volume when the girls gets hit.
Increasing the number size would look weird. I do not want to let the GUI be in the focus though. Any suggestions?

On the game-wise side, I was thinking about much more freedom: The player can decide which of these GUI-Parts should be displayed and also which GUI-Parts should only display if they reach a certain value (dangerous-mark).

The ammo had infinite bullets due the idea of the loop. She would camp there while the animation repeats and repeats. However I changed it now (the number is still to be edited), to represent the threat of survival she is in. Thanks for this hint! Infinite sounds pretty "overpowered" and "boring" - specially in a survival.

I am missing the the thirsty GUI but I do not know how to display being thirsty. First thought: A plant in a pot.
The idea is funny but when I looked at it, it was more like "meh". Maybe I have to reorganize on this. I tried using the cut-view into the plants inner being and filling this with water.
But this feels not good and is not really expressing the need of water.
Making the plant dry feels maybe too unique in comparison to the other GUI-parts and too hard to predictable.

Also the brain is containing the sleep-meter, too. I guess this is okay.
There are also plenty of other ideas for the upper part of the GUI. Plasters, painkillers, ... all kind of usable items.



As for the monster: I edited it. Made it bigger and scarier. More blood, more bones, and better shading.
At the moment I am also working on its appearance. I got a little animated example for this.

First there is nothing. Just the girl heard something from the rather silent night.
Then something attacks the door. The door gets strongly damaged and then, after another attack, a monstrous blade (made out of bone?) shines through.
The light turns off. I might add a lamp, working and then stopping to work. I need to change the window-light-management, if I want to go for this idea.
Maybe removing the right window or letting it be nailed with planks?
The light returns, maybe rather powered by a short lightning than the lamp itself.
From this lightning the monster can be seen and it will start to try to attack the girl.



This is just a rough "sketch" animation to visualize the main idea. The first frame, when the door starts to break, is way too fast, of course.
I mentioned the rest already, though (concerning lighting).

Thanks for reading! I would really like to hear your thoughts or to see your edits (if needed to visualize your ideas)!

[Lakelezz]

Okay, I made quite some interesting decisions.
I will let another character walk into the scenery and let him fall to the ground. Then the monster will "hatch" out of him.
This is what I got until now:



Please recognize it is still work in progress, specially the last frames need quite some fixing on the outline and so on.
However I have got a question before I continue:
When you take a look at the monster's "blade" on the upper images, the blade is in the front (it's left arm).
But when the monster is hatching, the blade is on it's right arm (in the front again).
As we discussed this already: What do you feel like is more important now? The logic behind the piece (the blade should stay on one certain arm) or the clarity (the weapon should always be in the foreground / in the focus)?
I have an argument speaking pro the clarity decision:
If I would let the girl change her direction and she could hold the weapon with one arm (any weapon), I would let the weapon stay in the foreground, too.

I am looking forward for your ideas, critique, and solution for this "problem between logic and clarity".

[astraldata]

Clarity is always key in my opinion -- things can be done to allow for the jump in logic though (i.e. the bones can reshape into weapons by simply showing this happening in its attacks or the cutting hand can be a secondary sharp object like a claw which is reflected in the left-facing sprite while allowing it to maintain the finger-blade look of the creature while looking toward the girl).

Not sure about the darkened room idea since the room is pretty much as dark as it should be (imo), but a lightning flash would work (say a power-line fell after a crash of thunder outside, which could cause long flashes and flickering allowing the jerky movement of the monster toward her throughout the strobe-light effect). The important thing is not to overwork yourself. There are always many ways a similar effect can be achieved to the one you want without a ton of effort in implementing it (such as reworking the windows/lighting/boarding-it-up/lamp-light/new-light-source/etc.) and in this case, a fallen power-line and/or an unusually violent thunderstorm can make the strobe-light/rave/jerky appearance you're after with your monster's movement, where it appears to cover a lot of distance in a short time and gives the feeling that it's not even safe to blink for fear that you might lose track of it.

[Lakelezz]

There will be no lighting anymore, the idea is canceled but thanks for your ideas at this points. They might help at some other piece later on.

Hmm, I am not quite sure if I should add all of those animation stuff just for some logic. Do you really think it is one dangerous mistake of simply switching the armored hand into the foreground?
It would be weird if the monster changes his attacking hand just the logic in terms of switching.

[Lakelezz]

I would be thankful for some feedback about this:


It is still not done but very close to be done. Last thing: The monster needs a dying animation.

But much more important is the way the monster is moving. The walk-animation feels not smooth enough in my opinion.
Does anybody have an idea or a thought about the walking / this whole animation?

[Seiseki]

Well, the legs aren't moving and you're moving the entire thing in a very chunky way.

The woman is standing completely still, you could have her raise the gun and sway it a bit up and down.

The GUI stuff takes up ALOT of room, it also draws a lot of attention because of the white outlines and their size. It's 50% gui 50% screenspace.
The composition/layout of the gui elements seems extremely uneven as well.

[Lakelezz]

The legs are moving, but just barely and with those table it is even more difficult.
Yes, I understand what you mean. Specially in terms of the "chunky way". I could add some more torso moving.

I will think about adding more frames to the girl. However not how she will raise the weapon. She must be carefully - that is why she will hold her weapon up all the time.
But the "aiming"-part could be interesting. However this is where question starts again: Is this more a game-mockup or just art? The GUI would stress the mockup idea.
Art would feature aiming-frames of course, but most games would not feature this. Hmmm, maybe it is time for such a feature - but that is not to be discussed here, haha.

The GUI is a case for itself. If you scroll up, you will see, that the GUI was added later on. The main reason is, the whole picture must be 16:9. At the moment there are two rows too much, but I will fix that just in the last second before publishing.
So I added a GUI, since just a pure black frame is totally boring. Merging the GUI with this scenery feels right, though.
Changing the proportion of the GUI's features is also not suitable. It would weird then.

Cleaned up GUI:


Hmm, this is a really complex piece.

[HarveyDentMustDie]

She must be carefully - that is why she will hold her weapon up all the time.

Try to hold bottle of water this way an see how long can you do it. Your arms will start to hurt after a while, and when you try to shoot you will definitely miss or you will drop your gun. You can't make her holding her gun like this for the whole time in the game.

This is example of being careful, he can lift his gun and shoot at any moment.
Spoiler

Spoiler

[Lakelezz]

Yeah, as I said, I am thinking about adding more sprites for this situation. Also it would be wisely to add a passive state, but I guess this really going out of the range of this piece,
However I also want to add, that I probably wont add a calming position, where she lowers the weapon as shown in the picture.
The is reason is because in this scene, she is aiming for the thing she hears. If I would start with a passive position (as shown in the picture), I could also add how she walks into the bar and so on.

About the bottle of water: Of course a weapon weights a lot, but since this is pure fiction it would be nothing more than a detail of realism. The whole transformation scene is totally fictional, too.
But thanks for your consideration! Is there anything else which steps up to your mind when you look at the piece?

[astraldata]

I liked the clustering of the GUI in the previous edit better than your latest one (on the top portion of the screen) with the temp and the life bag together. The life bag seems upscaled and kind of low-quality compared to the rest of the GUI. Thirst could better be represented with a simple glass of water or the like -- the rose does break it away from the rest of the GUI, but I think it really looks too mixed style-wise.

Regarding your animation -- you **really** need more frames in there.

It looks too clunky as-is and reminds me a lot of paper cut-outs walking across the screen [i.e. in the style of South Park's animations] which really kills the cool-factor you had going on with your still image.

The girl shows no reaction to the monster -- who is somehow much larger than the guy he crawls out of -- and the whole animation of the monster growing out of the body (I assume that's what he has to do to be that tall compared to his host) is just entirely too fast from point A to point B where he's shot. Not to mention he's shot in the chest -- I'd assume she'd have to blow his brains out, or at least barrage the guy with a ton of bullets in his face and neck/chest, for him to die. The host body shows no signs of collapse when he hits the ground and one arm pokes through the stool (which, in this case, maybe move him back to where his arm is nowhere near the stool).

And, yeah, show some visible leg movement and change his pose up while he grows/climbs out of the host body and begins toward the girl. I'd imagine this guy to lumber or something toward her, perhaps even lunge forward -- to move that fast being that tall and awkward just seems impossible -- fantasy/fiction or not, it just looks really bad. People are only telling you this because it's the truth. If you don't want to put the work into animating it properly, then keep it static -- but you won't get any practice with animation if you do -- and if you're not already, I suggest using a pixel art application like Graphics Gale that lets you animate easily with layers and onion-skinning so that you can spare yourself a lot of work in the case that you do decide to fix the animation.

[Lakelezz]

Thanks you a lot, astraldata!

I will move the temp closer to the life bag again. And yes, the life bag was originally upscaled. I try to add more details though. I guess I need more on it.
The rose is representing the girl and I really like the rose and how it is representing life.
Mixed styles? Hmm, I tried to keep them all close together.. Specially the organs. The rest difficult because I felt like I need different colors. Also almost every GUI element is a first-time experience for me. Do you have a good idea for this?

Of course I want to improve in terms of animation and I will continue to work on the piece. I have to admit on the South Park style of terms of animation due the mentioned lack of frames.
The monster is meant to be much larger, he is (as you realized) not crawling but "growing" out of the human.
I am not quite sure if I understand what you mean with the arm. Why should it bother? Because it cannot collide through the chair while falling down?
I will optimize the aiming, when I get back to animating this piece.

However I will take a look at Graphics Gale.
Talking about just animating, this is the most complex animation I created before already:
Spoiler

Please do not talk about the problems that this piece is carrying. I am pretty much aware of them, haha. I just do not do huge edits once I published.
I am still learning a lot but this project taught me A LOT. The animating is just the sweet cherry at the top of it that I wanted to try.

EDIT:

Just finished some little new positioning on the GUI:


EDIT 2:

I also tried to fix the upper right part:


I somehow prefer this one. Looks more accurate.

[HarveyDentMustDie]

Thing I like most here is health symbol in UI, it's very original and appealing.

Now some things I that you can fix (this may sound rough):

1. There's no finger on the trigger
2. Gun blast is too small, almost unnoticeable especially for this dark environment
3. Gun in the last position is curvy, you should try to straighten it a bit, and to avoid this being noticeable bring back gun in the starting position.
4. Make recoil faster
5. Cracks on the right window are too strange which makes it looks less like glass. Maybe you should add some wooden planks over the windows so you can distract the eye from glass. Generally glass is the one thing that bothers me the most. Glass on the door on the other hand is good and transition is very subtle.
6. I think that guy that enter room fall to fast, he should at least say something or walk a bit toward her.
7. Process of monster getting out is also strange. I think that if it already cut his stomach open it should go out trough there but not with head first but with his back.
8. Cloth on mans leg while he step forward before he falls down is too wide like there's two legs instead of one.
9. Bottles and glasses on bar are almost unrecognizable.

I'm glad to see that you achieved some progress form first version. I think that you should continue your work and don't run from big changes. I know that it's hard to scrap some of your work but usually that's the moment when you make biggest progress.

[Lakelezz]

Thanks for your comprehensive help. I will just do the same and answer to 1-9.

1. I guess this is not that important, I wont change that.
2. Too small? I was afraid of exaggerating, haha. I will look into this.
3. The animation is not done yet. I just stopped working on that frame.
4. I guess you have a good point here.
5. Wooden planks were considered before. But I do not know if this was said in this thread. I ended up with not adding the. They would have to be very large. Also when nobody lives in the bar, why should there be wooden planks? But I will look into the right glass.
6. The guy is actually holding his hand up to prevent to get shot. But I get your point. My whole animation is pretty much rushed.
7. I like that idea pretty much!
8. Yeah, you are right here.
9. I do not see a problem with this? They are standing inside of the bar, shadowed. Also they are not even close to be secondary but details.

Do you have any further thoughts about the static image? You said, you like the health symbol the most. Does this mean the rest is not good?
Also I am working for a long time on this piece and feel like I should come to an end. Becoming better in animating is a valid point but this is getting too much.
I might finish the static image first and then start something new, before I feel like returning to this piece. But this still to be thought about.

[astraldata]

The position of the dead guy's arm makes the perspective look really off -- as suggested before, you should really consider moving it/him as the lighting looks really bad too, like how the closer chair is dark but his arm is bright. You could consider making the dead guy laying across the stool as it stands up though since his arm appears to be hanging/dangling anyway?

As for the GUI, I suggest doing something else with the rose -- it just doesn't work here in this context -- every other GUI element is cold and 'clinical' so to speak -- single-colored and medical-themed -- the warm red of the rose, it just doesn't fit. Not even the size fits.

Perhaps a large wilting leaf instead? Maybe X-Ray where you can see the veins inside, but the leaf edges are wilting and cracked the more thirsty you get? That, or a glass or container as mentioned before, but the x-ray leaf goes with the bio-theme imo.

The text on the 'life' is too thick and blocky, as mentioned before. Make it 1px width line-wise.

Finally, draw some sparks where the gun was when it was fired, and some blood popping from the creature being shot to show off some action without explicit animation.

[HarveyDentMustDie]

The rest of the UI is too scattered, you've already elaborate that before, but I still think that it can be changed (leave lower black stripe empty, or add some texture to it). Plaster and painkillers shouldn't be in UI but in inventory. I agree with astraldata about the rose.

Bottles and glasses aren't details because they don't look like bottles and glasses and therefore they don't contribute to the scene.

Table that's on the ground have very weird lighting and that green stuff on the bottom doesn't help it's just making things worse.

I also agree with astraldata about dead guy position. I never saw falling like that from stepping forward.

And at the end let me tell you one thing. This is the path of art novice. You've started with one drawing that you thought that's cool but after few comments and some time you've progressed, learned (even if I think that you didn't follow all given useful advices) and now you feel like you are at the beginning again. If you let this piece sleep for a while (month or two) when you come back you will see all flaws and you will start whole process again. Every time I see some of my old pieces I want to redraw it, and sometimes I do that just to see how much I progressed. Nothing comes over night. So you can't become perfect animator in few weeks. Hold on be strong and things will progress.

[Lakelezz]

I tried to improve the GUI again. However I could not find a solution for the water-meter. I guess, I need to skip it.
A water bottle, can, ... could be very misleading due the second meaning of "carrying water".
I also tried a leaf. However it was somehow difficult to really feature a visible fill of water inside those little veins. While increasing the size of the veins, they leaf became too big.
If someone has an idea, I would be glad to hear about it! It would be great if you could show me something visualized (specially for the leaf idea, I am really curious), too.
Nonetheless I added some little borders between the single elements! This should be good to help "navigating" via eyes.

The table has been edited. The green stuff is the wallpaper being ripped of and laying down.
Also I edited some more mysterious black stuff on the walls, since I felt like the right wall part was so empty.

Haha, it is not like that I am new to art. However I think, we should not try to make this the absolute "perfect" piece.
But yeah, thanks! I will of course be strong. I have done so much in the last weeks. This is really amazing.

This is the piece:

[Lakelezz]

I fixed some more things I disliked and being mentioned and finally published the piece!
If you are interested, you can take a look at it here: http://lakelezz.deviantart.com/art/Last-Beating-Hearts-475409781

Thanks everyone! You can find your credit in the description. If I should change a link to another domain (i.e. deviantArt, ...) feel free to send me a message here!

[lachrymose]

Nice to see that you've "finished". I wonder how many times you'll go back to it to refine it more though. 

The amount that you've improved this piece is spectacular.

[Lakelezz]

Thanks you, lachrymose!

I will go back to it someday. Now it is time to move on. To get different views onto pixel art.

By the way, here is the link to the progress-sheet: http://lakelezz.deviantart.com/art/Progress-Sheet-Last-Beating-Hearts-475418211