[C+C][WIP]Some sprites for a strategy game

[VTactics]

So i must admit that i am pretty new at this but a couple friends and i are working on a tactics game.  Before we get too far into the art assets i am trying to get as much feedback as i can regarding our work. 

below is a link to some of our unit sprites.  I plan to animate them eventually, but we need to get as much base art out as we can for our testing.

so please, provide us with some feedback.  Dont be afraid to be brutal.  beat the bad habits out of me now.  😊

I am currently doing all work in photoshop.  One guy does the basic lineart, then i clean them up and add color and shading.  so far the only lineart I've done has been a bit on the humans.  The bowman is the one i did the most on.  I changed him from a robin hood looking guy to match the asian theme the concept artist later went with.

Thanks!



http://imgur.com/a/25vrQ

[Joe]

Hello, welcome to Pixelation.

Using someone else's lineart as a base, and starting with lineart in general, are two habits you'll want to drop immediately. Sketch out your characters, yea, but start with the overall forms before adding details or textures. This is for your own benefit, as well as the benefit of the art.

I realize you're doing this for a game so you have a responsibility, but if not for that I would say take a break from pixels and study up on traditional art first. There a pretty good resource thread here and an anatomy thread as well. Might not be what you want to hear but traditional skills are the foundation of all mediums, and everyone can stand to be better at them.

But you are working on a game so I would say instead, study up concurrently. Make some sketches of your characters on paper first, get them to look right.
Regular drawing practice is one of the best habits you can get into.

I also would recommend GraphicsGale free edition, it's much better suited to pixels and animation as well (animation in paid version, not very expensive).

Oh, also. This forum has a nifty zoom function, you can include your images in img tags like this:





And now you can click on them to zoom in, or ctrl+click to zoom out.

[VTactics]

I appreciate the good response!

I do draw on a pretty regular basis, but my style tends towards more realism and the team decided to go with the other guy's more cartoony style. 
We decided to do it assembly line style, to keep both the lineart and shading styles consistent.

We're both pretty new to pixel art though, so I'll bring the resources there to his attention.

I'll definitely play around with GraphicsGale and maybe we'll make the switch.

I really like forum zoom feature, though I can't tell if the blurriness at the higher resolution is from exporting from photoshop or just an artifact of the zoom.

Thanks Joe!

[yrizoud]

Blurriness of zoom in the browser is caused by Chrome, other browsers have fixed behavior.

One thing you can improve is to use the coloring step as an opportunity to bring out the volumes and lighting : The fork-wielding guy for example, if you shade the back leg significantly darker than the front leg, it makes the character look less flat.

[Seiseki]

When working with pixels you do have to compromise a lot to get the right look.
You seem to be largely ignoring clean lines and avoiding stray pixels, that's natural when you're new to the medium.
But you really need to learn about cleaning up your lines and limiting your palette. Because these look more like oekaki, where you just scribble lines while ignoring how rough it looks.
Which is fine if that is what you're looking for, but pixel art is a much more strict.

For animation you can't have too many colors, or you'll just get frustrated by how long it takes to animate. You need clean and simple shapes and shading..
And I'd also recommend sticking to one template, so you don't have to animate all your units from different poses and angles, because that's also gonna take such a long time that you'll probably end up quitting half way through

I made this edit, but I think I added too much depth in the shading.
For a cartoony look it needs to be pretty flat.