Player Character

[Echo-07]

Hey folks,

I've taken up pixel art a couple months back and I've been lurking here and Pixel Joint to pick up pointers and learn whatever I can. I've improved since my first attempts at pixel art and my respect for it is greater than ever.



This is the player character for a game I am working on. I've tinkered with him a lot and have hit a point where I can't think of what else I can do with him to step him up to another level. So I thought it's a good time to share him and hope the community can provide feedback. Here are some questions that for you the viewer...

1. Does he have a strong first read?
2. Is there enough contrast in his values?
3. Are the plane shifts clear?

These are the things that I try to keep in mind as I work but now I could really use some extra eyes on this. Any feedback would be appreciated and general opinions are more than welcome!

Thanks in advance guys!   

[Ryumaru]

Welcome to your adventure outside of the lurk zone :] Glad to have you!

This guy looks pretty good. For me personally, his first read isn't the - greatest- but that might only be an inherent problem with larger silhouette characters. I think if done right he could look really good in motion.

There is enough contrast, yes. That is, enough to read the forms. Is his suit supposed to be metal? If so, you could do a lot to increase the contrast, as well as render the lighting a little more accurately in terms of getting it to look like the material it's supposed to. I'm mostly referring to reflected light coming from below.

Planes are pretty clear as is. The above would enhance them even more so.

good luck on your game 

[Echo-07]

Thanks for the feedback, Ryu! 

Originally there was no line defining the plane shift in the helmet and it was a rounder looking helmet. But I liked the bit of detail to the helmet.

As for animation, I've already done a run cycle and a jump animation for him. I'll be sure to share them once I've gotten more feedback on this guy and applied to changes that may come.

Controlling values to get just the right texture feel is something I'm conscious of and working to improve, I increased the highlights to increase the shine so that it reads as metal. Did a couple of version, let me know what you think.

The light source is overhead so not much light would get to his legs and lower body due to his shape. The highlights on his lower half are edge light and reflected light to define his shape better

These two versions both have brighter highlights, the only difference is the location of the brightest highlight. Which is working better for you guys?

[Ryumaru]

You are correct in that the form would mean significantly less light would hit his lower body, but if you're really after the material, you should consider all the light bouncing off of the ground and hitting his highly reflective underbelly. It's up to you how much you want to take the effect, but it would go a long ways in making the body read as metal:



Also, keep in mind that one of the advantages of pixel art is control. We can make something stand out when we want to where things like scaled down vectors and pre rendered sprites cannot. The closest foot is always a nice thing to pop forward in a platformer sprite.