[WIP][C+C] Project Restart, Running Girl Sprite

[Telek]

Hey everybody.

Last year I was part of a (regrettably unsuccessful) freeware 2D game project.  I came on too late, and was too inexperienced, to be able to contribute effectively to the project, but now that it has more or less shut down and I've had a *little* more practice, I'd like to take a shot at reworking the art end from scratch.  Importantly, this is of a much smaller scale than some other stuff I was working on, as you guys suggested.  I'm slowly learning drawing/illustration on my own time, but I don't want to put this sort of thing off completely in the meantime.

Below I've posted my attempt at blocking very basic animation forms, and then a rough attempt at adding some shading.  The thing she's holding onto above her is functionally a balloon (it's a ghost...tail...thing), though I haven't gotten around to reworking that so I don't want to include it just yet.  I'm not really sure how best to approach form and anatomy on such a small figure, and I'm having a tough time trying to add detail.  The face, in particular, is quite problematic, though trying to turn her amorphous pantshoes into pants and sneakers like they used to be hasn't worked at all either.  The palette was taken from the original sprite, and may need adjusting as well. 

Any advice would be much appreciated!

             

[32]

Just make the face really big, giant eyes like the old wonderboy sprites is usually a pretty easy fix. She needs a chin though. When you do the pants just make sure you always have the cuff of the leg jutting out in some way and you'll pretty much sell the illusion. The animation is looking really good, just watch the balloon arm jumping when it hits the front most frame. Probably don't pull the green arm back quite as much unless you add some shoulder movement in. Looking forward to seeing where this goes

[Telek]

Threw out the skin tone, still deciding if I want to change the whole outfit/palette altogether.  Certainly leaving some areas bordered and some not is not proper, it's more for caging in the shapes right now.  Realistically, is the sprite too small to benefit from an outline like this?  Or should it be a different color, or have sel-out (which I am totally inexperienced with)?  In the meantime though, some progress.  Something seems off about the face that I can't quite place.  Thoughts?

[Telek]

Hey everyone.  Still at it. I was hoping you could give me some tips on a specific problem that i'm having. 

As you can see in the animation, the right arm passes in front of the face as she runs.  Invariably, as I'm drawing these frames the colors from the arm bleed into the colors of the face.  Most runs I've seen don't have this issue, as they avoid having like colors cross each other.  In order to make this work, however, what would be the best strategy?  As far as I can tell, I would either need to add more colors, change the outfit, or introduce some kind of border as the arm enters the sprite, which I fear could be obtrusive.

Help! 

[Pinux]

Hey everyone.  Still at it. I was hoping you could give me some tips on a specific problem that i'm having. 

As you can see in the animation, the right arm passes in front of the face as she runs.  Invariably, as I'm drawing these frames the colors from the arm bleed into the colors of the face.  Most runs I've seen don't have this issue, as they avoid having like colors cross each other.  In order to make this work, however, what would be the best strategy?  As far as I can tell, I would either need to add more colors, change the outfit, or introduce some kind of border as the arm enters the sprite, which I fear could be obtrusive.

Help! 

The one that is animated with the arm in the air the girls hair in front isn't moving, you might want to make it move so it looks more realistic

[Telek]

Yep!  That's next.  Right now the shirts moving (mostly) and the arms are swinging, but the head looks like a creepy robot.  Once the arms/shirt are handled I'm trying to add the bounce to the hair.

At the moment, the arm reads OK as it crosses, I may be able to get away with it if it moves quick.  Hope to have an update in the coming days, too many balls in the air.

[Telek]

Hey again.  I kinda fell out of drawing for a while there as things got busy.  As I picked this back up again I realized that I'm not really happy with the direction that it's going in.  A lot of it was trial-and-error as I try to learn some of these concepts, and it shows.  Not having any outlines really caused me a lot of grief in readability.  Got some better references, so I'm gonna try to break it down and do it fresh, ditching the "no-outline" style for the time being.  In the mean time, here is what I've managed to make so far, so if you have any further advice I'd much appreciate it.  I realize the hair still isn't bouncing, try as I might I couldn't make it work, that's a project for another day.

Thanks!