AuthorTopic: Appealing spriting styles  (Read 6567 times)

Offline Omega_Jet

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Appealing spriting styles

on: July 07, 2015, 10:49:46 am
-What is the most appealing spriting style to you?
-What do you think is the most appealing spriting style to the general population?

Hey guys, I am planning to do something in the future and for that I need to research the answers of these two questions. I know that its probably impossible to find a style that appeals to most and choices will vary widely among people, but I am looking for something that can appeal to most niche demographics at once.

If you guys had to develop a style to appeal to a large part of general population and not any particular niche (for example, how chibi cutesy sprites are made to target anime fans), what type of style would that be?

I can post sprites from different styles and make a poll out of it if you all prefer that, but there are literally hundreds if not thousands of styles, so that will be a pain.

Note: By sprites, I mean character sprites mostly, the ones that can be animated effortlessly. Not the full blown pixel art type of thing you see from talented artists.

Also, I am sorry if this is in the wrong section.

Offline Decroded

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Re: Appealing spriting styles

Reply #1 on: July 07, 2015, 12:06:53 pm
IMO the "general population" has pretty low artistic interest/appreciation and are more impressed by flashy colours, humour and hyper-realism.
Largest market is probably Chinese youths.

Offline Omega_Jet

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Re: Appealing spriting styles

Reply #2 on: July 08, 2015, 03:01:18 pm
IMO the "general population" has pretty low artistic interest/appreciation and are more impressed by flashy colours, humour and hyper-realism.
Largest market is probably Chinese youths.
Hmm hyper realism is difficult as I have to develop a lot of sprites. I was hoping people would be into the simpler styles.

I was thinking of a minimalist style, no face details, simple 2 tone shading without outline. But colorful. Do you guys think that would be appealing?

Offline lachrymose

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Re: Appealing spriting styles

Reply #3 on: July 08, 2015, 06:09:47 pm
To broad and to vague of a question to answer honestly in my opinion.

What makes a sprite appealing to me is its general aesthetic and the skill of the artist in portraying whatever it is I’m viewing. It doesn't matter if its JRPG, or minimalistic or hyper realistic or any other category/class/genre...etc.

As far as the second question though, I would say the anime type sprites are far more popular with the general population...Seriously that shit is everywhere.

It seems to me though, that you are asking this question in attempt to maybe find and leverage the "most popular" style towards a game or something in hopes of attracting more players/viewers...If that is the case, I highly recommend against it.
« Last Edit: July 08, 2015, 06:12:11 pm by lachrymose »

Offline PixelPiledriver

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Re: Appealing spriting styles

Reply #4 on: July 08, 2015, 06:19:42 pm
Quote
IMO the "general population" has pretty low artistic interest/appreciation and are more impressed by flashy colours, humour and hyper-realism.
Largest market is probably Chinese youths.
Quote
Hmm hyper realism is difficult as I have to develop a lot of sprites. I was hoping people would be into the simpler styles.
Hilarious.  :lol:

Quote
-What is the most appealing spriting style to you?
"Style" means very little to me.
As long as there is some feeling portrayed in the visuals decently well then I will digest it.

Quote
-What do you think is the most appealing spriting style to the general population?
No idea and I don't care.
My buddy thinks Asian girls are hot
I think Latina girls are hot.
Does the general population like Asian or Latina girls more?
Pointless. :blind:

My advice is:
Get out of your mind and start drawing.
Develop a style that suits your project, not other people.
If you want to reference or be influenced by other art, fine.
But build variations with your hands and compare them.
Try to create something that evokes the feeling and function of what you want to create.

Quote
I was thinking of a minimalist style, no face details, simple 2 tone shading without outline. But colorful. Do you guys think that would be appealing?
I was thinking of making a sandwich with meat and cheese.
Would that be tasty?
You won't know until you taste it.

You're currently trying to reverse engineer the thoughts of other people and the evolution of art.
Don't.
Go draw.
And knowing that it is, we seek what it is... ~ Aristotle, Posterior Analytics, Chapter 1

Offline ptoing

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Re: Appealing spriting styles

Reply #5 on: July 08, 2015, 07:00:30 pm
Largest market is probably Chinese youths.

Not really. China is a relatively small market for games compared to many western countries, Germany included. Just by going from this stats page on Steam http://store.steampowered.com/stats/content/

A lot of people in China are still very, very poor and do not really have the means to spend money on games.
There are no ugly colours, only ugly combinations of colours.

Offline Drazelic

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Re: Appealing spriting styles

Reply #6 on: July 08, 2015, 10:07:20 pm
@Decroded: Why... Why did China come to mind, specifically ??? Why not Japan? Japan appreciates pixelart way more than China.

@OP: I'm pretty much going to try to restate PixelPiledriver's ideas in my own words here, but:

As far as an all-appealing style goes, I recommend you imitate Call of Duty and Skyrim and make your project in 3d high-resolution. Pixelart, by nature, is already niche; if you want a big, undiscriminating target audience, pixels probably aren't what you're looking for.

To paraphrase your words:

"I want an art style that's cheap (pixelart is cheaper than high-res 3d), that I can draw a lot of very quickly (because I have big plans for my game), which I can animate effortlessly (because animating is boring and hard D:), and which is colorful and appeals to everybody (because I want my game to be really popular)!"

Buddy, don't we all. If it were that easy to come up with an aesthetic and style, illustration wouldn't be a job, and neither would animation. There's no one-size-fits-all solution to art, no census will change that. In the end, what you draw has to come from your own preferences and the limitations of your skill. The idea of sacrificing your right to choose your art style in favor of some sort of... democratically-sourced average of all tastes, ought to immediately seem repugnant to anybody who self-identifies as an artist or designer of any kind.

Like, isn't the point of creating something that you can call it your own? Why even make a game if you're not going to individualize it to your own tastes?

Offline lachrymose

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Re: Appealing spriting styles

Reply #7 on: July 08, 2015, 10:24:38 pm


To paraphrase your words:

"I want an art style that's cheap (pixelart is cheaper than high-res 3d), that I can draw a lot of very quickly (because I have big plans for my game), which I can animate effortlessly (because animating is boring and hard D:), and which is colorful and appeals to everybody (because I want my game to be really popular)!"

Well if I went along with that paraphrasation(not a word). I'd recommend him Voxel work.

Voxels are cheap, and can be modeled very quickly(seriously just a few boxes). Easy to animate and can be very colorful.

Offline Omega_Jet

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Re: Appealing spriting styles

Reply #8 on: July 09, 2015, 04:17:50 pm
Haha I think i could have worded my previous messages a little better, I do sound like a lazy person aiming to make some quick cash by selling something with little artistic value.

I do appreciate the replies though, and trust me on this one, I am an artist through and through. I will sample some new stuff and see what sticks for my project which surprisingly is not a game.

However I would like to say something which will hopefully justify my attitude a little better and I'm sure many of you have felt this way before. I have been spriting for 6 years, which is not a small time frame. I have had countless ideas that I started to develop and just could not finish due to lack of resources and time. As a 20 year old with little to no money and a good idea, I want to get it up and running as quick as I can. Which is why I am trying to find one size that fits all (impossible, I know) and while it may seem I am throwing away artistic value, theres a bigger story here.

Offline Parkerbaby

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Re: Appealing spriting styles

Reply #9 on: July 09, 2015, 11:38:05 pm
Quote
Why... Why did China come to mind, specifically ??? Why not Japan? Japan appreciates pixelart way more than China.

I think it was just a joke, because of population size. Since China has a billion and some people, if you want to target the largest demographic, target Chinese youths.