AuthorTopic: [C+C] A newbie's adventure to Pixel-Land  (Read 2853 times)

Offline Baenor

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[C+C] A newbie's adventure to Pixel-Land

on: September 30, 2015, 02:17:43 pm
Hello Everyone ! :)
My name is Fabio and i'm mainly a Unity Developer. i've always wrote C# scripts using other's art, except for something really quick that i could do in Blender.
I've discovered Pixel Art basically 5 days ago: or rather i've got into pixel art 5 days ago, and the feedbacks are that i LOVE PIXEL ART.

I like it not only because i'm a huge fan of retro 2d games, but also because it allow me to reach objectives and accomplishing something quicklier than any other kind of art.

So i've posted here to ask you some suggestions on how to start, how to improve and so on. Actually i hope that i really become good in pixel art: i've always had a nice imagination, but my drawing skills are not good and for this reason i had always to get artists to make some games...but now things may really change!

All the sprites that i'm going to upload in this post were made yesterday and today. I'll upload them in order of making, so you can tell me if you see any improvements:











Some self criticism:
I know that i'm not good at drawing: in fact i've some serious problems with hands/foots
I'm not good at shading either: i've some problems choosing the right colors!

Some questions that i would like you to answer me:
How can i improve this skill overall?
What do you suggest in order to be able to create nice sprites for games(unity)?
How can i draw from my own imagination? (till now i had always something from reference to get the basic shape and then i started changing it)
What do you suggest to begin animating a character? (the last viking for example)


Thanks for all the suggestions!
« Last Edit: September 30, 2015, 02:29:17 pm by Baenor »

Offline Joe

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Re: [C+C] A newbie's adventure to Pixel-Land

Reply #1 on: September 30, 2015, 08:42:53 pm
Quote
How can i improve this skill overall?

Your drawing problems are going to be the root of your pixel problems for a long time to come.
You improve your pixelling by being able to draw first, that's 90% of your skill.
After that is a long period of fine tuning and study of pixel-specific topics, color management, tiles.
Check the resources thread for tutorials, this thread also answered the question well.

To begin animating a character: what program are you using?

Offline Baenor

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Re: [C+C] A newbie's adventure to Pixel-Land

Reply #2 on: September 30, 2015, 09:01:56 pm
Thanks for the reply! I'll read That thread ASAP. Anyway  You discouraged me a bit with what you said about the drawing part! What do you suggest? Do you know some Books That i can buy?

About animation: actually i have made already AN idle animation That i Will upload as soon i reach my PC ( anyway i use photoshop)

Offline Joe

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Re: [C+C] A newbie's adventure to Pixel-Land

Reply #3 on: October 01, 2015, 02:06:09 am
Didn't mean to discourage. What I was trying to say is, for however long it takes you to become proficient at drawing, any of your game art related problems will almost always be deficiencies in drawing ability.
That's actually a good thing, because in studying drawing you get better at all forms of art.
Since you said you want to draw from imagination, can't go wrong with Fun With a Pencil.

Offline Decroded

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Re: [C+C] A newbie's adventure to Pixel-Land

Reply #4 on: October 01, 2015, 02:36:47 am
Don't be discouraged just understand we're pretty direct to the point around here and don't waste time fluffing each other up.
I actually think ur starting from a pretty good place here.
There's obvious ways to hugely improve both drawing skill and pixel technique but at least ur colours and clusters r good enough to make ur sprites readable.

sprites around the size of that red beard guy r probably ur fastest way to improve overall as ur not trying to cram and also ur drawing errors r obvious to fix.
I'd say try drawing a sketch in pencil of that guy, then look at some drawing reference and tutorials on anatomy, muscle structures etc then redraw the sprite from scratch and compare ur improvements.
making a game with sprites that size is not very feasible though so u can consider them practice and concept designs (so u can try all sorts of poses) before u cram them down to smaller sprites

for animation go buy graphicsgale then spend some time setting up hotkeys for 10 most common used functions (takes a while to figure these out but we can list/help u here instead of bumping around in the dark like I did!).
photoshop just plain sucks compared to gale for sprite animation.

do u have a particular idea for a project u want to make in unity? a strong concept is important even if it isn't the most original thing in the world as long as it is an interesting setting, characters, story...

Offline Baenor

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Re: [C+C] A newbie's adventure to Pixel-Land

Reply #5 on: October 01, 2015, 05:26:15 am
  <-- here is the animation i realized yesterday.

Anyway guys, thanks a lot for your posts. I think, as you said, i can learn a lot from this forum and you.
I decided to learn some kind of art because basically i ended my life as a freelance Unity Developer due to a couple of people who tricked me badly this month : thanks to them i basically lost 1 month of working without being paid and also 200$(and losing also everything i've made, italian laws are terrible).

Fortunately, i already have a good job that let me do that, and for this reason i decided to apply to Art in order to, some day, being able to make my own game from scratch.

I wanted to tell you a bit of background.

About sprites: so 64x64 isn't a good thing for game? Which size i should go? 32x32?
About the game i want to create: since i already had my experiences in game development, i know that i also have some problems in game design and actually i'm starting studyng that too. So I don't have a clear idea now, i want to have the right informations before thinking about it. But the setting must be Norse/Vikings.
About drawing skills and books: Thanks for the link, that book is also free so it's a huge reference. But i want you to tell me if this are also good: http://www.amazon.it/gp/product/0823098478?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=ox_sc_act_title_1&smid=A11IL2PNWYJU7H  http://www.amazon.it/gp/product/086547897X?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=ox_sc_act_title_2&smid=A11IL2PNWYJU7H. What do you think? Should i follow some courses on Udemy? Tell me the best way, even if i have to spend some money, honestly i don't care.

Thanks a lot!

PS: sorry for my english