AuthorTopic: [C&C] rpg charater  (Read 3615 times)

Offline Not4mortaleyes

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[C&C] rpg charater

on: June 13, 2016, 11:52:07 pm
ive been practicing characters some more and this is what i have so far


Offline Rosier

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Re: [C&C] rpg charater

Reply #1 on: June 14, 2016, 12:40:07 am
You could achieve the same look with half the colors.  There's no need to have more than 2 or 3 shades max for the hat, eyes, and skin.  Right now it looks a bit messy.

Offline Double7

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Re: [C&C] rpg charater

Reply #2 on: June 14, 2016, 03:33:30 pm
Here is a quick mock up that I did. I agree with the post above that you should try to use less colors for your sake, and your arts sake.

I am not the best artist and there is still a bunch of improvement to be made with my work, but hopefully I can share what I do know. After working on a NES jam where I was limited to the NES color pallete, I had to work with a very small pallete and it is some of the most challenging yet best pixel are i have ever made.

Good luck op.
« Last Edit: June 14, 2016, 03:37:04 pm by Double7 »

Offline Not4mortaleyes

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Re: [C&C] rpg charater

Reply #3 on: June 15, 2016, 02:31:27 pm
i reduced the colors but something doesn't seem right

Offline eishiya

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Re: [C&C] rpg charater

Reply #4 on: June 15, 2016, 03:21:35 pm
It's probably because the noisiness on his do-rag is more apparent than it was when you had all those extra colours softening the transition. With fewer colours, just as with fewer pixels, the position of every pixel counts, and you're not using your shadows to show the form of his head. The dithering(?) looks like noise, because at this size there isn't really room for it. Instead, use that limited space to make the head form clear, and maybe suggest some folds for a little extra polish.

I don't feel like you need the middle colour on his beard, the colours are similar enough that you can probably do just fine with only two of them. Also, it looks a bit weird that his beard is lightest in the middle and darker above and below. I'm guessing you were trying to have outlines on the hair? At this size, there isn't really room for them, so you're better off using that space to show volume of the beard. So, bring the lighter colour into the upper bits.

You changed the eye shape on him, making him look like he's squinting. I think that's an improvement over the eyes from before, but if that's what looks weird to you, try lightening his lower eye-lid, have each of those three pixels be the lightest colour (with appropriate AA below it). That will give the impression that the eye is open a little wider when the image is viewed at 1x-2x.

Speaking of 1x-2x, unless you're planning to only ever show a piece at a higher zoom, make sure you have a 1x preview open (or zoom out to 1x very frequently if your program doesn't allow making such a preview). When you're zoomed in, it's hard to see the relationships between clusters and the details that they create, and it's easy to get stuck placing pixels according to specific objects you're trying to represent without concern for what they actually end up looking like. With pixel art, especially at smaller sizes, each pixel often serves to represent more than just one thing, but it's hard to see how well that's working while you're zoomed in.

Offline Not4mortaleyes

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Re: [C&C] rpg charater

Reply #5 on: June 15, 2016, 04:00:30 pm
It's probably because the noisiness on his do-rag is more apparent than it was when you had all those extra colours softening the transition. With fewer colours, just as with fewer pixels, the position of every pixel counts, and you're not using your shadows to show the form of his head. The dithering(?) looks like noise, because at this size there isn't really room for it. Instead, use that limited space to make the head form clear, and maybe suggest some folds for a little extra polish.

I don't feel like you need the middle colour on his beard, the colours are similar enough that you can probably do just fine with only two of them. Also, it looks a bit weird that his beard is lightest in the middle and darker above and below. I'm guessing you were trying to have outlines on the hair? At this size, there isn't really room for them, so you're better off using that space to show volume of the beard. So, bring the lighter colour into the upper bits.

You changed the eye shape on him, making him look like he's squinting. I think that's an improvement over the eyes from before, but if that's what looks weird to you, try lightening his lower eye-lid, have each of those three pixels be the lightest colour (with appropriate AA below it). That will give the impression that the eye is open a little wider when the image is viewed at 1x-2x.

Speaking of 1x-2x, unless you're planning to only ever show a piece at a higher zoom, make sure you have a 1x preview open (or zoom out to 1x very frequently if your program doesn't allow making such a preview). When you're zoomed in, it's hard to see the relationships between clusters and the details that they create, and it's easy to get stuck placing pixels according to specific objects you're trying to represent without concern for what they actually end up looking like. With pixel art, especially at smaller sizes, each pixel often serves to represent more than just one thing, but it's hard to see how well that's working while you're zoomed in.

i decided to start over



the colors are temporary but i used the shadows to give form to the head and i want to know how it looks before i progress any further 

Offline eishiya

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Re: [C&C] rpg charater

Reply #6 on: June 16, 2016, 03:52:11 am
The light seems to be coming from above, but the ridge of the nose is the darkest colour even though it should be receiving a lot of light. Study faces a little more to get a feel for their forms. You've gotten an impressive amount of detail on that face for this size, but it doesn't feel like it has volume because the shadows don't correspond to the forms of the features. You have a lot of what looks like gaps (concave areas) where things should really be sticking out, or things don't stick out enough. In addition, you're shading/highlighting individual details, at the expense of showing the form of the head as a whole.

I don't know exactly what features you're going for (e.g. the eyes look very sunk-in but I don't know whether that's intentional), and I wasn't sure where you intended the mouth to be, so here are a few edits that you may find useful:

From left to right:
1. An edit using your palette and trying to keep a darker skin colour, which means I had to use the highlights very sparingly. I placed the highlights only on the most prominent, shiny features - the cheekbones, the chin, and the forehead. I also used the light colour at the bottom of the eye to make the eye look rounder, just like you did.
2. Using the light colour more heavily, the face looks like a white guy. So, I changed the features accordingly and made it a white guy. Here, I made the lightest into my base colour rather than just a highlight colour, which allowed me to convey more subtle featured using the middle colour.
3. Again using the lightest colour as a base colour rather than just for highlights but with a modified palette to make the character's skin look darker again.

Note how in #1 and #3, I only highlighted the tip of the nose to make the whole nose look flatter (highlighting the whole nose like I did on #2 gives that prominent white nose look), but I did not use the darkest colour. This keeps the nose looking like it's sticking out or at best flat, rather than a hole in the face.
« Last Edit: June 16, 2016, 04:02:48 am by eishiya »

Offline Not4mortaleyes

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Re: [C&C] rpg charater

Reply #7 on: June 16, 2016, 06:22:40 pm
The light seems to be coming from above, but the ridge of the nose is the darkest colour even though it should be receiving a lot of light. Study faces a little more to get a feel for their forms. You've gotten an impressive amount of detail on that face for this size, but it doesn't feel like it has volume because the shadows don't correspond to the forms of the features. You have a lot of what looks like gaps (concave areas) where things should really be sticking out, or things don't stick out enough. In addition, you're shading/highlighting individual details, at the expense of showing the form of the head as a whole.

I don't know exactly what features you're going for (e.g. the eyes look very sunk-in but I don't know whether that's intentional), and I wasn't sure where you intended the mouth to be, so here are a few edits that you may find useful:

From left to right:
1. An edit using your palette and trying to keep a darker skin colour, which means I had to use the highlights very sparingly. I placed the highlights only on the most prominent, shiny features - the cheekbones, the chin, and the forehead. I also used the light colour at the bottom of the eye to make the eye look rounder, just like you did.
2. Using the light colour more heavily, the face looks like a white guy. So, I changed the features accordingly and made it a white guy. Here, I made the lightest into my base colour rather than just a highlight colour, which allowed me to convey more subtle featured using the middle colour.
3. Again using the lightest colour as a base colour rather than just for highlights but with a modified palette to make the character's skin look darker again.

Note how in #1 and #3, I only highlighted the tip of the nose to make the whole nose look flatter (highlighting the whole nose like I did on #2 gives that prominent white nose look), but I did not use the darkest colour. This keeps the nose looking like it's sticking out or at best flat, rather than a hole in the face.

thank you for the help ived tried what you have said while trying not to copy you too much




i may have to start over again

Offline eishiya

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Re: [C&C] rpg charater

Reply #8 on: June 17, 2016, 03:29:05 pm
Make sure you look at real faces instead of just blindly pixelling. I think you have a solid start here, but you're struggling because you're not sure what it is that all your pixels mean. If you study faces, that'll get much easier. Grab a mirror and look at your own face from many angles and making different expressions, poke and prod it some to get a literal feel for how it's all connected, which parts are soft and flexible, which are not, and how they interact. You can also look at photos of other people to expand your idea of what different parts of the face can look like.

Offline Not4mortaleyes

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Re: [C&C] rpg charater

Reply #9 on: July 09, 2016, 08:45:15 pm

how does it look now?