AuthorTopic: help with side view of character sprite  (Read 4360 times)

Offline milk

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help with side view of character sprite

on: August 10, 2016, 06:30:43 pm
hi, I'm making a game and I've been having some issues with the side view of my character, I think I finally got it to look semi decent but something about the face still seems off, any suggestions? I just want it to look as cute as possible lol. also the clothes are a placeholder so don't mind those....

Offline dpixel

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Re: help with side view of character sprite

Reply #1 on: August 10, 2016, 08:39:09 pm
The hair in front of the ears is missing in the first image.  The head is a pixel or two low in the second image.

Offline milk

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Re: help with side view of character sprite

Reply #2 on: August 10, 2016, 10:02:23 pm
The hair in front of the ears is missing in the first image.  The head is a pixel or two low in the second image.

yeah im aware of both those issues I was just asking if the profile view looked off to anyone, I messed around with it some more and ended up with the one on the right, i think its better but im not sure

Offline dpixel

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Re: help with side view of character sprite

Reply #3 on: August 11, 2016, 03:51:17 am
The profile itself looks fine, although I prefer your first version better.  Cute design.
The biggest issue I see is color control.  I counted 87 colors.  A lot of them you couldn't tell apart.  Also the selective outlining seems a bit odd in places as far as color choices and perceived light source. And where some of the darker outline colors are within the image itself, it feels like a lack of contrast overall, which makes it seem a bit flat.
There's nothing wrong with pastel-like colors like you have, but it seems somewhat washed out for some reason.  Probably due to so many colors so close to each other. 
And aside from some banding here and there, your pixel technique is pretty good. Some good clusters, etc.

Here's my take on this reduced to 10 colors:
« Last Edit: August 11, 2016, 03:54:16 am by dpixel »

Offline Yuushia

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Re: help with side view of character sprite

Reply #4 on: August 11, 2016, 12:50:02 pm
I prefer the first version too. Here is another edit, reduced to 10 colors too :



Before/After :



I mainly tried to fix the 87 colors problem, changed a bit the arm's shape, and fixed the outline of the head's back which was a bit jaggy. Outside of this, I like your art very much. Apart from the colors, I think the overall aspect is very good, especially hair shading.
« Last Edit: August 11, 2016, 12:51:48 pm by Yuushia »

Offline milk

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Re: help with side view of character sprite

Reply #5 on: August 11, 2016, 03:29:11 pm
@dpixel  that is so cute !!!! it's not really the look im going for but it's still helpful, theres a few things you did there that i can use to fix up the sprite some more so thank you !!! I also did not know what banding was, I tried to look it up but im still not sure I understand lol. I haven't been doing pixel art for very long so I'm kind of just winging it but I'll read more about the stuff you said.

@yuushia your edit is very helpful too, thank you very much.

I'm surprised you both like the first one though, I thought the second one was so much cuter with their little upper lip thing going on, that's the one I've decided to use. I started roughing out a walk cycle, I still need to go back and fix the things you guys mentioned earlier



this is the first time I've done a walk cycle so I don't really know what I'm doing

Offline Yuushia

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Re: help with side view of character sprite

Reply #6 on: August 11, 2016, 05:16:02 pm
Well about the version, that's a matter of taste I guess :)

About your walk cycle, there is a kind of stop & slippy effect when the foot touch the ground. I removed some frame trying to fix that (Especially frame 1 and 8, in any walk animation you won't have frame where the character stands still). The walk is more dynamic though, maybe it was not the researched effect.



It's not perfect (need rework on hair for example), and I am far from an expert but it's look better imo.

Offline milk

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Re: help with side view of character sprite

Reply #7 on: August 11, 2016, 05:23:33 pm
that does look a lot better !!!! thank you so much, I thought I had to put frames with the character standing still because In rpgmaker you have the idle frame included in the walking sprite, but im using game maker instead now so maybe that isn't necessary and i can make a separate idle standing sprite instead

Offline HarveyDentMustDie

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Re: help with side view of character sprite

Reply #8 on: August 11, 2016, 05:34:33 pm
I've also made a edit in the meantime. It's not the cleanest one but I'm sure it will be helpful. If you want walk animation you need to keep one foot always on ground, and she doesn't need to lift her leg so high behind her.

I didn't had much time to mess around with her hair, and I've also removed 2 frames.

« Last Edit: August 11, 2016, 05:45:45 pm by HarveyDentMustDie »

Offline skittlefuck

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Re: help with side view of character sprite

Reply #9 on: August 11, 2016, 05:37:40 pm
Edit. I exaggerated everything too much so now it looks like she's in more of a hurry (especially the nose) -Harvey's edit is probably more along the lines of what you're going for but yea, just treat everything as a separate object so that they'll all be affected by the girl's movement.


« Last Edit: August 11, 2016, 05:39:18 pm by skittlefuck »

Offline Yuushia

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Re: help with side view of character sprite

Reply #10 on: August 11, 2016, 05:37:59 pm
I suppose it work well in RPG maker because the sprites are so tiny you can barely see the legs at all. There is plenty of reference about walk cycle animation on Google . You should take a look at it, walk cycle can be achieved in many way, but there are some "rules" about it.

Offline milk

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Re: help with side view of character sprite

Reply #11 on: August 11, 2016, 10:14:50 pm
Thank you guys soooooo much !!! This is so helpful, I can't wait to get off work so I can go home and edit the Sprite with the stuff you guys taught me