[WIP] [C+C] Creating a Fennec Sprite

[BatElite]

(left is unaltered)

Maybe I'm a bit late with this. The only thing I changed is the ears. The different heights they have right now make the head look tilted. I personally prefer both ears low, but both could work I think. I also smoothed the forehead a bit, as the angle it made looked wierd to me. I also can't read the viewer-facing ear much. I don't know how it's oriented.

As for the running, you can scale back the ninja by bringing its right arm to the front, and bending it. The left arm would be somewhere in a backwards swing. It'd pretty much turn into a regular run by that point though.

If you're actually making the entire run cycle right now as I understand it it's best to focus on general shapes first and detail later.

Also, you have a stray blue pixel on the tail of the standing sprite.

[MysteryMeat]

Took me a while to get back on this, but I did a quick sketch of what I meant so you can see what I was on about with the outfit.

As for crits, looks like Batelite beat me to most of what I was going to say.
The scarf might need some reworking though, while I was drawing this stuff I noticed it's a bit hard to tell apart from the jacket, and the scarf trail looks too shiny with those highlights. I'd say try to smooth out the colors more, like so:


EDIT: re-posted the hat-and-boots edit based on the scarf edit.

[Linaru]

Thanks for all the advice.

change our minds on your idea of the news boy cap, as adding it does seem to counter the 'sinobu' ish look it was giving off. however  we did not add boots , i steel feel with the digit legs there is more than enough detail and the boots will just make it look cluttered.

with the hat, i lowered the ear positions.. to make it seem as tough they are more pushed apart,  i also reworked them a little bit



However with regards to lowering the shading on the scarf i am not so sure, the more rounded and shiny style seems right for the mega-drive esk look i was aiming for,  the problem i think is the hat and shirt do not have enough shades, this is the result of me trying to limit myself to 15 colours, the characters 2 tones of fur take up a lot of the colours  and i am not sure yet how to adjust them without losing the unique look of the fun, i have become quite fond of the way the light fur almost blends with the darker..

also fixed the blue pixel on the tail, i had attempted drawing a sword in an earlier version.. did not like it and removed it .. missed a pixel



as for the animation. i believe the character is going to have 2 running animations one for a lower speed, and one for when they are going fast, the leaned forward arms back pose works well for the faster run, so the slower run would likely have moving arms..

i am still thinking about how to space them out.. animating sprites is not my strong point

[MysteryMeat]

Aaaah, yeah I see what you mean now! Yeah, if you're going for megadrive looks the shiny scarf works.
Not all the sprites had that effect going on but the high contrast on the colors certainly made it common.

[Linaru]

Okay, i spent some time playing with he colours, am now using the shading from the light fur to highlight the dark fur, tweaked their colour a bit, this freed up some room for another colour which i used to improve the hat.. jacket still seems a little flat , but there is no much i can do about that



how does it look ?

[lachrymose]

At some point his doggy like legs became less diggity doggity..

[jun]

Cute character
Some quick thoughts.
Although this might not be the direction you choose to go with.


I did not bother with the colors here, just the ideas.

I think the the biggest problem with the sprite is the rather squiggly looking anatomy and rendering.
That also ends up reinforcing the irregular lighting of the sprite.
I think it would be helpful to simplify the sprite a little. Think of it as building a brick wall, you start at ground level and keep adding rows of bricks.
Start with simple shapes, think of light source and then try to imagine how light falling on them would look.
Then slowly add texture, etc.
Also, the pose looks very "stiff" and unnatural. I would advise looking at human figures in action and observe how they look.
Even standing people have gesture and curves in them, try to observe!

Good luck, waiting for more progress!

[Linaru]

Thanks for your suggestions so far
I have tidyed up the sprite and adjusted the legs on the running pose.

now i am starting to play around with animating it, this is something i have little experience with.



looking at the sprites to sonic 3 i noticed that the characters have a slight head turn effect, their heads move left and right as they run.

so i started trying to replicate that effect on my sprite (tough still in the standing pose) i cant really figure out how to get from the standing to running pose.



this was my attempt

[MysteryMeat]

If this is for a game yoy might be able to get away with no transition between stand and run. For ideas though, i like to start with a sort of almost-dive on the torso to kick off the momentum. Am on my phone so i can't illustrate this idea, but think of it like the character lunging to grab something then breaking into a run.