AuthorTopic: [C+C] RPG Walkarounds for 70s bands  (Read 4519 times)

Offline CytricAcid

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[C+C] RPG Walkarounds for 70s bands

on: March 10, 2018, 02:04:39 am
Hi! I'm working on pixel art for a game idea I have. It's dedicated to my favorite musician Todd Rundgren and his band Utopia. they have a song called "Singring and the Glass Guitar" and it frankly makes a great concept for a short RPG, which is what I want to do.

it stars the four members of the band in a short RPG and I'm working on the walkarounds for them at the moment. At the moment, I have Todd's turnaround and front sprite walking done, and Kasim's front sprite and front sprite walking done.

I haven't done pixel art in a long time. My skills are very rusty, and I've never been good at making 4 way overworld walkarounds, so this is a huge challenge on my part.

Because these are actual humans, I can't use hair color to distinguish the members. Thankfully, I'm rather good at likenesses and have a set style in mind for the band members in the game. the biggest obstacles for me are the base sprites for the walkaround and adding clothing. Todd's outfit worked well enough in the low resolution, but Kasim's wrap??? on his chest looks kinda garbage, so I'd love so advice.

The palettes aren't set in stone yet, and I realize that Kasim's skin tones likely overlap with his hair color, but for the sake of easy tweaking, I'm leaving them separate until his sprites are pretty much done.

Here's a few links to how I'm going to stylize the members in the game + a bit of their outfits: Todd Rundgren and Kasim Sulton


Todd's sprites:



Kasim's sprites:

Offline MysteryMeat

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Re: [C+C] RPG Walkarounds for 70s bands

Reply #1 on: March 10, 2018, 03:33:00 am
The wrap doesn't distort with the torso, that might be the issue here
PSA: use imgur
http://pixelation.org/index.php?topic=19838.0 also go suggest on my quest, cmon
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Offline Vinik

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Re: [C+C] RPG Walkarounds for 70s bands

Reply #2 on: March 10, 2018, 04:59:43 pm
How about this? I dont have a ref so I imagined the wrap would go over the shoulder instead of disappearing near the neck.

Cute and efficient base by the way

Offline CytricAcid

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Re: [C+C] RPG Walkarounds for 70s bands

Reply #3 on: March 10, 2018, 08:53:59 pm
Thank you everyone! Here's my reference for the outfit: outfit (minus the toga)

Here's an updated walk sprite (and changed his skintone a bit, but now im afraid he looks too yellow... rip)


And here's my first idea of a talk sprite: not too sure on the wrap on this one and he probably needs pants.


for the talk sprite i did the lines first, then painted it in black and white. then i posterized it to 8 values and gradient mapped each area, then cleaned it up per pixel.
« Last Edit: March 10, 2018, 08:57:27 pm by CytricAcid »

Offline Vinik

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Re: [C+C] RPG Walkarounds for 70s bands

Reply #4 on: March 11, 2018, 02:39:44 am
Ahh cool, now I see what you did. As I wasn't aware of the shape of the clothing, I mistakenly read the neck piece as a short beard lol. Now I see It fits.

Offline eishiya

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Re: [C+C] RPG Walkarounds for 70s bands

Reply #5 on: March 11, 2018, 03:29:49 am
The neck piece reads as a beard to me as well. Perhaps a different colour would work better? For example, you could reuse the darker colours from the gold bracelet.
Edit: And/or widen the bottom of it so it's not so angular-looking. Doesn't read as a circle.
« Last Edit: March 11, 2018, 02:09:39 pm by eishiya »

Offline MysteryMeat

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Re: [C+C] RPG Walkarounds for 70s bands

Reply #6 on: March 11, 2018, 08:01:56 am
his arms in that talk sprite are pretty stuff and uninteresting, I'd bring them up a bit so he can more visibly express himself with his hands!
PSA: use imgur
http://pixelation.org/index.php?topic=19838.0 also go suggest on my quest, cmon
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Offline CytricAcid

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Re: [C+C] RPG Walkarounds for 70s bands

Reply #7 on: March 14, 2018, 08:35:39 pm

 Here's an updated walk sprite for kas. i updated his skin palette from his talk sprite and changed the collar color, as well as making his wrap move better when he walks. i think it looks a lot better!

for the talk sprite, his arms are supposed to be stiff, since he's upset, but if it doesn't convey correctly it can be changed as well.

im working on a mockup for this project, so i'm working on all sorts of little things - this time, the infamous GRASS TILE! i succeeded mostly in hiding the grid, but it looks flat. eugh



Offline eishiya

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Re: [C+C] RPG Walkarounds for 70s bands

Reply #8 on: March 14, 2018, 09:15:27 pm
Since the characters are mostly neutral colours, they don't pop against the saturated green grass. Adding more colour to the characters and using less saturated colours for the grass would help.

I don't think flatness is a big problem for grass since it's literally fairly flat. However, if you want to make it more fluffy looking, consider using your shadow colour more judiciously - you currently have many dark grass-blade shapes, but how about using that colour as shadow instead? Let the lighter grass blades grow out of the darker base, instead of adding dark shapes.

Another reason the grass looks flat is that it has the same high level of detail throughout. It's difficult to remedy this with a single tile, but consider having variant tiles, some of which have less detail and perhaps a smaller value range.

Scale is another factor to consider. Those "grass" blades are the size of a human arm xP Exaggerated grass is fine and your results look pretty good, but make sure that's a decision you make consciously rather than just because this is the smallest you feel you could make the grass. There are many other approaches, some more realistic, some more cartoony.
Here's one alternative option:

The grass is largely flat, and most of the details are created at the boundaries of the different solid colours. The grass blades here are also on the larger size, but this approach can also work well with 2px-big grass blades without looking too noisy. The different colours can represent different grass types, elevations, or shadows, depending on the context provided by the rest of the scene. This approach makes it easier to mask the grid too, since it's not noticeable when a flat colour is tiled.

Having noisier, fainter grass with tiny grass blades can work well too, if you want a more realistic look. The key with tiny grass is to keep the contrast on the low side, so that the details don't clash with details on the characters and important objects.


Lastly, don't forget that you're probably not going to have huge fields of just grass tiles in your game. There will be objects and other terrain tiles breaking it up. Your tile might look a lot better in that context! This is especially true if your various objects such as trees and things that sit on the grass have little bits of grass that overlap them in their sprites. That'll give the grass a lot of volume without requiring any changes to the base grass tile.

Offline MysteryMeat

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Re: [C+C] RPG Walkarounds for 70s bands

Reply #9 on: March 14, 2018, 10:21:20 pm

for the talk sprite, his arms are supposed to be stiff, since he's upset, but if it doesn't convey correctly it can be changed as well.


For sure, I do get that! And while if you are going that route it could use some tweaking, I think it might be better to have his hands up like so:
or even like this:

PSA: use imgur
http://pixelation.org/index.php?topic=19838.0 also go suggest on my quest, cmon
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Offline Durrahan

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Re: [C+C] RPG Walkarounds for 70s bands

Reply #10 on: March 14, 2018, 10:35:45 pm
I on the other hand really like your pose. It's looks like a teenager stomping his feet while rebelling against his parents.

Offline eishiya

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Re: [C+C] RPG Walkarounds for 70s bands

Reply #11 on: March 14, 2018, 11:01:16 pm
I agree with Durrahan. It reads as indignation to me more than justified anger, I quite like it.