AuthorTopic: [WIP] Stone Statue  (Read 2944 times)

Offline YDVitamins

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[WIP] Stone Statue

on: March 17, 2018, 11:23:32 pm
Hello! I've been dabbling about in making sprites that I could possibly use in a game one day. I recently picked up the hobby again after a drought of, like, a decade. And back then it was more like editing video game sprites on Seashore, so this is a big venture back.

I use Aseprite to create my works now. I'm trying to get a feel for a more "simple" or limited palette to see if it's something I like working with. I'm using the software's preset "NES" palette (56 colors, although index 0 and 1 are both #000). Here it is:



(I hope this image shows in the same ratio that I see in Aseprite. If not, hopefully no more than 3 zooms)
This is a scratch. I'm going for a stone statue of a woman missing a hand. I wanted to use three colors for the material before including black as the darkest shadow and outline. The green is supposed to fill in as the value between black and the palette's darkest grey, and is not meant to be perceived as green lighting.

I'm also looking at these folds and I don't know if they're convincing enough. Thoughts?

Offline Vinik

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Re: [WIP] Stone Statue

Reply #1 on: March 19, 2018, 04:58:54 am
Oh, you can post it here without any scaling because the forums have a built-in scaling script, just click on a image and it will scale evenly, Ctrl + click to revert scaling.

I think it is excellent so i cannot be of any help :P. The hand does not look like it is holding the folds, but honestly I wouldn't be able to draw it any better. Hands are a nightmare even on paper let alone with pixels. I think the extensive use of pure black is consequence of the NES pal, as it does not lends itself to many subtle dark shades, nor to non-black outlines. The green definitely reads as an ambient diffuse light or maybe tarnish, but it looks cool, no banding, good light as far as my understanding goes, even the few lone pixels seem used well for adding texture, I dig it  :y:

Offline MysteryMeat

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Re: [WIP] Stone Statue

Reply #2 on: March 19, 2018, 06:14:48 am
huh, coulda sworn I'd responded to this. Weird.

Well, problem here seems to be that it looks more metallic than stony. Try changing the thick shadows on the interior of the form to something a bit shallower to both soften the shading a bit and prevent the strange fabric-belts effect along the side of the dress there. You can achieve this by simply thinning the lines a bit I think.

The shading on the cowl also lends itself to a sort of stainless-steel look, wouldn't know how to fix that other than reducing contrast a bit more there too, though with a palette limit that could be difficult
PSA: use imgur
http://pixelation.org/index.php?topic=19838.0 also go suggest on my quest, cmon
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Offline YDVitamins

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Re: [WIP] Stone Statue

Reply #3 on: March 19, 2018, 01:48:16 pm
Thank you, folks!

Yeah, as I look at it, the hand is resting on the fold and not actually gripping it. I need to show the cloth between the thumbs. I'll finagle with that.

Metal, I totally see that. Earlier when I colored, I think I had more metal in mind. I played around with the idea of changing the green to a rust color (rusted iron), or keeping the green and changing the greys to a copper color (tarnished bronze), but then I felt the placement of the eroding color would look too directional and not organic. Consequently, I turned around and said, "It's no longer metal; now it's stone." I see now that someone picked up on that too in the contrast. I'm still gunning for stone though, as I need to learn!

I'll cut back on the shadows and try a more neutral/warmer green. Smooth out some lines, etc. Might mess around with different colors in another mock-up to compare what I can do about this palette. I'll share it in my next post!

Offline YDVitamins

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Re: [WIP] Stone Statue

Reply #4 on: March 20, 2018, 12:10:04 am
Alright, here we go:



Removed the highlights and thinned the black shadows so that the contrast is low, got rid of the green and went for a lighter base grey just so the darker grey became another middle tone, tried with the hand, and redid a few things including the face since I want a dramatic appearance.

Thoughts?

Offline MysteryMeat

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Re: [WIP] Stone Statue

Reply #5 on: March 20, 2018, 01:30:32 am

Couple things I did here:
-added some pixels on the camera-left side of her torso to round it out a bit, make the anatomy more sensible
-change the colors around through the nes pallete to something a bit darker
-added some noise so you could see how that might look on the right
-made the spooky grin spookier by having her mouth open a bit more
PSA: use imgur
http://pixelation.org/index.php?topic=19838.0 also go suggest on my quest, cmon
MAJOR BORK TALLY: |

Offline YDVitamins

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Re: [WIP] Stone Statue

Reply #6 on: March 20, 2018, 02:41:00 am
Oh, thank you!

I hadn't even noticed the chip off her right hip, yeah. Applying that now.
The greens look more like a tone now after clean-up.
I didn't even think about noise. I think I'm so used to dithering and mark-making to try and convey what I want, but noise definitely adds a weathered texture here that I ultimately want. Did you draw every mark, or is there a tool that does some distortion?
Mm, I messed around with an open mouth, but I haven't found anything I liked yet. I'll try redoing the face for a scream.

Offline MysteryMeat

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Re: [WIP] Stone Statue

Reply #7 on: March 20, 2018, 03:42:03 am
there is a scramble and blur tool in a Sprite that I use for a quick and dirty noise but it's a bit inaccurate so don't rely on it

it likes to incorporate pixels from outside the selection area for some reason which is annoying since it'll randomly toss in Black pixels from the outline when I just want the two colors inside the lines to scramble
PSA: use imgur
http://pixelation.org/index.php?topic=19838.0 also go suggest on my quest, cmon
MAJOR BORK TALLY: |

Offline yaomon17

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Re: [WIP] Stone Statue

Reply #8 on: March 20, 2018, 05:37:25 am

I think you can probably still have another color in there if you make the highlight larger clustered.