AuthorTopic: Elf girl - help, critique  (Read 5187 times)

Offline Marscaleb

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Elf girl - help, critique

on: May 29, 2018, 07:47:49 pm
So I've been struggling to create a good sprite for a main character.  This just hasn't been working out and I'm sharing it here to look for advice.  Be brutal, tear it apart, draw over my work, whatever, I just want to get something that looks right.

I started trying to work around/near an 8-bit aesthetic, but it just wasn't working out.  I've upgraded a generation and it's looking better, but I still don't feel this is satisfactory.



Obviously I'm going for an anime aesthetic.  I'm not "dead set" on her hairstyle, outfit, or pose; I'm completely willing to change any of them.  I did a bunch of sketches with various outfits and hairstyles, the ones demonstrated here were just the ones I felt managed to work out best as pixel art.  I'm open to revising those designs id another design fits the pixel art better.

I've given her four colors for each "section" which wound up being 16 colors, plus the black and white for the eyes.  I'm assuming that her staff would be a separate sprite so it could be swapped out for upgrades.

A few particular things I'm not satisfied with:
The hair doesn't look like a proper style at all; it looks like a random mess of pixels.
The arms look terrible.  I can't get the lengths to look right for either of them.  I can't get the left arm to look like its holding the staff in a natural pose.
The body proportions just don't look right to me.  Even using a dress to hide where her legs start, I still can't get this to look proper.
The staff just looks oddly taped on.

Offline eriophora

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Re: Elf girl - help, critique

Reply #1 on: May 30, 2018, 01:23:59 am
A few edits:

- increased contrast and exaggerated lighting
- blocked in the hair a bit more and removed outline
- shortened body height to create a slightly more "chibi" effect and improve arm-to-body length ratio

Offline BasseBoi

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Re: Elf girl - help, critique

Reply #2 on: May 31, 2018, 07:26:24 pm
I post the pics first and then i will post what a redid okok



B^)

Offline BasseBoi

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Re: Elf girl - help, critique

Reply #3 on: May 31, 2018, 08:20:03 pm
first of all i want to tell you that it was a really nice drawing and very nice style.
The problems is with anatomy.

And second of all i want to point out that im not good at anime pixel style, so the porportions may be wrong and such, maybe not you flavor or whatever, but i did a redraw so you maybe get som inspiration to how to continue your work. ((Also im also kinda newish to pixel art))

What i did


     Hair
-I totally got how you want the hair to look like, i dig it. it was really haard to get her bangs to work with me, and somtimes you need to simplify it all. Now when i look back at your bangs vs mine, mine maybe is to round for the anime style you were searching for, you maybe want to make them a bit edgy.

- remeber that the hair should be drawn behind Both her shoulders. use your logic

          Anatomy

The overall body shape (just body not head) gets smaller and smaller further down.

-I brought the legs closer togheter, and made them a bit longer

You said "Even using a dress to hide where her legs start, I still can't get this to look proper"

thats the problem, you tried to work it around instead of fixing the fondation. You can only cheat this way once you know the basic anatomy/porptotions/bodyshapes/how the body funktion

- i moved her right arm closer to her body and made the upper arm shorter (wanna know a secret? the elbow is where the bellybutton is, so its the same lenght between the shoulder down the elbow, as for the shoulder down to the bellybutton)

- her left arm, i redid it so you can see a bit of her arm below her hand. Its usually that way, if you dont want to have it like that, you need to have the hand more stretched out awway from the body. That way, the arm is more of line and you wont see any of itt below her hand

- i took her head and moved it one pix to the left, to make her look more relaxed

- feets, i did her right foot a bit bigger. it wouldnt look that she got smaller and smaller firther down, if you balanced it out. And because of the perspective, her right feet (i think) is closer to us, so that foot should be bigger

          Skin and face

- i changed the darkes skin color to a more red color. The orgginal color feelt so green/yellowish ( when you shade, dont just make the color darker change the hue, either to a more red or blue hue, this way the pic will feel more alive)

- sorry i had to change the eye color, use whatever color you want but not black, not if there isnt any more black in the drawing, it will stick out as a sore tumb. Buuut you can also use it as somthing good, if you want to draw attention to somthing peculiarly
I also think that its a good idea to have colored eyes because you want a more anime style

- the eye whites arent usually white, so i took the lightest color you had on your colorscheme, but maybe thats just personal preference

          staff

- i literally just drawn a line and adapted the hands to it. Made it a bit thicker. i think you wanted a feel of old croocked branch, its probably easy to adjust. Just do a straight line, and instead of it going thick - thin do som medium - thick - thin thing with it

- i redid the top of the staff, i know that you didnt say that thats what you requested, but i think that with simpler design, it wont be so timeconsuming when one tries to get the right shape in certain perspectives

- i gave it a high light

          Shoes and dress

- i did a verision with brown shoes. idk. my though was it would gave more attention to her hair, and made the hair more special and magic (and i added another lighter brown to the shoes)

- i reshaded the cloth so the shadows and highlights followed the clothes vawe a bit more. but i just want to add that im no expert on how to shadow clothes


          other

- i found som pillow shading, so i redid that

- i found outline pixels that was inconsistent ( like 4 pix, 3,3,2,1,2,2) and redid them (to 4 pix, 3,3,3,2,2,2) becuase the human eyes prefers patterns (even when you cant really notice it)


and thats was kinda all of it

I do have som things to sat about my verision too, my verison looks more relaxed and i dont know if thats what you wanted, you looks badass as if shes ready to fight with that stance. I think she would look more ready for fight if you moved back her right leg or somthing.

also its a bit more feminime, i think thats bc i made her body smaller so she looks cuter

i dont know if the shading i did is fitting with what you goal is, i made the outlines a bit softer, but you maybe what the a bit harsher if its for a fighting game or somthing like that

but overall, its good idea behind the design, you just shoot yourself in the foot with the anatomy and then try to hide it with her dress.

and i really looking forward to see more of your stuff, like really, i hope i wasnt to harsh tho. but i really think you got somthing if you continue with your work
B^)

Offline Marscaleb

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Re: Elf girl - help, critique

Reply #4 on: June 01, 2018, 06:56:16 am
Thank you for the advice thusfar!

I've tried to re-draw the sprite from the ground up, using some of my original drawings as a reference.
In some ways I feel it came out better, in some ways worse.



Again, I appreciate any feedback.

Offline BasseBoi

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Re: Elf girl - help, critique

Reply #5 on: June 01, 2018, 07:36:14 am
yes, it looks already better, maybe do the skirt a bit wider, i also think that you should change the darkes skintone to a bit more redish color
B^)

Offline EduardoPras

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Re: Elf girl - help, critique

Reply #6 on: June 07, 2018, 12:31:27 am
Hello Marscaleb!

The guys already gave you some solid advice but I think I can help a bit more.

I can see that there are some details that are giving you a hard time.

I'll try to list them here:
-You are not respecting your lightsource. It is kind of above her and to the right but you seem a little afraid to push your shadows.
-Eyebows are really important when conveying emotion, try to use them to your advantage.
-You are not hueshifting between colors. It is not a rule but, generally, it makes things more interesting.
-In anime people usually have long legs and small waists (Unless they are really short when in SD).
-Try to simplify your pixel clusters. It makes much easier to control the light.
-You are missing oportunities to show volume(Like the bar of her skirt and her right arm that I've made appear behind her body).
-Avoid single pixel detail it ends up noisy if you are not careful.
-Hips and Shoulder lines, if tilted, make the pose more dynamic.

I guess this is about it.

Here's my take on it:



Hope it helps you a bit.
« Last Edit: June 07, 2018, 02:55:44 am by EduardoPras »

Offline Marscaleb

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Re: Elf girl - help, critique

Reply #7 on: June 07, 2018, 07:53:25 am
-You are not hueshifting between colors. It is not a rule but, generally, it makes things more interesting.
Well I am, but, nowhere near as strongly as you are.

-In anime people usually have long legs and small waists (Unless they are really short when in SD).
Most of the anime style characters I was using as a reference are indeed SD.  If they are properly proportioned they tend to be larger sprites.  So I was going for a SD look.
That being said, I am not very naturally gifted at getting those SD proportions to look right; it takes me several tries to get one that is favorable, and it's even harder to get it right in pixel art.  I couldn't get myself to *really* push the SD proportions; are you saying I should push back the other way?

-Try to simplify your pixel clusters. It makes much easier to control the light.
I really don't follow what you mean by this.

But I do like your changes overall.  You managed to trim down the color count some and give it a more cartoonish vibe.  That change in art style gives me something to think about.

Offline EduardoPras

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Re: Elf girl - help, critique

Reply #8 on: June 07, 2018, 12:53:09 pm
I meant that you could push your hueshifting more, sorry about the phrasing.
In the red parts, for instance, it is so near that it is almost the same hue.

About the SD, if you are going for that chubby SD look you must change the structure of your character to something more "compact".
What are you using as reference? Maybe I can help you find another solution.

This doesn't mean that you should persue an style that you are not interested in, just that you must make bolder statements.
If you want it to look a certain kind of SD push it a little harder in the direction you want.

About the pixel clusters,
The eye clumps pixels together when they have the same color and are near each other, this general shape can be pleasing or displeasing. That being said, if your shapes are constantly interrupted by halftones your image start to inform too much without breathing space.

So, here's an example:



As you can see larger shapes read better and faster, especially in pixelart where we have so little space to work.
You don't need to show everything. You can suggest some features and trust the observer to understand them.

Offline Marscaleb

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Re: Elf girl - help, critique

Reply #9 on: June 07, 2018, 07:16:18 pm
Thanks for the information on pixel clusters.  That's definitely something to consider when working with lower color counts.
My original efforts were to try to make something with just six or seven colors plus transparency in a 16x32 space.  I could not create anything I felt was satisfactory, so I moved to a more 16-bit color depth with a 40 pixel tall character.

What are you using as reference? Maybe I can help you find another solution.
Basically I was just running through everything on Spriter's Resource from the SNES, PS1, and Saturn that looked like it had an anime style.
I noticed that the heads tended to all be around the same size, just big enough to show some detail for the face (particularly the eyes.)  The proportions for the rest of the body were according to how big the sprite was overall.  Games with larger sprites had more natural proportions and smaller sprites went more chibi.
Given that I'm looking at 40 pixels tall I should be pushing a more chibi structure, but I keep struggling to make the body have that proper girth.  It just feels counter to my preferred style, I guess.