Critique > Pixel Art

Project Paradox sprites

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Machu:
The main game I'm working on in Game Maker is Project Paradox, a Paper Mario style RPG that has characters based roughly off of people I've met in another community.  I want to give the game a graphical style of VS fighting games, because those rock.  Here's what I have so far.  C & C would be much appreciated, but don't feel forced to critique all of them at once.


Machu
Oh snap, that's me?  This is the first one I've made.  I was going for a "wandering magician" type character, and I like the design.  However, being the first one, there are probably several details I'm missing.


Shadow III
A religious paladin sort of character.  I like how this one turned out, but I think some parts of the armor might be at the wrong angles.


Uncommon
A somewhat angsty-looking, but actually quite reasonable character.  I'm pretty proud of this one, I don't see any problems with it now.


Tim Taylor
A humorous martial-artist who is hiding his face after being framed.  This character is probably the least "original", as in, the person this is based off of provided most of the design and not me.  I like the funny stance, but I think some details are off.


Gilbert Smith
A brutally honest super-hero.  I love this design, but need some serious help with those muscles.


Hachi Roku
A gentleman thief who always keeps his cool (and also really tall).  Quality is here and there; I'm proud of the head (face and hat), but those legs don't look right for some reason.


Joosh
A bard with an air-guitar (it's invisible).  I think I got the stance and detail pretty well here.  Just don't accuse me of looking at Final Fantasy Tactics while designing this, because you'd be right.


Hunter Green
A monster hunter who has ironically been zombified.  I love the face and hair, but the stance SUCKS.


Squallman
A mad-scientist kind of character who makes complex objects out of very ordinary, simple stuff.  I think I botched the labcoat, but I like everything else.  In case you can't tell, he's holding a remote controller in his normal hand.

:
Fenrir Lunaris
A sensative looking character who can turn into a furry werewolf.  I think the human form looks okay, but the wolf form needs to look hairier.

And that's where I am now.  Feel free to ask about any of the characters or the game.

Sawtooth:
You're probably not going to like this, but I'm going to give you a couple of general crits that can be applied to most of the sprites before I can go into specifics.

A lot of these feel kind of "rubbery," by which I mean that the joints sometimes feel like they bend in more than one place (like the elbow on our right on the first sprite)  Make sure your proportions are correct, too.  sometimes it feels like the torsos are a bit too long (I'm thinking about the fourth, eighth, and ninth sprites, specifically).

Make sure you don't pillow shade, because I see a lot of it, especially on the legs.  Don't be afraid to put the highlights right next to the outline.  Also, make sure that shadows fall on the right places, so the limbs that are bent towards the viewer aren't too foreshortened.  I guess I'm looking specifically at the last sprite for this one; if the bent leg were unbent it would look a great deal longer than the unbent one.  Make the viewer know that the straight-looking leg is bent by shading the area where' it's bent under.  Also, for the poses where one half of the character is behind the other, remove all occurrences of the lightest shade.  It will do a lot to give the sprites depth, especially on Shadow III (where it will help us figure out which arm is in front of which).

Machu:
I'm thinking the main reason the proportions are off is because these were all made without reference images.  Because of the realistic style, I was planning to retry all of them like this: I have this webcam now, and I will take pictures of myself in the poses I want and then outline over the photo.  I did it before and it looked alright, so I wonder why I didn't think about doing this in the first place?  I'm guessing I was just trying to prove that I didn't need to do it, but I see where the problems are, now.

Of course, that only fixes the shape.  I also so what you mean with the shading, ecspecially after looking over some King of Fighters sprites.  I was thinking that I was shading properly, but I was only using middle colors, afraid to use the darkest shade of each color for anything but outlines.  Should I use black outlines?  At least, where the darkest color isn't close to black, like Joosh's boots or Hachi's pants (Hachi's jacket does use black, and it looks great).

Man, I wish tsugumo's tutorials weren't down, I remember skimming over the lessons about shading and such, and I want to study them now.  But yeah, keep the comments coming, please.

ejay:
Try to think of the shape of the 3d objects that you're shading rather than following the 2d outlines,( Imagine the legs or arms as cylinders, for example)  and once you choose your light source go ahead and shade them accordingly. Don't bother adding too much detail or finishing it with Antialiasing at this stage, but rather try and make the lighting consistent and the shapes clearly readable.
As to the outlines- personally I'd choose colored outlines over black ones almost any time, it adds a certain vividness (is that a word?) and freshness , and it can also be shaded to enhance volume.

Filax_666:
Fighter sprites right? You might want to check these out:

- http://ahrimanes.mgbr.net/
- http://www.spriteart.com
- http://ggxlol.highervoltage.net/

There are lots of other sites you could see, these are some I thought that might help you. And you should also look for sites about anatomy.

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