Bibi the Fueler. UPDATE*

[RobG]

Hey guys! New to this place, i'm a painter all the way but i found myself doing some pixel arts these days so i thought id join up here.

Heres some early sprite development for a personal project.

These are my first batch of pixel arts i've ever done.




My friend ptoing told me about the problems with the last ones so i thought i might try again with it.(wip),



but i'm still having problems, got any advice?

Also heres some concept art for the character if your interested - 1  2

That is all.

[PypeBros]

the rightmost animation isn't clear for me. Is she trying to stop after a dash ? if so, why are there "speed lines" just when she stops rather than when she dashes?

or maybe she's taking a blast ?

it also looks like she's wearing a cape rather than having long hairs in stand/run/shoot sequences ...

[Arne]

I like the concept art of her butt...

As for the animation, I think it's using too many static copy-paste parts. Definitely smoother on the later version though. Light-boarding and making proper key frames should help, but I really don't know much about animation.

The hair on the first versions was too close in hue and value I think, this is better on the later version.

I'm not sure about the treatment of the deltoid on the later version. There's a highlight bouncing on her elbow too. Is that cement boots she's wearing?

It could be interesting to flatten the values on the leg that's further away. There's some grit moving on her Gastrocnemius.

[Souly]

What is it that she's carrying exactly?
A giant vibrator?

The only thing I'm not digging is that some parts of the animation don't have an outline.
Where as everything else in the animation does.

[LoTekK]

Holy shit, it's RobG. I'm rather liking the new WIP (white background), but I think more saturation and contrast would be nice, especially considering your usual painting style.

I'm curious, what sort of project would this be for? Platformer?

Souly: I think the thread title may clue you in on that.

[im9today]

I like the design a lot, it is simple but very memorable. From looking through your site I know that you work very well with other mediums, so I don't understand why you didn't carry over some of those techniques you have applied on those to your new pixel work. An example would be the hair in the concepts compared to the hair in the pixel work; it loses everything that made it lovely, save the nice color choices.

Your newest version is a vast improvement, though you lost some of the more striking colors, I would recommend lighter outlines on areas that are better lit (e.g. the thigh area, parts of the hair, the calf on the far leg) and using darker shades on the far leg to add volume, which is sort of going on at the moment but could probably use a bit more. Also, where is the other arm? Or is that going to be a separate piece or some such?


Oh, and welcome to the forum.

[Faceless]

I'd have her forearm inserted into the weapon and running parallel to it, with her upper arm protruding out at a right angle to it.
Give it a thicker, leather strap slung round her shoulder to brace the weight. The fishing wire you have at the moment looks like it should cut her in half.

On the new animation/version, her whole body is moving except for her feet. Looks very strange.
Raise her heels when she bounces up.

I also think it looks too much like you've just coloured inside the lines, and I'm not a fan of the washed out colours. Especially on a game sprite that needs to compete with a background.

Even so, the new version looks much nicer, and I'm eager to see you take it further still.

[Malor]

Awesome job! I would add a wee bit of movement in the ffet, for the idle animation, and the idle animation with board board, her breats seem to bounce a little too much.

P.S.-Awesome gallery.

[JonathanOfDrain]

I like the concept art of her butt...
The hair on the first versions was too close in hue and value I think, this is better on the later version.

I think the hair needs a little more contrast on the latest version.

RobG, why didn't you pixel her in that sweet two piece? And shouldn't her hair be trailing behind during that skidding animation?

[AdamAtomic]

welcome rob!  those concepts are gorgeous, and these sprites really do not live up to them.  You've got a lot of jagged edges in both your outlines and your shading, the hair is not faithful to the designs (maybe put those swirlies at the end back in), the skin is shaded more harshly than the giant refueling device (which is metallic i assume?), and the legs in the run animation overlap quite a bit!

You have some crazy talent, I would revisit these with a few things in mind:

1 - Planes/depth/contrast - in pixel art it can help if you use darker colors to help cue the depth on your character.  E.g. make limbs and accessories that are away from the camera darker than the parts closest to the camera.  This is not like a "rule" or anything, I just think it could help this particular sprite to read a little better!  A lot of the street fighter games do this to great effect.

2 - Cleanliness - take the extra time to clean up your lines and smooth out your shading - make every pixel count!

3 - Don't be afraid to animate whole new frames, instead of just sliding bits and pieces around.  In fact, I'd block out your animation frames first in lines, then in solid colors, and then keep on tweaking that super-simple version of your motion until you're happy with it.  THEN go back and start adding details!

Again, welcome to the boards, congrats on your killer 2d skills, and I look forward to seeing your updates!

[vellan]

welcome to the boards rob - have been a fan of your work for a while via deviantart and cgtalk.

in addition to adams good advice, i would also add that adding a direct light source from an angle will help with adding volume to your character.

[o_8]

I love your art, this is a  very cute/cool character

I like the revised version especially, but yea it would be nice if the colors were as vibrant as the concept images or the previous sprite. I love your art a lot though, btw T^T

[miascugh]

Welcome to the board, it's nice to see such a talented artist try out pixels too. With such nice concepts it definitely already has a solid basis; from here you basically only need to lay out proper key-frames and polish it up in the event.

I'm no expert in animation either, but the running animation stuck out to me. I made a quick edit to show which frames struck me as odd:


(the frames with the asterisks are the ones I replaced)

The frames where you used the motion-blur made no sense at all. The blur lines indicate the reverted movement of what should actually happen there, and the legs also seem somewhat mangled in these two frames.

A really important frame for a running animation, in my opinion, is the one where the leg is stretched out, as can be seen above as well.

The red sperm is a rough approximation to what the flow for the braid could look like, but it turned out way way too restrained.




On a side note, I find that the original idle pose has much more character than the generic bounce of the new one, despite the technical improvement. She seems much more determined in it.
Anyway, with a little more pixel art-specific technical knowledge you'll be able to create really awesome graphics for you project. Enjoy your stay, and feel free to extend it a little :)

[RobG]

Holy moly thanks a tons guys, helpful tips all round.  I'm a bit hung up atm so i cant reply to everyone but thanks again guys.

Considering your suggestions i decided to chicken out and scale down a little.

Heres a small update, working so small she went a bit chibi style haha.



I quite pleased with the style, although i dont think her face is that great, how would i approach doing faces at this scale?


Thanks again for the warm welcome!

[Faceless]

At that size, I'd darken the greyish purple in her hair, and I'd clean up the face by taking away the shadow at the bottom of it.
This will help to make the blush more visible, and to stop the face from looking muddy.

I think the run animation lacks a bit of penache. Take a look at this sprite to see what I think you should be aiming for with the hair:
http://pixeljoint.com/pixelart/15613.htm

[Sherman Gill]

I like it much better at this resolution . Got mor character to it.
However, I still don't get the skidding, and the loose hairs on the idle seem really weird. (Edit) To be more precise, there should be atleast as much leftward movement to the hair on the right running as there is upward jiggling on the idle.

Edit again!
My edit is on the right (God, how did I never notice I said the wrong direction?)

Note how it's got a more consistent wave in the hair, and it effects the back of the main mass of hair too.

[ptoing]

I think the run animation lacks a bit of penache. Take a look at this sprite to see what I think you should be aiming for with the hair:
http://pixeljoint.com/pixelart/15613.htm

Just no! I do not care what others might think, but IMO that animation is a overanimated mess that does not read well at all and has not very good keyframes.

That said the hair could use movement more following the up and down of her run, Sherman Gill's edit already is a big improvement.

Also, tsk tsk, Robbo, on the skid you just flipped the ponytail without fixing the outline colours back

Doing great progress tho, keep it up. 

[Jad]

<---

DANGIT, you changed the style and all. :< Now this edit is useless.

Or not :] There's probably something to learn from it.

So what I wanted to show you is a couple of things:

* The more frames, the merrier. Also, the bigger a sprite, the greater the need for high framecount.. :D

* I want to show you the glory of drawing new frames from scratch and not utilize too much copypasta. Use a bigger brush than 1x1 and just draw around, flipping through frames as you go. [edit: And, draw shapes and stay away from outlines. Outlines symbolize the edge between two shapes, but since the shapes are already there, the contrast between them already creates a visible edge. Plus, to edit a shape, you just add or take away. To edit an outline, you have to first draw a new one, then erase the previous. It's tedious.]

* Her free arm should move, I think. Because that's how she'd keep her balance, right?

* Doubled the frame count and threw in two extra frames, thus equaling 14 frames. The extra frames are the ones right before her foot makes contact, anticipation frames if you wish. It makes her run more bouncy and flowy, IMO. A style-thing I always utilize with runs. I can't say it's the right way to do it, but it's my way and I like the result.

* Her head bob looks weird now. I guess I should've eliminated the sideways headbob almost competely. The bob of big mechanical fuel-thing also looks completely weird now. :( I destroyed it.

* I also made her whole body bounce more when she kicks off. For the stylishness and feeling of movement.

* I used miascugh's edit as a base, then doubled the frame count, erased her limbs in half of the frames so that the original frames became keyframes, then I went ahead and in-betweened. I started with her feet, or rather, her soles. I find that part critical to succeed with a run/walk. The feet are what she rests on, and if you succeed with making a believable foot motion, adding in legs is easy.

So when I had the soles done, I started making her thighs (thus defining her knees, since her knee is where the thigh ends. Just putting in dots for knees and then bridging in her legs between these points is also a good way to do it.) and then I just tried to make the form somewhat consistent between frames. It really isn't, right now, but it's a start.

So from this point on, (with a bit of tweaking, for example, her fuel tank and so) perfecting the shapes and shading and adding in outlines and detail is almost no work at all. It's just about being persistent :]

* I removed her hair. I thought I was gonna add it, but in the end, I had grown blind with the animation and the ideas I had about her hair in the beginning of animating had gone. So I decided to stop working on it and show you the result.

Alas, there's a lot that I could've done with timing and such, her arm movement that I made is snappy and the shapes aren't very consistent, but hey, this is but an edit.

That's it folks :]