AuthorTopic: character concept  (Read 2848 times)

Offline Enzo Della Penna

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character concept

on: March 05, 2020, 04:45:31 am


Recently I decided to retur making games. those are the first couple of pixel arts I did. The characer is suposed to be a SteamPunkish / cowboy beebop type of smugler who gets robed and needs to retake his cargo. The cargo is a Bunch of art pieces and one is recovered for each level. the game will be a Top Down SoulsLike mainly focused on martial arts and some guns or something along those lines.
I need some critique, general thogts, hints, ideas, etc.


Also this is my first post here.
thanks in advance  :)
« Last Edit: March 05, 2020, 01:00:28 pm by Enzo Della Penna »

Offline Enzo Della Penna

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Re: character concept

Reply #1 on: March 05, 2020, 04:46:51 am
without the orange thing

Offline Chonky Pixel

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Re: character concept

Reply #2 on: March 05, 2020, 09:42:01 am
Unfortunately, I can't see anything. I'm not sure why, but if you're having difficulty a good way to insert images is:

 - Go to imgur.com
 - Drag in your image
 - When it uploads, right-click and "copy image url" or whatever your browser calls it.
 - In your post, add an "insert image" (below the bold control) and paste in your url.

Offline Enzo Della Penna

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Re: character concept

Reply #3 on: March 05, 2020, 01:40:41 pm
And here are my dumped stuff:

Offline Chonky Pixel

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Re: character concept

Reply #4 on: March 06, 2020, 12:34:23 pm
That's an interesting artistic style, I like it.

My immediate thoughts:

The arms might be a bit long. I wouldn't expect human arms to go too far past the crotch. You've got quite an elongated style though, so you might get away with it.

As you've probably noticed, having a non-outlined character with such contrasting colours (black, white and flesh) might make it hard to find backgrounds that work. For example, if everything's dark, the clothes will disappear and leave a disembodied head and arms. If the background is a mid-tone, you might lose the head or arms and just be left with clothes. (I find the arms quite hard to see in all the examples here.)

The trouble is, an outline would probably look bad (it would thicken black areas and make those thin limbs feel more chunky) and my preferred technique of darkening edge pixels won't work because of the small number of pixels available. 

Artistically I see why you're using all the shades you are.

What kind of environments will this character be inhabiting?

Offline Enzo Della Penna

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Re: character concept

Reply #5 on: March 08, 2020, 06:04:16 am
thanks a lot.

Ok, so the arms are intentionally long but does them feel weird, missplaced or just stylistic?

Outlines are out of question. one thing that will probably help distinguishing him from the background is the future use of normal maps. I am still figering it out but that is problably my best solution. Only thing is I dont know if I will need to keep al this shadin (hope not, beacause woulb be easier to animate).

I dind't spend much time tinhking about environments yet, cassinos, cityes full with neon, art galleries, space station, etc

as soon as I have the normal map and Tile set I will make sure to update this post!!

Offline eishiya

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Re: character concept

Reply #6 on: March 08, 2020, 01:25:22 pm
The long arms look more like a mistake than a stylistic choice to me. That said, I think they're only really like 1px too long, and what makes them feel even longer is the sloping shoulders and the arms' thinness. The rest of the character isn't so thin, so they look out of place.

Normal maps really work best on bulkier styles where they have enough pixels to show the form. With a sprite like this, they'll probably just make the character look even flatter, and barely help them stand out. If you must have the dark clothing, try using lighter colours and using contrast to suggest the clothing being darker than it is, and having highlights for the major forms to help the character read well.

Offline Enzo Della Penna

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Re: character concept

Reply #7 on: March 08, 2020, 05:00:10 pm
how would you guys color him to help the contrast between him and the environment?

also I am testing a bunch of solutions for the arms and rather to use or not normal maps


PS.: excuse me for my bad english hahaha

Offline Enzo Della Penna

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Re: character concept

Reply #8 on: March 08, 2020, 08:12:24 pm
arms fixed(?) by elongating the body and giving them some movement.

this sprites has also the normal map I did in case one want to try it out.



It works well exept for the arms. they either dont respond well to lateral light or are too dark when not near enoth one. One white direction light seens to solve it tho. Also any ideia on how to get in-game images into here?

Offline EduardoVivo

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Re: character concept

Reply #9 on: March 09, 2020, 08:14:36 am


Recently I decided to retur making games. those are the first couple of pixel arts I did. The characer is suposed to be a SteamPunkish / cowboy beebop type of smugler who gets robed and needs to retake his cargo. The cargo is a Bunch of art pieces and one is recovered for each level. the game will be a Top Down SoulsLike mainly focused on martial arts and some guns or something along those lines.
I need some critique, general thogts, hints, ideas, etc.


Also this is my first post here.
thanks in advance  :)

for a sketch is pretty good. I can imagine that character in a mobile phone game. Keep it up!