City Of Darkness WIPs

[HTD]

Whoa brilliant observations on the style being that of Konami's metal gear.
Technically I should try and make them slightly more original than this metal gear rip off style.
As for the shading that is something I will try and experiment with before I make any updates.
I'll let you know when I bump into anything I am unsure of, btw thanks guys its great to have help.


This is my first time spriting a cityscape, here above is where im at so far.
If anything im doing at this stage is off let me know thanks.



and finally



I am going to restart these images as I feel I am not getting the results I like at all.

As of now im going to take your suggestions on board and experiment with techniques to improve the sprites.

[HTD]

May I suggest some simple top-down shading?
Quickie:

Just put some highlights on the shoulders etc, and darken the legs a bit.
I see that you have some degree of shading, but your color buffers are too samey.

Id love to hear your suggestions on a better pallette.
I tried to change the shading and make the sprite seem more um.. 3dish.
I am liking the results but would appreciate your opinions and advice all the same.

[Zombiemambo]

Your sprites are really hard to read, I think it's because you need more contrast and I don't see any kind of lightsource on your sprites. I'll whip up something quick to give you an idea of what I mean.

EDIT: Here you go, I increased the contrast of the image and added a lightsource from up top (poorly):



I also changed the BG to something easier on the eyes.

[HTD]

Thanks Id appreciate that.
Yeah I still havent got lighting at the moment so hopefully through doing these revisions I can start grasping the concept more.

[Zombiemambo]

You still need to increase the contrast, until it's easy to see the shading and highlights at a glance. When you're doing something of this size, don't be afraid to use bright highlights and dark shades.

I did a little modification of the zombie guy, again added some contrast and changed the colors very slightly, and I tweaked his left leg:

[HTD]

I tried adding more contrast to the image but I still feel when I compare them to your edits that I am not getting it perfect yet.
thanks

[Overkill]

You have way, way too many colors on your sprite. 40 colors for something that small? That's pretty ridiculous. A lot of contrast and clarity can be gained just by merging all the similar colors and near-blacks together by hand (hooray PSP4's color replace tool). Taking this further and adjusting the contrast and hues between highlights and shadows makes it nicer to view.

I made an edit just for fun and hopefully it has some useful things to study in it:

Down to 13 colors! (this image doesn't actually have transparency, supersorry.)

Anyway, good luck. Keep at it!

[eck]

yours -> solid colors -> reshaped and simple shaded.

14 colors methinks.

[HTD]

This is a 16 colour version of the sprite.
Out of curiousity why is it more effective to have less colours for the sprite?.

[eck]

when you have a large amount of colors on on a small space, the colors will start to blur, and everything.  it basically helps the clarity and contrast.

also, im still having issues with the latest sprite.  you are using thick outlines everywhere and you really havent defined a light source.