Cheetah Men - Apollo + Aries

[Turbo]

Hi guys, long time no post, work's been unforgiving. Trying to slowly catch up on art in general, pixel art in particular.
Here's Apollo from the legendary Cheetah Men:
   
(latest)
Love to hear some thoughts!
If i get the time, i'd like to do more of these.

For the Cheetah Men awesomeness in action, see the vid http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0H2QpaHjO-Q, with a short explanation here http://kotaku.com/gaming/clips/worst-nes-game-evar-has-awesomest-music-316014.php

edit: pallete variation + some stuff. I need to be bolder with colors and to put more contrast into the stuff...

[AlexHW]

looks pretty good in general..but the form is very hard to read at first glance. the arm in the middle of his body makes it look more like it is his chest.. not saying his pose is bad, just that it is hard to read.. id work on making it more readable by defineing the forms so that they can be distinguished from each other.

[Turbo]

I see what you mean, i'll work on that. I probably coud do with just chaging around shading in some parts, or reworking the back.Thanks for the comment.

[Sardone]

 

[Turbo]

Sardone, yeah, i'm thinking of shading similarly to your edit. Basically some parts need more contrast/depth, and the leg, thanks. The Cheetahmen don't wear shoes though

Just checked it out in a different laptop screen... the colors look hideous, while in my home Crt and Lcd they look better.

[wah_wah_69]

I think you're missing one key feature of the cheetahmen: the spots.

[Turbo]

Nice catch, wah_wah. I'd planned on adding them in the end but forgot. They do add a lot of life to the sprite though.
Here's something that attempts to adress the crits, thanks for the help!

I think i'm gonna do another Cheetah now...

[Helm]

are you sure your monitor is finally calibrated? 'Cuz that's pretty eyeburn right now!

[Turbo]

No, i have it calibrated mostly by eye and for confort, considering the low light i usually work in (not complete darkness, but dark).
I'll look into calibrating though, and further adjusting the palette.

Edit:calibrated (just needed to up the contrast), and i'm not really seeing what you mean. Eyeburns where? Near the higlights? The whole thing? I tried it against backgrounds with different hues and ligthness, and calibrated the palette so that it would could be seen well against bright or dark backgrounds, and the details would pop out well. (like the white snout fur could be distinguishable from the head's yellow fur).

[Feron]

What you describe as white fur, is a eye-burning cyan color on my screen.

most of the colors are overly saturated and that arm is pretty unreadable..

[Turbo]

The cyan was purposeful, since it was the color that best contrasted against the yellow, and provided best readibility of the detail. The color saturation was also on purpose, to show lots of contrast and read well even at 1x. But since it's causing discomfort, i'll provide a more desaturated edit later. The arm seems to still be causing trouble, probably has to do with messed color priority due to shifting the saturations around... i'm looking into it.

More conservative palette, simplified shapes and shading,less saturation in certain parts.

[Helm]

I know what you're saying 'that much??!'. Yeah, that much. Most of your values where close to fullbright. Style is one thing and I'll give you I am not familiar with this character in the least, but unless he's staring straight into a hypernuclear explosion, I don't think there's lighting conditions that call for such eyeburn.

besides colors: you are (sorry if this sounds severe) abusing the real estate of a single pixel at this size. Simplify your forms, the details you are implying carry through to the expense of the art.

[Turbo]

Here's the concepts i based it on:


You can tell i struggled with choosing the palette with a yellow character wearing a white gi.

The heavy saturation i chose was to keep the original's colorful and cartoony style, as seen in american action cartoons of the 80's to 90's (Thundercats, Biker Mice from Mars, etc.), and to have strong contrast. Your edit goes away from that style, the opposite way i think . But it addresses valid points such as too much detail, and priority struggling in the lighter areas, i see that now, thanks. I'll try to tone down the palette while keeping a bright, colorful, "saturday morning cartoon" style.

edit: new version

and a wip "weapon draw" animation

oh, and it's to display at ye olde 320x240 screen resolution.

edit: and a wip Aries

[Helm]

The newest one is a great step forward, but if you're not adverse to adding new colors, you could always keep the lightness range you've got going and just add 2-3 colors in he darker areas.

[Turbo]

Funny how at a certain point, one makes what he thinks is the best that can be made in his capabilities, and when critique is given and faults are encountered and dealt with, the last iteration shows progress relative to the previous ones, beyond that initial though of "best that can be done".
Thanks for the tips, and the help! I'm glad it's more agreable now, it certainly wasn't a smooth process of me being able to move myself away from seeing the work as finally done and "correct", to adapting to be able to see the aspects which where under critique.
I'll experiment with adding more dark shades, which will surely bring more depth... though i've refrained from doing so due to the light colors of the subject (white + yellow main colors).

[dtek]

Hi, one thing I can add, speaking of pushing the Saturday morning style, is it seems that some subtle porportions are lost in your interpretations, I mean looking at the old game sprites your version looks much slimmer with shorter arms, here's an edit

[Turbo]

Nice catch dtek. I have a habit of over-stylizing, and lost a bit of the cartoonish-ness. I'll rework the proportions.Thanks!

edit: worked on some wip animations
Apollo Aiming + Quick firing:

Aries Attacking, together with some different poses tryouts:

Aries Jumping


Probably a bit premature to post these, but posting ends up being self motivating. Still haven't adressed the latest crits, but will do.

edit: some experimentation with stances, i think i'll go with the one indicated by the arrow. It seems the most balanced and the one most indicated for the kind of attack movements i want to have him doing (kali based two-stick attacks). Doesn't look as dynamic as some other stances though... will look into that.