AuthorTopic: just Rat now... (revamp)  (Read 11324 times)

Offline NaCl

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Re: just Rat now... (still v3 + Paintover)

Reply #10 on: November 26, 2008, 10:26:22 am
I see what you're saying. I made another edit, and what I did was

- connect the leg to the body, by reducing the darkest pixels between it and the body
- scooted the butt back so that his angle was correct for his leg to stick out. Right now his body is almost directly sideways. I made him a little more angled
- left a lot of highlights on the leg, as you like

My edit doesn't look great, but I think if you just rotate his butt slightly clockwise, and reduce the light different between the leg and body it will be good.

Offline Rosse

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Re: just Rat now... (v4, flat-shaded now)

Reply #11 on: November 27, 2008, 09:08:24 am
I see what you're saying. I made another edit, and what I did was

- connect the leg to the body, by reducing the darkest pixels between it and the body
- scooted the butt back so that his angle was correct for his leg to stick out. Right now his body is almost directly sideways. I made him a little more angled
- left a lot of highlights on the leg, as you like

My edit doesn't look great, but I think if you just rotate his butt slightly clockwise, and reduce the light different between the leg and body it will be good.



Thanks a lot. I tried to adress your crits in my new version.


I made a new attempt of this sprite. I abandoned the "full shading" because it's hard to make it believable at that size while having enough color identity (my old sprite lacked in that) and making it easy to read (pose). I tried a "flat shading" style now to make it more readable and giving it a "easy to read" color. Additionally I broke the outline where the butt and the feet meet the ground to meld them together.
I lost a lot of volume with this step, but I hope to win a lot of "clarity" which is very important in pixelart.

flat-shaded <-> full-shaded


Any thoughts?

Offline Bonahe

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Re: just Rat now... (v4, flat-shaded now)

Reply #12 on: November 27, 2008, 02:55:31 pm
The flat shading looks like a game character, and the other like a web logo, any chance you could tell us what its for?

Offline dock

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Re: just Rat now... (v4, flat-shaded now)

Reply #13 on: November 27, 2008, 04:30:25 pm
I much prefer the flat shaded. The other one is hard to read for me, and the eye and ear merge into one. In fact, those ears could probably do with being a pixel further back, they're very close to the eyes right now.

Offline Rosse

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Re: just Rat now... (v5, flat-shaded now)

Reply #14 on: November 28, 2008, 03:22:54 pm
The flat shading looks like a game character, and the other like a web logo, any chance you could tell us what its for?

Hmm, it should be a game character. Thats the reason I use a outline and don't AA into the background. But I had no intentions to use it for a game or something. It's just for practice.

I much prefer the flat shaded. The other one is hard to read for me, and the eye and ear merge into one. In fact, those ears could probably do with being a pixel further back, they're very close to the eyes right now.
Thanks a lot dock. Your right about the ear and eye of the full-shade version. Since I threw that version away I won't work futher on it but I will pay attention to make a better seperation between details in future sprites. Thanks for pointing that out.

In the latest version I just changed one pixel in the ear/mouth and made a slightly palette alteration. It's very hard for me to choose nice looking colors in ProMotion just with the RGB+HSB sliders. I like the photoshop-way much better (with the preview).

new <-> old


Should I call it final?

Offline Bonahe

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Re: just Rat now... (v5, flat-shaded now)

Reply #15 on: November 28, 2008, 04:40:47 pm
mmmm, in my book yes, but you might wanna change it, I cant see nothing though.

Offline Rosse

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Re: just Rat now... (final)

Reply #16 on: November 29, 2008, 09:01:51 am
mmmm, in my book yes, but you might wanna change it, I cant see nothing though.

Sorry, I don't understand what you mean. Could you explain it in other words? (english is not my first language)


I have no idea how to color that sprite, so I opened it in photoshop and played a bit with it. But I haven't found any inspiration to continue. When nobody has a idea how to color that sprite I think I stop here.




Then let's call it finished and make a final comparison.

newest <-> oldest



Thanks again to all which tried to help me.

Offline TrevoriuS

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Re: just Rat now... (final)

Reply #17 on: November 29, 2008, 03:33:34 pm
B4, really. It just has that hint of more contrast. For a flat shaded version this is fine, for a more realistic shaded version, you shouldn't go as you have done so far, but just add surface and texture information in the shading transitions and add a slight bit of contrast in the darkest and deepest part. It shouldn't be all smothed out with 4 more colours, actually 1 or 2 would be enough if you apply it to define more information, rather than more smoothness.

Offline Opacus

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Re: just Rat now... (final)

Reply #18 on: November 29, 2008, 05:16:04 pm
I myself prefer A2, just because it's nice and vibrant. 1A doesn't have enough saturation for my taste. Well it can work.
But not a a fun cartoony mouse.
It think B4 is also nice, but A2 is a little more interesting.

Offline Dogmeat

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Re: just Rat now... (final)

Reply #19 on: November 29, 2008, 06:52:39 pm
I feel like something was lost in the process. It seems almost like you completely dropped the structure of the character and instead of polishing/shading/whatevering him, you opted for a simple mode with basic colors. I really think this could use some lighting and a little more definition.

If I had to choose though, any of the ones in row 3 are awesome, especially 3D which is my fav :)
Daisuke Nagano Yokoyama