Pengo the Penguin Sprite

[Conexion]

9 Colors - A sprite for a possible 2D (penguin) platform game I'd like to work on. Will add a mock-up of the world soon. Any suggestions much appreciate as my experience in the past here has been nothing but top notch!

EDIT: Updates thus far

[Souly]

Perhaps try something smaller?
His feet really ruin it, they're too ovalish.

[Conexion]

Perhaps try something smaller?
His feet really ruin it, they're too ovalish.

I heard that before as well. Hmm, I'll see if I can make them more penguin-ish . I had based it off the 3D model I did of the character (http://conexion.deviantart.com/art/Pengo-The-Penguin-360-Model-36432099) . . . Also, you mean smaller feet, right? (Not resolution)

Thanks for your input!

[Souly]

No it's just that your sprite is quite large.
If you want to animate it it'd be tedious, and there's no real detail so why need to go so big?
The dithering on the feet isn't doing anything and the size isn't helping it.

Hope you get what I mean.
Scale down.

[Conexion]

No it's just that your sprite is quite large.
If you want to animate it it'd be tedious, and there's no real detail so why need to go so big?
The dithering on the feet isn't doing anything and the size isn't helping it.

Hope you get what I mean.
Scale down.

It is larger as I wish to have higher resolution graphics, in particular the tiles. It is based on a 50x50 tileset with the main character sprite being 2x2 tiles. It may take a bit longer to animate the 3 frame walking animating (among other things), but there is no reason I should have to reduce myself to 32x32 tiles or the like when we do not have the hardware restrictions we used to have. I'm not entirely sure why you're concerned about the time it will take versus a smaller tile, as I am quite aware of that.

From what I've gathered, you have 3 main points against the larger graphic.

1- Tedious animation.
 - I'm willing to work with the larger sprite size, that isn't my concern.

2- No real detail.
 - While many take advantage of larger resolutions to show more detail, I wish to keep it in a more simplistic style. You cannot tell me that if you took a 32x32 graphic and enlarged it to 128x128, you would achieve the same effect as using a straight 128px tile. I don't want my graphics to look like a low-scale graphic enlarged. I like the simple colors and style of the retro games, but much prefer the crispness of higher resolution grpahics.

3 - Dithering.
 - I'm using Dithering there as a tool for showing texture as well as limiting my color usage. I'm not entirely sure what you mean by it "isn't doing anything". Of course it is doing something. It is transitioning the colors while giving it a bit of texture. Sure I could add a color and do the transition that way, but artistically, that doesn't feel the same.

I really do appreciate your help, but I think you're assuming I don't know what I'm talking about when it comes to graphics inside of a game. I can explain specifically why I made a certain choice if you would like to discuss it, but don't try and correct something that isn't broken.

Thanks

[Souly]

1. With inexperience such a large sprite is not going to help you learn anything.

2. The feet at just the oval tool.
It's so large that these errors stick out like a sore thumb.

3. The dithering does do NOTHING, you have 1 row of 2x dither, wooo so much color transition.
You really don't even want ditrhering if you're going to animate this.

[TomF]

I'm with Souly on this, there's really no reason to use pixel art on this scale because the single pixel isn't really being utilized, you could achieve a better looking result with chunky cell shaded style graphics a la Wario Land: The Shake Dimension.

The dithering will add unwanted texture and will just be a pain to animate. Design wise I feel the eyes and feet are far too large but that's my personal taste.

If I were you I'd either switch to a different medium OR shrink the sprite and tiles down and work on a lower resolution. Preferably the latter. I'm looking forward to seeing some tiles etc.   

[Conexion]

I'm with Souly on this, there's really no reason to use pixel art on this scale because the single pixel isn't really being utilized, you could achieve a better looking result with chunky cell shaded style graphics a la Wario Land: The Shake Dimension.

The dithering will add unwanted texture and will just be a pain to animate. Design wise I feel the eyes and feet are far too large but that's my personal taste.

If I were you I'd either switch to a different medium OR shrink the sprite and tiles down and work on a lower resolution. Preferably the latter. I'm looking forward to seeing some tiles etc.   

Understandable. I'll play around with it and see how it feels. 100px is a bit to handle. I'll try to get a bit more done in just a bit and post it

[Conexion]

1. With inexperience such a large sprite is not going to help you learn anything.

2. The feet at just the oval tool.
It's so large that these errors stick out like a sore thumb.

3. The dithering does do NOTHING, you have 1 row of 2x dither, wooo so much color transition.
You really don't even want ditrhering if you're going to animate this.

I really like that design And I appreciate the very good feedback. I'm sorry if I sounded 'defensive' as that wasn't my intention there. I was simply wishing for clarification.

Here is a test sprite for a 64 px version. Any suggestions/ideas?



edit: small snow tile added. It's alright... but I feel like it could have more depth to it, yet nothing seems to be workin...



Brighter pallet:

[Souly]

Try and apply some of what I did to that smaller sprite should be easier now.