Some sprites.

[CharlesGabriel]

Well, as I stated in my introduction, I have been spriting since january 2009. I'm currently learning and practicing and trying to improve myself... my original characters, as well original sprites in general I will be using them in an rpgmaker project I'm currently developing. Aside from that, I also sprite characters from different commercial games, for fun, and to see how well I can do them.

Here is the latest character I made, in between yesterday and today... I don't use a tablet, raw mouse, in fact I am actually afraid of even touching a tablet haha... I make all my sprites in a program called Charamaker1999, which most people who develop games in rpgmaker 2003 use. To make the commercial sprites, I usually look at the artwork of that character, as reference, so I can cover as much details I can based my current knowledge.

*image removed*

I take a lot of notes, and self-apply myself in details, such as how much time it took me, etc... Here is the usual sheet of how I make my sprites:



As you can see in the sheet, I usually start without doing the skeleton lines, but jump straight into making circles, then I separate the colors of the circles according to the different parts of the body ex. green is skin, blue is clothing, purple can be clothing or skin that is in front of the body in blue, etc...

While I build the poses, I tend to change some things too, it all depends, a few times I change my mind and in even some cases. I would like to hear some criticism on this sprite. Thanks in advance.

EDIT: I actually want to show you two more sprites, one from february, and one of my first sprites from january.

february:

*image removed*





january:
*image removed*

[Zeal*]

Wow you are amazing , I like them alot.

[CharlesGabriel]

Wow you are amazing , I like them alot.

Thanks for that.

[Pizza Tom]

It looks like you could take out a lot of colors in all of your pieces. It's a problem I sometimes have too, where each part has it's own palette (eg skin has it's own colors, then clothes, then armor, etc). There's also some rather harsh outlines in areas that don't really need them, such as between colors on the same piece of clothing. I don't think I could properly do an edit to explain better, so maybe someone else could help you out there.

Other than that, the characters seem a little stiff and don't convey much emotion, with the possible exception of Fei Fong Wong.

Hope that all makes sense. 

[CharlesGabriel]

It looks like you could take out a lot of colors in all of your pieces. It's a problem I sometimes have too, where each part has it's own palette (eg skin has it's own colors, then clothes, then armor, etc). There's also some rather harsh outlines in areas that don't really need them, such as between colors on the same piece of clothing. I don't think I could properly do an edit to explain better, so maybe someone else could help you out there.

Other than that, the characters seem a little stiff and don't convey much emotion, with the possible exception of Fei Fong Wong.

Hope that all makes sense. 

That's something I have been avoiding... I want each part of the sprite to have it's unique set of colors though. Back when I started I used to observe some sprites, and I noted that a lot of them have the same colors for the hair and let's say the armors... which is kinda like a turn off in my opinion. On the color limit, that's another thing... I first started using only 3-4 shades of colors, but then I'm working with 5-6 shades now, and plan to keep it that way, since I am still working on the outline shading, which I plan to use 2 colors for it, and then 4 for the rest of the filling of the parts... what I want to achieve is colorful complex sprites.

I know that some inner parts would look better with just eliminating some of the lines, I noted that when I was making that sprite of Shanoa, like the armor as an example... I would prefer to be able to use those outlines still, maybe with another color that blends the pieces better.

Now I don't understand much of what you meant by emotions, a more detailed explanation of this would be great though.

[Gil]

I think the color use in these could use lots of work. I think it's very hard to harmonize a color palette with completely separate ramps and given your current skill, you're not pulling it off. I'd use Regulus' advice and reuse a lot of colors for different ramps

I'd also drop the lineart fase. I see you use lines to represent folds, then shade over them, creating creases (like you'd see in a rock) instead of realistic cloth behaviour. Try draping a piece of cloth over a chair and watch the soft interplay of light creating the volume, it's not something you can represent with a line.

Try shaping volumes with blots of color, instead of walling them in with lines before shading.

[NaCl]

Hey Antifarea, pretty nice stuff. I think the characters are designed well, but their execution could be better, especially the anatomy. If I were going to say the one thing that hurt the pieces the most, I would say it is the position of the arms, not colors or shading (though those could be improved too). The first two peoples arms are positioned very awkwardly, like they are rag dolls. When the arms are are hanging down unengaged, they move away from the body slightly, with the top of the forearm muscle the farthest point out usually. In your first guy, they are pointing way too far out, and in the second they are too close to the body. I edited your initial mannequin (where the problem started), to hopefully show you a more natural pose for the arms:



This was pretty quick so the anatomy isn't great, but I was mainly editing the arms. In general, I think you should spend more time on this stage, making it look right because it will have implications in the final piece that will become more difficult to correct as you go forward. Right now it looks like you just slapped a few shapes together with the oval tool and moved on.

[Gil]

I'd also like to point out there's a lot of banding issues on the first sprite, definately a work point, especially on the staircase banding, it tends to stick out really bad...

[EyeCraft]

Hello, and welcome.

In terms of artwork: poses too stiff, anatomy off (NaCl is right on the money with his post), pillow shading rather than defining lightsource, a lack of contrast, mostly due to lack of shadows and highlights due to lack of lightsource, interior line work flattens the forms considerably.

In terms of pixelling: a tonne of banding going on (entire of 1st one's torso, the shoulder pads, the face, the hair; 2nd one's torso, face and hair; 3rd one's belt, shirt trim, etc... it's almost everywhere), excessive colour waste has already been mentioned; try just using 6 colours TOTAL and try to focus on rendering the form with shadow and highlight before escalating the colour count.

I'm going to work on an edit to show you what I mean.  

EDIT: Btw, nice logging of productive time. Good practice.

[Jad]

SHADING EDIT GO GO GO



Err, I'll try to keep it quick!

Without criticizing the lines and colours I want to raise some points regarding the shading.

What you're doing now is more or less subtle pillow shading, that is to say, you fill an area with a colour and then you buffer it with a shade colour where it touches the outline! O:

Thing is, it makes stuff look like .. err .. pillows? Well, with the subtle colour scheme you're using it doesn't look like huge blobs, which is a good thing! Anyhow.

Picture 1: It's your picture! The left leg, I feel, looks extremely flat with some bumps. Do you see what I mean? It feels like it's made out of pillows, but still without a lot of depth.

It also appears to me that the light source is directly in front of him. That's a bit weird, either he's standing in front of a lamp or it's dusk/dawn. Just something to think about!

Then the right leg (i mean our right), here I just emphasized how the equal priority makes everything feel like it's made out of the same kind of blobs. The image next to it is there to emphasize how everything seems to be the same kind of blob shape! It doesn't really LOOK like that, but it's an explanation of WHY my brain gets the 'somthing is off' feel here. Since we probably don't want that, let's do something about it!

Picture 2: This is simple: It's your picture with all shading removed. It's MUUUCH easier to reshade stuff if you actually just wipe all colours and go from there. PLEASE try it! Be brave! Destroy your stuff! This is digital art, you can always save something and go back to it later! Destruction is essential for creation!

Also note how I added some of the black he's got in his eyes there in the outlines. Also trying to defeat flatness! More contrast helps tricking the eye into seeing depth in a 2d image!

Note the arrow. It points towards a middle-stage between 2 and 3. I just blotched out where the highlights WOULD be on the leg if the lightsource came from above. With practise this comes easier and easier and It shouldn't need to take lots of time.

HERE IT IS ESSENTIAL THAT YOU DON'T GO INTO DETAILING MODE! You know when you just stop thinking about what you're doing and just go ahead and fill in the little spots and play around with details - do away with that in this stage! You have to think about visual priority and WHERE the light hits the surfaces STRAIGHT ON, and place the highlights there. Think like a computer!

And yeah. Picture 3: I just threw in highlights here and there, note how I make some areas decidedly bright and others decidedly dark, see, you don't need to use all shades everywhere - it looks smoother if you DON'T and take care to place the colours where they MATTER! I also raised the light source. Take note of the side-leg reference, and how I tried placing my shades to where the light hits stuff - combined with emphasizing parts that are important for the viewer, such as where the knee is, etc, to make it easier for the viewer to understand what he's looking at!

Also note that the foot, running with this logic, should probably be brighter in my edit. Right on the top.



ALSO:

A/B:

This is an example of banding! I urge you to zoom in and study the staircase banding going on here! See that when each band of shading switch lanes at the same time - it all looks completely disjointed!

A has banding, it's taken from the side of the body of picture 1, but with extreme colours.

B is an example of how using carefully placed buffer shades you can create more smooth results with the same colours. Although it's flawed, I used just a single pixel at one stage and that just makes the curve stick out in a bad way. Heh. Don't do that!



This image might also help!