[WIP]Maka Albarn, some scythe chick.

[AerosolSP]

I'm trying to learn to sprite people so that I can make my own sprites in a game I'm making. Admittedly, I probably should be working on the engine, but I can hack together one of those in a relatively short space of time.

In an effort to sprite people, I decided to sprite a character without using an pose reference at all. Here is what I can up with (after a little bit of C+C from both Pixel Joint and Mugen Guild).



I would like some more C+C though. Please? I'm actually getting rather desperate! Thanks .

[Squiggly_P]

Welcome to the boards

I'm gonna start from the bottom and work my way up from there:

The feet feel off to me for a couple of reasons.  First, they're both flat on the ground plane, which doesn't really look natural, but also because of the way they're pointed.  She's more or less facing towards us, yet the foot directly under her is a side view, which is hard to do if you try doing it yourself.  Here's an edit to show what I mean:

Personally, I think that feels a bit better.  Not the best edit in the world, but you get the idea.

From the waist up she looks pretty good.  The hands could use some work.  It looks like she's wearing mittens and her hands are kinda small.  I like her face and the head, but you can see the scyth behind her head, and that should be covered by hair.  The blade on the scyth is also a side-view sort of thing, and if she were holding it to the side like that it would be going THROUGH her head, not behind it. The coat looks good until it gets down to the waist and the legs and then it keeps spreading out.  It'd look more natural if it fell more vertically down, and maybe if it draped around her instead of flattening into a triangular shape.  There's a hint of a curve on the left side (our left), but it still feels very flat.

The pole on the scyth doesn't look like it would support that much weight, but I figure that's just a stand-in or something.  If it's not, then you'll probably want to give that some more weight, and maybe make it more than just a straight line.

I won't really comment on the pixeling work, since I'm also pretty new at it and I've not got a great handle on that aspect yet, but there are some red pixels at the top of both legs that don't seem to add much.

Anyway, you mentioned that you didn't use any reference, and i'd say that you probably should.  Not pixel art reference, but photographic.  Look at photos of people in a similar pose, or grab a mirror and be your own model.  Best way to learn how to draw, paint or pixel something is to look at what it is you're trying to replicate.

[Tourist]

Looks like a good start.  I like the details in the character design, like the white gloves.

I'm just a beginner too, but here is what I see.

The outline (particularly the scythe) has a jagged edge.  The edge should curve with an increasing slope, it shouldn't have any reversals of slope.  There's a tutorial here: http://www.spriteart.com/tutorials/01_lines.html that shows you what I mean.

Using absolute black for the outer coat makes it a tough to do any blending or anti-aliasing.  Maybe try RGB 64, 64, 64 for a dark gray.  That will give you a little color space to darken outlines as needed.

The experts around here also recommend not to use a white background, but a color with mid-level brightness, or else you can throw off your color scheme.  Some suggest mid level gray, I use a light tan for my stuff.

The lines on the plaid skirt form a perfect grid, but the skirt isn't perfectly flat, it curves around her hips.  The lines near the left and right edges (our left and right) should angle I think.

Half of her face is missing.  Is this supposed to be that way, like a teenage version of Hela?

Nifty character.

Tourist

[AerosolSP]

oh, I'm sorry guys. This isn't my character! It's from an anime



thank you for the comments so far guys

[tehwexxl0rz]

"some scythe chick"

"an anime"....

Why can't you just say Soul Eater?!