Pixelated anatomy studies + more animation

[Scribblette]

Edit: Just wanted to say a big thank you for all the help. Have effectively started over for realizing I'd missed too many fundamentals here and studying chunks of Loomis. Battling away ingrained muscle baby syndrome and learning to draw somewhat more adult looking faces. Will return.

Some recent updates, new to old:


Animated meat bags there for contrast with new stick poses.

Cutting down on colours, incorporating facial features, necks and slimmer shoulders. Advice welcome on animation framework, trying to work from basics.

Will be seeing how gear looks at this scale before restructuring older side views & animations.

Regarding animation, intention was a 4 frames walk cycle, with frame 1 & 3 probably identical idle positions (such as in RPG Maker games) and smoother mid-frames & idle poses for later progress, but advice hard to get unless it has more to start with. Perspective of the world is that traditional, wonderfully skewed 3/4 view where sprites manage to look you flat in the eye while miraculously shuffling along at a 45 degree angle to the ground.

[Beoran]

Edit:

I edited the frame that I liked the most, being the experimental edit on the left. Can you see what I did? Made chin smaller to make face more feminine, made feet more flat to look less like boots, legs and torso longer for better proportions, boobs up, etc. It's easier for me to show that to tell, so I hope the edit speaks louder than words. Oh, you're free to use my edit for whatever, I'm not anal about copyright. ^_^

My advice to you is to worry less and to try to just have fun drawing. Then, just keep drawing. You'll learn more as long as you keep practicing and challenging yourself. Secondly, get some reference photos from the internet. Plenty of nudes out there, so pick the ones you like. You may want to use your image processing software to scale the body of your reference down so it's 3x the size of the head, as to get the same super deformed proportions you're looking for.  And, please, don't be prudish. Draw the nipples! Otherwise it's difficult to see if the breasts are formed correctly or not.

[tehwexxl0rz]

The proportions seemed a bit off.... Hope this helps!

Edit:

[Scribblette]

Ta for the edits!

Wexx - I've been staring at my own so long I can't properly see what's wrong with them. Your work definitely looks more feminine. Hopefully I can glean something from it.

Beo - I didn't think of making the chin more feminine. I might be able to do it without changing the outline much - thanks! Someone else explained that about nipples to me too - they help convey direction of the breast, etc. Cheers

Might get to update tomorrow. Need human references soaked in oil so the shinies explain the highlights easier 

Edit: Some superb references at Fineart.sk, but I remain confused over the belly button and shoulders. I see the button portrayed as higher in sprites here, and the dark line that marks the shoulder/neck line on reference photos is wiped out as a highlight. I don't understand why. Likewise with the shoulder line. It looks to me like 1, 2, 1 pixels in the slope angle from neck to shoulder in the references, so that's what I've tried to mimic.

Trying it all though. I realize there are things that might be wrong and I can guess what they are, but for some reason I just can't 'see' it in my head. Dang it.

[Scribblette]

Edits so far, work continues.

Have tried updating the feet and breasts based on input. Breasts higher, belly button up one, hips wider and thighs increased in length, feet less bootish, several slight variants above. Although it may be more feminine, a stronger curve to the shoulders seems to be be throwing off the perspective a bit (or the eyes?) - and I'm yet to figure the shading out. If anything, her legs seem too thin now.

Haven't found a reference at Fineart.sk with highlights on the shoulders as provided edits, so not sure how to do that different.

I'm not too worried about the shape of her face. I find Beo's chin was too pointed, yet trying to accomplish it with internal shading gave her a 5 o clock shadow.

[Beoran]

Just a suggestion for the shoulders.

Oh, and not to sound harsh, but I think you should try to decide yourself what look you are going for. It's difficult for me to see which version is closest to what you want it to be. I think it would be easier if you told us which is your favorite edit.

[ndchristie]

Boobs are silly.  Shrink by a great deal and notice - even on this little number, breasts are not stapled to the collar, they start lower.

The neck has some 'roid action going on.  remember that the neck is not wider than it is thick and must attach properly within the collarbone, not over/on it.  Also the shoulders are very broad which gives them a stange relationship to an already strange set of bodily proportions (deets in next lines...)

She goes from bitty belly into nice strong thighs without hips in between!

shins seem a little like "well, we gotta connect things somehow...where's my rectangle tool?"  I suggest taking st0ven's advice from the other thread at least half-way and figuring out how to properly form and space the legs.

other than that though things are looking good and the technique is quite smooth and swish .

[Scribblette]

My initial response to that was a YATA!! in my best Hiro Nakamura (american accented Japanese included) but then the link distracted me...

NDchristie - Are you saying I should lower the breasts one pixel, as per some of the original sprites shown - that is, if they were Tifa-size? I'll try again to down-size them.

And what are hips?



I actually had an indent in mid-tone there to indicate them earlier but my curvy GF had me remove it. Heh. I'm guessing the hips won't require killing the curves, but I'll find out on editing.

Shins and calves I've remained clueless on despite studies - I'd read through Beo's thread but my previous attempts at splitting the legs left them looking quite bizarre. I'll take another look at St0ven's edit in the morning.

Beo - cheers. I've noticed that making the shoulders that gradual makes the arms look strangely long. Might try it with shorter arms.

[ndchristie]

I actually had an indent in mid-tone there to indicate them earlier but my curvy GF had me remove it. Heh. I'm guessing the hips won't require killing the curves, but I'll find out on editing.

I think you need less indent and more bony protrusion in line with the navel.  because our organs are housed within our ribs and pelvic structures with the abs and obliques stretched in between followed finally by fat and skin, you'll find that even in curvy girl or even fat people that the ridge of the hip is quite easy to find.

[Mathias]

These are going to turn out well. Everyone's got huge traps/neck.