AuthorTopic: Sir Galakid  (Read 3890 times)

Offline LoTekK

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Sir Galakid

on: July 27, 2009, 05:10:51 am
Ok, that was a horrible name, but I figured I'd put down a temp name for now. :p
This kid is the result of a random brainfart on Saturday, when an idea came to me, and I started tossing around some mechanics and art styles in my head for a platformish sort of game. More on that later, but for now just know that the sprite is of a kid playing knight, as many of us may have done as kids. I'm planning to change the shield, so that it's less of a shield, and more of, say, a pot lid. Still WIP; crits and suggestions are more than welcome.



I'm approaching this guy a little differently from my normal experiments, in that it's larger (64x64), and I'm trying to go with fairly discrete areas of color (as opposed to my usual inclination to anti-alias and overblend the hell out of my pixel stuff). The latter stems partly from the former, but also because I'm planning to animate him and get him into a playable prototype eventually, after I put a mockup together.

Self-crits:
Still trying to figure out how best to approach the left side of the head (currently "outlined" with midtone skin).
I can't put a finger on this, but he's not looking young enough. In my head I was thinking adolescent, a young boy playing knight and saving his town from invading monsters. I initially had the cooking pot higher on his head, and lowering it helped make him look younger, but I may have to play with the body proportions. Any suggestions on that?
« Last Edit: July 27, 2009, 05:23:00 am by LoTekK »

Offline xhunterko

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Re: Sir Galakid

Reply #1 on: July 27, 2009, 06:39:20 am
Looking younger. I always read the same thing on that one. Bigger, roundish(?) eyes, larger heads, and short bodies. Maybe increase the head size just a bit to allow for larger eyes and ears. Also I think your shading is a tad off as well. Right now, you have a light source shining down on the kids pot helm from the right it looks like. However, on the arms, shirt and legs its coming from the left. I was going to say something about the sword but it's probably wooden so forget that. Although it may need a bit more texturing though. I'm really focused on his smile right now and nothing else. Maybe a bit more detail everywhere else then? That's my thoughts anyway. (I don't mind the name at all really. Kind of playful, made up on the spot sounding.)

Offline LoTekK

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Re: Sir Galakid

Reply #2 on: July 27, 2009, 07:22:25 am
Not sure I'm going to go with big eyes (I'd made a bunch of design sketches while brainstorming, and ultimately preferred the bead/dot eyes), but I'll definitely play with the body-to-head proportions. Oh, good call on the ear; I'll play around with making it bigger.

On the pot-helmet: Doh! I completely missed the fact that i'd lit it from the opposite direction. Cheers for the spot. :p You're correct in that the sword is wooden. I was playing around with adding some sort of texture to it, but for now sticking with the aforementioned discrete chunks of color. I don't have the resolution available to do wood grain, and I'm hesitant about something too noisy, since it'll be animated. I'd definitely welcome suggestions for that, though.

Also, spot-on about it being made up on the spot, lol. I literally made it up as I was prepping to type in the thread title. :p

[edit]
Only made minor tweaks to Sir Galakid, but any knight worth his salt needs a trusty steed; got a start to that. It's still early, but the main shapes are there (though I'm still playing with the silhouette of the head). It being a quadriped, I'm going to hate myself when I start animating things. Not sure if I'll tilt the dog's head towards the camera yet. Might help tie the two together, perspective-wise?



[edit2]
I might go back to the drawing board with the dog, after a friend made an offhand mention of a jack russell. More comedic value with something he really shouldn't be able to ride. But does so anyway.
« Last Edit: July 27, 2009, 04:53:07 pm by LoTekK »

Offline xhunterko

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Re: Sir Galakid

Reply #3 on: July 27, 2009, 11:39:56 pm
Very nice changes there! I'll see if I can't find something about drawing pixel art kids. But while the pot is fixed and a bit more detail is added on, there's still a small problem. On your pot helm, you have roughly four shades. Whereas the shirt and cross on it doesn't. That makes them look to me a bit uneven in comparison. I like the little highlight shading on the dog. Makes it look like a waning summer day. Might want to copy that highlight over to the boy and especially the pot. The sword looks nice though. I don't know if adding a third shade would make it look like metal or not. But definitely work on the shirt and arms. That will also help draw some attention awat from that overly large smile. Might want to consider slightly making that smaller maybe. (Shiny teeth for a retainer maybe?) Your probably not done shading yet, but maybe the one color legs and feet might use some work. Or if thats part of a style choice. Oh! And one more thing. I stole this from a crit from one of my old threads. I'm sure it didn't help me like it intended to, maybe it'll help you.

Offline brigadon

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Re: Sir Galakid

Reply #4 on: July 28, 2009, 01:04:50 am
How about 'Kid Lancelot'?

It's not been used for any games, as far as I can tell.

Offline Tobe

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Re: Sir Galakid

Reply #5 on: July 28, 2009, 04:28:24 pm
Hi Lotekk :)

I love the theme as it gives the game tons of possibility.Any chances of sharing more info about the game?
I'm actually imagining an old school beat'em up with children in their crazy fantasy world. It'd be awesome.

Anyway, back to the art...
I thought he didn't look boyish enough. What I did was to give a more boyish features.
More roundish head shapes and a bigger eyes.
For the eye, I just lengthen it with an extra pixel, and you can have have it with the beaded eye.
I also changed the nose to a separate style because I thought you had some readability issue there.
So here's my edit...


Oh.... something I realize after my edit was that the tone of your color seems abit too desatuated for children? Then again, I'm not sure of the exact theme of the game, so I might be wrong.

Cheers!

Offline LoTekK

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Re: Sir Galakid

Reply #6 on: July 28, 2009, 06:27:59 pm
Any chances of sharing more info about the game?
When I start to sort out the mess of mechanics and ideas bouncing around in my head, I'll be sure to do that. :p As is, I've got a bunch of stuff noted down and am figuring out what might work and what might not. At its heart, though, I'm thinking something platformy and somewhat exploratory (I'd say Metroidvania, but that'd be putting entirely too much pressure on myself :p).

Cheers for the edit. I'll have to see what I can take from that, but the main thing, I think, is the mouth-head ratio and possibly the eye height. Good spot on the saturation. I still have a tendency to go with desat colors, and while I attempted to use more saturation, I went back and tweaked the saturation and hues pretty heavily after you mentioned that. Good call on the shield curvature, too. I'm still thinking of making it more like a metal pot lid, but I haven't had much time to work on it.

xhunterko:
I'm still undecided on how much I'm going to shade the legs, but I'll definitely be playing with a couple of styles. The shoes are also going to get some love for sure. As for shading, I'm still struggling a bit with how much I want to add shades. The way it worked out, which sort of matched my thinking, is that the pot is pretty shiny, and thus needed more of a value shift from highlight to shadowed, hence necessitating an additional buffer shade. I'll go back and take a look at dropping a shade (or adding shades to the rest of him, though I'm already up to 15+1 now).

Actually, it just occurred to me that it might serve me well to add a bit of back reflection/rimlight to the dark side of the pot.

Also, cheers for the dog gif. It's kinda funny, because I've had that in my ref folder for a couple of days now, after coming across it in a google search and positively falling in love with it. :)

brigadon:
Hmm, actually, that gave me the idea of Kid Arthur, which might work nicely, what with the partial homonym. Cheers. :)

And a smallllllllll update (haven't had much time to play with this). Tweaked the dog's head so he doesn't look like a Saint Bernard, shifted the kid's jaw inwards and tweaked his chin. Also the aforementioned saturation tweaks.