woman character sprite

[hanskar]

Hello everyone,


I've been working on a character sprite for some time now and I'm quite happy with the result so far. But I still think it could be improved on a lot of areas. I've been messing around for a few hours now, but every time the end result will only get worse, so I thought it would be time to ask help of more experienced pixel artists.



The sprite is based on the sketches.





I think I can see the problems, but I can't seem to get rid of them.
I think there are quite a few areas I need to work on, mainly the face, the color choices and making it resemble the sketches more (harder than I expected!!, I usually pixel things out of my head!)

comments and critique are very appreciated!


please don't mind the extreme colour count, I probably used almost identical colours a few times, I usually clean that up after the sprite is done

[Shrike]

Just a quick note- you'll find you work much better if you a set pallette beforehand.  It makes pixelling so much easier.

Can't stop to critique now, but the front opening in her shirt on the sprite is just noisy, and without the sketch I wouldn't know what it is- I mistook it for a symbol or something.  Might try working a bit bigger first.
Nice work.
Shrike

[Helm]

Hi, I hope you don't mind, I took the opportunity of recording myself editing your piece. I edited for about an hour. I made the video run at double speed, so 30 minutes. It addresses how I tend to remove excess colors from pieces I edit, and then it goes ahead and gives it a full makeover for anatomy, coherence, posture and stuff like that.

The video can be downloaded from HERE.

Also, here is the end edit on its own for studying.



There is no voiceover and/or textual explanation during the video because I guess... that's why I made a video instead of telling you what I changed. Enjoy a gazillion different variations of Pop Corn! though.


If you want my opinion, DON'T work like this. Don't use sloppy colors and then go through the process of making it into a controlled piece. Start controlled. Only add colors if their popularity calls for it. Do you need a single pixel color for a ring and stuff like that? Does the player notice? I can tell you that if you use a coherent, strong palette, the player does notice. And besides it goes against the concept of fine control that seems to be a benefit to pixel art to 'work messy, fix at the end'. Fix this bad habit now and it'll save you a lot of needless work.

Also while waiting for the video to upload, I did a different color set

[Tourist]

While Helm was doing his edit, I was working on one too.  I tried to stick to your outline.  His result is much better.

I'm embarrassed to post this, but here's what I came up with:



The anatomy of your original is off.  The legs are far too short for the arms and body.  I lengthened them by two pixels and they're still too short.  Helm's edit has proper proportions.

Ditching the black outlines gives you more pixels to use.

The lighting isn't consistent.  Too many places in the original have noise that confuses where the lighting comes from.

The sketches have big poofy shoulders, but your original pixel doesn't.

Helm simplified the face, I made it a bit more complicated.  I think my edit looks older (a small pixel of darker flesh under the eyes does this).  I also brought the ear in one pixel and hollowed the cheek to try and give the figure a longer face than the original.

I redid the hair, but I'm not completely happy with it.  Makes the character look like a Star Trek extra.  Helm's edit is much better than mine.  The original has too much noise in the hair and needs to be redone.

The bust was tweaked to keep the large breasts and open shirt but give the whole thing a better shape.  The shirt is absurd, but that what you had in the sketches.

Lengthened the coat to more closely match the sketches.

Hope this helps,
Tourist

[junkboy]

Not sure if a chibi-ish style is the most appropriate one to use if you wanna convey the idea of a voluptuous woman with big.. weaponry. It could work though if you polish it like the other guys suggested. Either way, here's a different take:

[Mathias]

Great character sketches to work off of. You obviously have a grasp on anatomy, yet it's not conveyed nearly as well in your pixels as it is in the pencils. But it looks like a certain pixel freak has already completely crushed all of your sprite's problems. The ironic thing now is that you'll find it painfully impossible to match that caliber with the rest of your game's art. Only with much experience will you attain the skill level of the ridiculous pixelers around here. I like to think I'm on that path but my projects aren't diverse enough.


And wow, thanks for the video, Helm. You must've been in the mood to fool around. I say that because you spent a good chunk of time just touching up/refining what he had before you began making large anatomy altering changes which required that you backtrack and re-pixel most parts you touched at first, when it seems it would've been far more expedient to evaluate the structural problems, fix them, then refine till complete. Of course, what you did was far more fun to watch since it served as a better example. Geeze, it's time to get into Promotion, I love that index color scrolling function. Screw Photoshop. And hey, what's wrong, worried the forum dwellers won't like your stygian mindrot scorne? Hehe, yeah I saw that! Give us the popcorn, while you pixel to blackcore. I know you really listen to 3OH3 all day, boy!


(crap, junkboy posts while I write . . . great rendition!)

[CrazyMLC]

Why am I having Final Fantasy VIII flashbacks? 

Personally I liked Helm's edit, but I think that we have a winner!
Chibi =/= Girls with big guns

[rikfuzz]

I'm loving the edits to this and the original character sketches.  Sometimes I draw a rough coloured high-res and scale down before tracing it with pixels, I normally wouldn't suggest it, but I think this inbetween might help you since there's a big discrepency between your large art and pixel stuff.  I don't mean to 'clean up' the scaled art - it's more tedious and you'll be learning the wrong skill - I mean actually pixel on a new layer using the background as a traceable reference.

[Helm]

You must've been in the mood to fool around. I say that because you spent a good chunk of time just touching up/refining what he had before you began making large anatomy altering changes which required that you backtrack and re-pixel most parts you touched at first, when it seems it would've been far more expedient to evaluate the structural problems, fix them, then refine till complete.

This happened because I wanted to work gradually, colors first, then anatomy and shading so that viewers could catch a good glimpse at the color replacing tedium involved in salvaging the palette. But salvaging the palette requires reworking of shapes and stuff as well because it's an issue of how clusters work together. Better clusters = less need for many colors. So I had to reach into the design pretty much at all the stages of  cleanup.

And hey, what's wrong, worried the forum dwellers won't like your stygian mindrot scorne?

If I was worried about Pixelation not liking the mighty Varathron or Mindrot, I'd have selected my music off-screen.