[WIP] Evil Rat

[Jorund]

Im working on this evil rat sprite for some friend.



Ive done some pixel art, but always end up using some ps effect, the burn tool for shading or some special brush.
There are several things I don't like: the shading/light, the face (specially the mouth) and the paws.

This were my first attempts:


Reference

Any comment will be helpful  

EDIT:

I made some minor changes to the body, the face and the shade/light:

[Gil]

Some references for you to look at:

http://www.wayofthepixel.net/pixelation/index.php?topic=9041.0

[Jorund]

Some references for you to look at:

http://www.wayofthepixel.net/pixelation/index.php?topic=9041.0

Thanks a lot, that will come very handy when I'm making the animation.

[EyeCraft]

What is this for exactly? Is it part of come project, or just an art piece?

Very dark. Hard to read without really concentrating. Try lightening the background, and adding more contrast to the rat.



Make sure your palette gives you enough range to shade effectively. You have mostly darks for your fur, then it jumps up considerably to the highlight. Evening your values will give you the freedom to nail down the shading.

Also there's a lot of colours that aren't needed, especially when everything is so dark.

[Jorund]

What is this for exactly? Is it part of come project, or just an art piece?

Sorry about that. I forgot to put the background where the rat will be running.



Here I put both your edit and mine in the background.
Also, there's no need to worry about the palette. My friend index them as bmp, so I can use any range of colors.

Since the background image has soooo many colours, I think that a tidy palette like yours contrast too much. Don't you think? Maybe I'm just not use to that type of colours.

I really like the shade and highlights you made, I think I'll use some of that, but with some of the colours I'm already using.


Here are some others things I made for my friends game. Just to show you that he doesn't really care about palettes or pixels :

This was one of the first things I made:


Thanks a lot! 

[Jorund]

So, I started the "front" (don't think I should call it front, since it's view from a semi top):



By the way, how it this perspective/view called? Is there anywhere I can learn more about it.
I'm having a lot of trouble doing a four legged animal. Don't know how to make the body. It looks very thin 
When I did the front from the horse I showed before, I did only the front, cause the rider would hide (or, so i guessed back then) the back of the animal.

Any suggestion, will be very appreciated.  

PS: Does anyone have a good reference picture for the "top front" and "top back". I can't find anything good. I'm using this one: Rat Albino

[Jorund]

I changed the brightness and contrast with Photoshop:


Then I changed the length of the body. I think it's better, but it still looks weird:


I really don't know about the length. Now looking it, maybe the larger looks bad because it's thiner. 

[Manupix]

Looks better lighter and shorter.

I'd suggest giving it highlights all around, almost an outline, because of the dark bg. Could be worked out as a 2ndary light source, I think.

Not really helpful probably, but I can't resist linking to this video. I'm amazed at how he just doesn't see the robotic camera despite the spotlights, but feels something's wrong only very close to it. 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IMWuyDLpwTw&feature=related

[CrazyMLC]

Are those two perspectives meant to be used together? At the very least they look very strange next to each other because one is a bird's eye view and the other is a profile view.

The rats look hairless, at least to me, mainly because they are oddly shiny.
Relying purely on dithering alone wont give a hairy appearance.
On both the profile and top view there is a clear line between the hind legs hand the main body, this makes it look like its been chopped in half and sewn back together.
The body has this big flat area of gray behind the head, and it really does look flat.

The weird background makes it hard to understand or interpret the pictures.  (Please use a solid color.)

[Jorund]

Are those two perspectives meant to be used together? At the very least they look very strange next to each other because one is a bird's eye view and the other is a profile view.

I know, but honestly, I never understood quite well the perspective in this game, here is a small screen:

Now, that I'm watching it, I think I should change the bird's eye, to a more frontal view.

The rats look hairless, at least to me, mainly because they are oddly shiny.
Relying purely on dithering alone wont give a hairy appearance.
On both the profile and top view there is a clear line between the hind legs hand the main body, this makes it look like its been chopped in half and sewn back together.

I'll work on that

The body has this big flat area of gray behind the head, and it really does look flat.

You mean this parts?:

The weird background makes it hard to understand or interpret the pictures.  (Please use a solid color.)

Sorry about that, I'm working with that background, because that's where the rat gonna be. The next update I'll upload in this background, and also a solid one.

Thanks a lot for the critics. 

[Jorund]

Temple/Castle (Not PixelArt) Background:


Solid Background:


Now that I shrink it further, I think i'm waaaay wrong. Maybe I should go with a full frontal view.

¿How is the Zelda/Tibia/Pokemon/etc perspective called? I think, that this game, at least tries, to have that kind of perspective.
The thing is, I think Zelda, doesn't have profile view for the sides. So... I don't know.

[Gil]

I'll help you out

Your rat needs to be exactly half as high on the southward facing sprite as it is wide on the eastward facing sprite. That's the classical perspective used in 90% of the oldschool RPGs, including the screenshot you showed.

It's basically a variation of isometric, but rotated 45° to have the four cardinal directions facing in up, down, left and right. This means that a barrel (which doesn't have corners), should look identical in isometric and this perspective.

I hope that helped.

[Jorund]

I'll help you out

Your rat needs to be exactly half as high on the southward facing sprite as it is wide on the eastward facing sprite. That's the classical perspective used in 90% of the oldschool RPGs, including the screenshot you showed.

It's basically a variation of isometric, but rotated 45° to have the four cardinal directions facing in up, down, left and right. This means that a barrel (which doesn't have corners), should look identical in isometric and this perspective.

I hope that helped.

It did, thanks a lot. There's a name for this perspective? Or it just called classical?
What about humans or antropomorphic creatures (which are very narrow)? Is there any guide/page, which I can learn more about this classical perspective?

This is what I've done so far (I know the head is too big compared to the body, but I like it , maybe I should make de body a little bit bigger, or make the body even more frontal):


I still need to fix the side sprite.   But I jump to other part of the project or even to other stuff when I get a little stuck.

Thanks for the help  

[Jeremy]

I think that for a human it means that the length from, say, chest to back, would be half in the up/down of the left right. Isometric perspective also makes things half as "tall" as they really are, but is on 30^o lines

[Gil]

The perspective is still called isometric technically, but you'll find it referenced as "topdown", "bird's eye", etc., which are all vague and maybe even incorrect terms.

I tried to show some extra construction lines you have to consider and edited a little. I probably took it in an equally wrong direction.

Try to make a wireframe and reproject it into the south facing direction. Remember that all lines on the Y and Z axis need to be halved.

If you look down on the nose from a 45° angle the nose still needs to be in front of the paws. If you look at the blue line, the ears need to be in front of the back paws too