[WIP]Wee People

[PsiGamesInc]

So since my last share of the Retro Room I've been working on a few different art projects, my latest is a collection of Wee People. The idea came from playing some of the older Leisure Suit Larry games (as far as design), and from a few people I met when I was a child.

V1--->----V2---->

Passion Update ---V2--->

First two would be Lil' Bobby, and White Mike. A little story behind the two would be Lil' Bobby was a kid I went to school with who always wore purple, and White Mike was a little boy who grew up in a predominately black neighborhood and one of my best childhood friends.

As far as looks as you can see isn't purely based on the people but rather personality along with the theme of the set. C&C Welcome so I can improve, but I'm mostly just sharing one of my projects. Also any tips on doing the lower half would be greatly appreciated since I'm not too good with legs, and feet positioning, and perspective.

Edit: Added the third character Passion, C&C would be nice on how to make her a bit more feminine looking. Thanks in advance.

2nd Edit: So I worked on Passion more since there where a lot more changes needing to be made than the other two. Worked a bit more on lighting, however there is still more of the design needing reworking. Thank you to all who have offered advice, and tips on making the characters look better.

2nd Edit Pt. 2: Ok I really wasn't happy with the second update of Passion, it just didn't turn out how I wanted it to so I decided to rework it a bit. I went more towards the original shape with a bit less cheeks then the first, but not as narrow as the second. Also did a bit more work on blending the colors on the face and less dramatic shading. Hope this one looks a bit better, really trying to apply some of the advice given but still keeping it my own work.

[bengo]

The problem here is definitely not the line-work, I think its how you rendered your work, so I've done an edit of one of the kids to fix this issue:

Study how things react to light! I hope my edit is helpful.

[PsiGamesInc]

Thank you very much for the insight, and yes I need to work on shading and lighting more but for this style I'm going for more "cartoony" non-realistic looking characters.

I do like the  on the edit but I think it really takes away from the whole theme of the set which is to be reminiscent to Leisure Suit Larry. Thank you for the tip it will be very helpful once I move to more realistic creations.

[Tourist]

The characters are great.  They look like little muppets with googly eyes.

Bengoshia has a point about the lighting, although I think the edit has too much contrast and I don't like the changes to the hairline.  Maybe try and shade them like muppets instead, with a large smooth curvature across the whole face.

To make the new character more feminine, use a round head instead of square and weaken the jaw a lot.  Also make the eyebrows weaker.  Here's my take (no changes to lighting):



The left and right halves are a little different, I was experimenting.

Hope this helps,
Tourist

[EyeCraft]

Thank you very much for the insight, and yes I need to work on shading and lighting more but for this style I'm going for more "cartoony" non-realistic looking characters.

I do like the  on the edit but I think it really takes away from the whole theme of the set which is to be reminiscent to Leisure Suit Larry. Thank you for the tip it will be very helpful once I move to more realistic creations.

I think what you're really looking for is just very simplified forms. The concept suggested in Bengoshia's edit is simple to apply light to form, which I agree with. Your current pieces are simply flat colour with light and dark outlines hugging each other, which seems to me like the ultimate way to flatten something.

Looking at LSL (I was looking at LSL7), the backgrounds have form, but the characters are rendered in flat colour. However, they make up for this with very exaggerated basic forms (like the majority of classic cartoons); look at Larry's head in that link, strong understanding of form; his body is the classic flour sack shape, and of course animation is used to show the shape of the subjects.

The emphasis on strong basic forms isn't as present in your current pieces. Straight-on view angles and a bunch of straight lines making up the body is a considerable deviation away from the style of LSL, or indeed any of the cartoons LSL's style is based on.

[PsiGamesInc]

Thank you very much Tourist that is exactly what I was looking for. I was focusing on following the look of the other two rather then stopping and thinking how much "softer" a girl's face is than a boy's. Thanks for drawing that to my attention.

@EyeCraft,
I Think I may be explaining it wrong, and putting too much emphasis on LSL. I'm not looking to make a clone of the character or even really clone the art style. What I was aiming for is the "cartoony" style of LSL, and the colors, however I suppose the style would be more reminiscent of Hey Arnold!http://cdn1.ioffer.com/img/item/372/476/51/o_Hey_Arnold_1.bmp.jpg rather than LSL, but the idea came to me while playing LSL. I don't deny that lighting and shading would add more depth to the piece, and I fully understand what bengoshia is saying and very grateful for the tip, however the edit they did isn't the same vision I have in my head. This is still a WIP so yes it may not be fully based on anatomy, lighting, etc... at this point, I'm just trying to put together the characters before I finish them up. Thank you for your post, and advice I am truly grateful.

Ron

[bengo]

Well I guess if you're not willing to change a single thing in your work, we can't help you, also, Hey Arnold is rendered with a light source all the time and in the link you've shown, they all have dynamic poses showing off their form, your poses lack depth and they don't pop out due to their gray color scheme. I'm not saying you can't keep it that way but it seems you're not willing to budge, its your call to sacrifice fundamentals for 'style'. I can understand flat color, but you are not doing this with your people! I actually see an attempt with rendering on the girl and I see weird attempts of rendering with the other two, for some reason you're making it so certain things are outlined by a bright color and then again by a dark one, though its hard to tell since your palette has no pop to it, but you can see it if zoomed in, for instance on the purple jacket. I am sorry friend but I am no longer up to the task of really helping you, you are on a critique board, you must accept and consider critiques, not assume them to not be apart of your master style plan, which I would like you to explain what it is you really want, because Hey Arnold and Leisure Suit Larry both contain a good amount of contrast and sometimes will even be rendered, examples for Hey Arnold:
http://images.rottentomatoes.com/images/movie/gallery/1114598/photo_12_hires.jpg
http://thecia.com.au/reviews/h/images/hey-arnold-6.jpg
http://ia.media-imdb.com/images/M/MV5BMTY1NTIyMjc5M15BMl5BanBnXkFtZTYwODE0OTc3._V1._SX485_SY279_.jpg
I see Leisure Suit Larry having being rendered as well:
http://games.holyfile.com/upload/screenshot189-0.jpg
http://www.spectaclerock.com/spec/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/eve-leisure-suit-larry.jpg
But I'm guessing you're referring to more along something of this: http://www.virginmedia.com/images/Leisure%20Suit%20Larry.jpg ... but once again, your work on the pieces does not show clean clear cut work like this, its not just a block of color with an outline, and to be frank, its hard to see much of Leisure Suit Larry's style or Hey Arnold's in your pieces, perhaps use more reference? This goes back to the problem of how you DID actually attempt rendering it, you can tell, its obvious from the girl's neck and right side of body, on the blonde haired child's face, the black child's face, etc. So tell me, what do YOU really want from your piece? This seems like you did not think ahead, I suggest you draw out some quick sketches of what you want and think of what will work, not what you're doing now!

Note: Don't take this response too seriously, it was fairly poor written due to the fact that I wrote it around 1 AM, half-awake. I'm just wanting to help.

[PsiGamesInc]

Ummm bengoshia what are you talking about? Never once did I say I wasn't willing to change anything...I've been nothing but kind, respectful, and grateful for the help you and the others have given me, I simply said the edit you made wasn't the idea I have for the characters, and even thanked you for your advice. Yet again thank you for the advice and I appreciate it, still you haven't even seen the updated version so how can you say I'm not willing to budge?

Whether you continue to offer advice or not I still appreciate the tip on lighting/shading and it will come in handy with future projects, but I think you're reading way too far into the text cause for the life of me I can't see anywhere in my posts where I came off as I wasn't willing to take C&C...I even said in the last post it is a WIP and still undergoing changes...Anyways I would still like any tips and advice anyone has to offer.

Thanks,
   Ron.

[bengo]

(This post was intended to be helpful not hurtful, so I hope it comes off as such, if not I apologize in advance for any discomfort I may have caused you.)

Never once did I say I wasn't willing to change anything...

"...  yes I need to work on shading and lighting more but for this style I'm going for more "cartoony" non-realistic looking characters."
"...I fully understand what bengoshia is saying and very grateful for the tip, however the edit they did isn't the same vision I have in my head."
"I simply said the edit you made wasn't the idea I have for the characters"
You also just go ahead and say it will be helpful in future projects, not this project, so perhaps you're willing to change something but you've said (or at least, implied) time and time again that my edit is of practically of no use in this, which I still disagree, because as said in my previous post, you can tell you attempted rendering the sprites. Anyway I'm just trying to show you where I got the feeling you were, dismissing my edit.

I do like the  on the edit but I think it really takes away from the whole theme of the set which is to be reminiscent to Leisure Suit Larry.

Fair enough friend but as I've stated again and again, you attempted render work on this sprite, what I've gathered from the 'style' in Leisure Suit Larry is that large masses of shapes and bold lines are used in order to create the feeling of depth, in place of rendering, so lets see how we can make it more towards that, unless of course you were aiming for something else...

What I was aiming for is the "cartoony" style of LSL, and the colors, however I suppose the style would be more reminiscent of Hey Arnold!http://cdn1.ioffer.com/img/item/372/476/51/o_Hey_Arnold_1.bmp.jpg rather than LSL, but the idea came to me while playing LSL.

As stated in my previous post the cartoon show Hey Arnold! will render from time to time, I'm guessing the main reason you tend to not see rendering (in Hey Arnold!) is because well, costs more money to do that but in the movie, with a much bigger budget, its obvious it is used: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AclAdQGF3EI But I digress, are you saying that it came out looking like Hey Arnold! or that that was what you originally had planned but the idea just sparked while playing Leisure Suit Larry?

But lets forget about that, I was only trying to show you that planning ahead in a piece will save you trouble and will help you see the final product better (To do this I suggest many preliminary sketches, it is what I do for a piece, too). Anyway, lets deviate from my original edit and see where we can really go with this, now we have two ways we can go with this, Hey Arnold! or Leisure Suit Larry, so I'm going to try to get a bit of both in this edit. You've stated you do not want rendering on the sprites as to make it more cartoony, so I shall do this and apply aspects from both styles in order to come to a resolve:



Now I hope that this edit will help you out much more than the last one, friend, I have tried to get more of a Leisure Suit Larry feel in this than a Hey Arnold! feel, because I feel thats what you sort of wanted in the first place. Now good luck with your pixel piece and I'm hoping my new edit helps you.

[NaCl]

I think the problem is that newer artists say so often, "I am going for a cartooney style". Nothing wrong with doing a cartoon style, even though it was made pretty much to expedite animation, but usually when someone says it they are really saying, "I have no interest in improving this piece". Not necessarily saying that is the case for you, but you're throwing the baby out with the bathwater on Bengoshia's edit. Never expect an edit to fulfill whatever stylistic goals you are pursuing, everyone has their own style, and is unlikely that the editor will be versatile or want to spend enough time to really pin down your style and imitate it. Regardless, edits can teach you a lot.

I think the thing you dislike about his edit is how he volumetrically sculpted the face, instead of using lines to do it, but the change to volumetric is only one thing he did. He also vastly improved the colors, and though your current ones may seem OK to you, they lack contrast, and are quite boring, the subject seems washed out and bland. He also did some gross shading, on the jacket and hair, that is pretty common in cartoon styles. The same problem arose with EyeCraft. He was totally correct about how forms are displayed in cartoon styles, but you disregarded that. He was hardly even talking about anything to do with style, representing volume is one of the basic traits of art, it is shared by virtually every style.

Tourists edit is good for what it is, an incremental improvement on the lines, but the others were suggesting a more fundamental change. I haven't seen the edit you're working on, but I doubt it addresses the fundamental flaws. You've been plenty nice and respectful, but don't substitute that for understanding and learning.