640x480 Woman Sprite.. [Update: New Sprite from Scratch]

[poc301]

Hello everyone.  I have hit the bane of my existance head on..  Women..  Well, drawing them, rather..

I am not very artistic, and am lucky enough to have (through the help of people critiquing, suggesting and painting-over on this forum) gotten myself a workable male character sprite set to use in my past two games.  All my moving, walking, acting characters in my Episode 1 and Episode 2 are male characters.  All females were just standing still and I was able to use still images rendered into cartoony shape for the games.  The only problem is that these characters, though stationary, were not blending in well with the game.  They obviously stood out as they weren't uniform with the other people in the games...

For my new game (Episode 3), I want to make ALL characters myself.  I want them all to be hand drawn sprites so there is a uniformity, and I can animate and move them.  I am looking to have a much more comprehensive experience with this game.

That being said, I have realized I am Horri-bad at drawing female sprites..  I started with the base of my male character (which is what I do with my male sprites, and change them size/complexion/clothes-wise), and tried to make it female..

Here is what I came up with :



The sprite is 640x480, and I think the waist looks kinda off, the breasts don't look proportionate, the shoulders might be a little to broad, and the legs...  I just couldn't get them right..   The face..  That is the face of my main character with redder lips, blue eyes and long hair..  How can I make the face more feminine?  Maybe higher cheek bones, or a slimmer face? 

Does anyone have any suggestions for me on how to make this lady look more feminine?

Thanks in advance!

-Bill

[bog]

i'm not an expert at anatomy but i can see a couple of flaws:

- shoulders too wide
- no ribcage
- waist a little too thin maybe
- knees should be lower
- ear should end at bottom of nose. face overall looks kinda male

I'm wondering, since you're going for pixel art, why the hi res?

[Hudders]

As bog touched on above, you need to look at female anatomy from almost the opposite direction to male anatomy. Generally speaking, females have wider hips and narrower shoulders whilst men have broader shoulders and narrower hips.

The problem with the breasts is that there is no definition there and they almost look like they're just the design of the dress. You need to be bolder with defining the shadows beneath and to the sides of them. You also need to continue the cleavage above the neckline to make it more obvious that these are actual shapes held beneath the clothing.

For the face, try thinnner eyebrows, fuller lips and a jaw that isn't so square.

[twentyfour]

I agree with Hudders and Bog's points.

I think you may be better off starting from scratch(though this is a good first attempt). Starting off with a male model and working to female is like starting with a dog and tryin to make a cat.
Her stance can have a huge effect on her femininity, right now she's kinda stoneish and manly. Pop a hip out and put more weight on one foot. Have her arms follow the curve of her body a bit more. Dudes tend to walk arms bent out ( ) and ladies tend to walk arms bent in ) ( ... obviously that rule is a bit of an exaggeration but it helps get the gender idea across quickly.
Watch the curves on her legs. They are pretty meaty right now and don't have that nice sexy curve of the calf.
Fuller lips, curve the brows(maybe lighten them up?) maybe give the hair a bit of life as it just hangs now(bein a bit picky there though)

A great link for some pretty lady drawings for reference is Rodguen.com Kinda not safe for work. Provocative poses with a slight chance of nipple(this NSFW weather report brought to you by Channel 5)

Good luck!

[poc301]

Ok, starting from scratch..

I decided to convert a real photo to pixel art, simply because it would have proper proportions, and look more like a real woman than I could ever draw free handed.

I used this method : http://kafkaskoffee.com/tutorials/phototochartut.shtml


Here are the original and the pixel version.  I then shaded it (also below).  I am not fully happy with it..  I think it needs better shading.. Anyone have any tips for me?  I want to get it to fit in with the main character sprite, which is at the bottom of the post.

ORIGINAL:



INITIAL PIXEL VERSION:



SHADED PIXEL VERSION:


MAIN CHARACTER (Trying to make it uniform with this sprite):


Hmm, in retrospect, my main character sprite kind of sucks lol.  Maybe I will re-tool him to be a bit more on par with the fluidity and human-looking nature of the converted female sprite...


Thanks,

Bill

[poc301]

I'm wondering, since you're going for pixel art, why the hi res?

Because the game is hi-res due to the backgrounds.   I didn't have any digitized walking sprites or characters, instead I have the pixel sprites.  Since I am horrible at artwork, for background images I use real-life images converted to a cartoony/dreamstate/rendered look to fit with the pixel sprites.  If I left them real photographs, I think the pixel art would look even worse.

But I guess all in all I like the higher res games better, so I am going that route.

You can see screenshots of them together at my website : www.billandnicole.net/games

Thanks,

Bill

[Matti]

Hm.... if you're only able to draw characters in a pose/quality like that woman by overpainting photos I guess you'll have genuine problems with animating them. Are you sure you wanna do that?

[poc301]

Hm.... if you're only able to draw characters in a pose/quality like that woman by overpainting photos I guess you'll have genuine problems with animating them. Are you sure you wanna do that?

I don't really have a choice, unless I find someone willing to do a female pixel set / walkcycle for me at 640x480.

There are walkcycle tutorials out there that I can use to attempt to animate the traced image.

I am more the story/programming type of game designer.  I have just enough skill at art to make something roughly recognizeable as human or a brick wall.  Thats about it  

The other option is to modify the existing male set like I initially tried to do.  But really scale it down and make it look more female.  That way I already have the animations ready, I just need to fine-tune the sprite itself.

-Bill

[poc301]

Mr. Matti made me think...

I decided to give another go to my initial sprite (which I have the ability to animate), and using the suggestions from earlier, along with references from the new one for proportions, etc, etc..  I think I was able to get much more of a female figure..

The face still needs to be modified, I need to shade the legs, and maybe fine tune them some...

The dress..  I need to figure out how I want to shade it.  Maybe put a pattern on it, or maybe something else, I don't know yet.

Any suggestions are welcome, as are comments and criticisms on the new sprite.  The woman is a married mother of a 12 year old boy in my game, and is helping with the murder investigation, so no crazy sleazy stuff can go on

Thanks again for all the comments and help guys.

OLD SPRITE         NEW SPRITE

           


Thanks again,

Bill

[Kastchey]

I made an attempt to 'feminize' your sprite and this is how it turned out:


There might still be some anatomy and shading issues, but this is just a quick paintover.

[poc301]

I made an attempt to 'feminize' your sprite and this is how it turned out:


There might still be some anatomy and shading issues, but this is just a quick paintover.

Wow, very nice.  I think mine does still look a little frumpy and dumpy..  I will take yours and play with it some and see what I can get.  Thanks much for the help.

-Bill