Shape and shading of character...

[Technocrat]

After making goodness knows how many characters for games that never got completed, I think my understanding of the human body shape is improving. On the other hand, I don't think my grasp of shading at the pixel level is keeping up with it. Granted, I can now see what a difference it makes to a character to has any degree of shading at all, but I have difficulty visualising how things like the shape of clothing dictate where to splodge all that darker colour.

Any input appreciated!

[Anian]

Hmm, from the same perspective of not understanding that much of practical application of light theory, but probably less experience than you (I try to avoid it as much as I can and besides that, most of my characters don't make it to the shading phase), I think the legs are okay, again they might have something wrong, but I don't notice it.
The thing I kind of notice is that there's shading in the middle of the torso and I don't really get, even with clothes folding, what would be making that shadow and yet lighter tones closer to the hips. I think the source of light is not visible, that might help.

[Khris]

I'm always having trouble with painting properly shaded clothing myself, so my only advice right now would be not to continue drawing on a background colored like this, to avoid bad color perception and exploding eyeballs

[Technocrat]

True, I usually draw on "transparent" background anyway. I've changed the backdrop colour to make it a bit easier on people's eyes!

[Khris]

Ideally, you'd choose a color that has about 50% saturation and brightness. Drawing on pure white is equally unsuitable. A medium grey is best.

About the shape: I'd loose a few pixels at her left side of the torso.
Her skin is really dark, too; separate the hair and face more.

[Technocrat]

(Skin shade brightened)

Is that her left, or our left you were thinking she could do with a few pixels snipped from?

[Matti]

Much better.

I tweaked a few pixels, mostly for fun. Maybe it helps.



I still think her right arm looks a bit uneasy, like she's going to punch someone.. or something. I don't know if that's on purpose and maybe it's just me..

[Technocrat]

Ah, thank you! Every tweak helps!

Also, trying the front and back view now as well.




The feeling she's going to have is "fear of imminent danger", so I think maybe having the arm like that could work well. I'm trying to get her to look less like a bodybuilder on the front view, though!

[Ilyich]

Overall, I think it's quite nice as it is.
I'd suggest you to be more careful with your choice of colours, though.

Use a wider range of hues, more tonal contrast and a smaller pallette. 12 colours is enough most of the time. Pixel art should be crisp and precise.

Quick colours edit:

[Dualnames]

Illyich, what an edit. Really. It gives an anime kind of vibe to the sprite, and you only played with colours.

[abstauber]

Look, even less colours

 

Although I've to admit, the shading on the 2nd 3rd sprite is a bit sluggish. Generally I'd suggest that you start only with 3 tonal values of each area:
Here we have the suit, the skin and the hair. Now create a palette with shadow, midtone and highlight - or better start with the midtone and then make it darker and create shadow. After that add the highlights.

What also helps: select a global light direction at the beginning of your game for all your sprites. Or better - cheat and light everything from the top

A nice tutorial about sprite shading is here:
http://steve.neonstar.net/fighter1.htm
http://steve.neonstar.net/fighter2.htm
http://steve.neonstar.net/fighter3.htm
http://steve.neonstar.net/fighter4.htm
http://steve.neonstar.net/fighter5.htm
http://steve.neonstar.net/fighter6.htm

(on site navigation seems to be broken)

[cat]

Finally someone reduced her butt. She was looking way to big in the backview compared to the frontview. The sprite looks more balanced now, good job abstauber!

[Bulbapuck]

But I like big butts! And I can not lie.

[/pointless post]

[cat]

Nothing against big butts, but the backview did not fit the front and 3/4 view.

[Technocrat]

The posterior volume was bothering me as well, but every time I tried to get rid of it, the shape of her body seemed wrong!

Wow, lots of help here! I think I'll be cobbling it into a kind of compromise mix.

Also, thanks for the tutorial links Abstauber, that's the kind of thing I've been looking for!

[Andail]

Way too short legs.
For a while there she had the proportions of a midget. It's better now but they're still really short.

[Calin Leafshade]

My thoughts:



I know I'm not an artist but I enjoy doing these little paintovers.

[Anian]

I think that's a bit too much of a torso stretch, Calin.

[abstauber]

Way too short legs.
For a while there she had the proportions of a midget. It's better now but they're still really short.

I assumed she had slightly bended knees, since James wrote ""fear of imminent danger". But agreed, with extruded knees my legs were too short.