Attempting sprites on my own.

[DBoyWheeler]

Hey, all...

Since gaining help for my game is a bit slow, I'll try making the sprites myself.

So you know, I still have the paint shop file with un-merged layers to work on animations, but I saved a separate file for the front, still view.

So, here's what I attempted with Lydia so far... and I'll post progress here as I go along.



See, since I have a bit of experience with sprite making with regular Game Maker (which I use for platform action games), I decided "why not use what I learned from Game Maker and apply it to Adventure Game Studio?"  Again, I still have the original paint file with unmerged layers so I can work on the animation when needed, but here's what I got for a start.

I have it a short height since I got the sprite size from Demo Quest 3-1--Cris' sprite was 109 pixels high, and I want to try to make sprite details slightly minimal.  As for animations when I get to them, I'll just use Ali's trick of how he animated Nelly Cootalot, and move Lydia's arms to imply walking.

[Update] I made a few small changes as Scavenger recommended.

[CaptainD]

Well I'm no expert, but that looks pretty good to me!

[DBoyWheeler]

Well I'm no expert, but that looks pretty good to me!

Thank you for the vote of confidence.  My hand-drawing skills with pencil are hit or miss, so having it on computer helps in correcting stuff somewhat.

[Scavenger]

Okay, I did a little paintover. It ain't that great, but it shows some things I want to bring up.
[imgzoom]http://i.imgur.com/NhBJZSc.png[/imgzoom]

Firstly, pixelling eyes is incredibly hard. You must get the right amount of life in them without making them look uncanny. One way to combat the uncanny is to remember that the pupils must always touch at least one side of the eye, or you'll get a shocked or glassy, doll like eye. And when you're dealing on the pixel level, you sometimes must sacrifice accuracy for style. In order to get that look, I merely used the darker pupil colour and the iris colour to create a general "eye", instead of an eye with an iris. I added a little shadow at the top to give the eye a little more depth. Her hair was simple, just a pixel's more width seperated it from the head and gave it some volume.

For the body, I evened out her proportions to make her a little more feminine. Slimmed down her breasts and lowered them (remember - real breasts are further down than you think - they begin around armpit level, not shoulderblade level! If they do that, they're probably fake), and gave her a bit more of a curve in the waist and hip. The strap flows around her chest, and I just gave her cape a little more depth by darkening the inside and putting her hands inside it.

The base sprite wasn't changed all that much, I just tweaked it a bit. Keep it up, you got some potential

[DBoyWheeler]

Ooh!  Thanks!  Think you might help in my project perhaps?
[Update] I followed some of your tips and readjusted her breasts a tad.  I may make her form's feminine curves more noticeable when she's walking.

[Scavenger]

I'm afraid I have a lot of work to do on my own game to do! I'll be working on that from now until Doomsday.

You can do the sprites for your own game. I believe in you.

[DBoyWheeler]

Yep, thanks to your pointers, I made a few small changes.  I lowered the breasts a bit, made a few minor changes to her eyes, and did a small adjustment to make her slightly more feminine (it may not be noticeable at first, but they're there).

Thanks for the pointers.

[Adeel]

Hello Danny. I just took the time to consider your sprite. It's very good, actually. You are already far ahead of me, when I started drawing sprites on my own . Scavenger's Lydia looks great but looks like she's bored or annoyed.

However, Danny, your improved sprite still looks somewhat bland due to the lack of shading. I used your sprite as a reference and added some shadows in it. Here's my improved version - feel free to use it (since we are already a team), if you like:

[imgzoom]http://websolutions.freevar.com/Images_Upload/lydia_by_adeel.gif[/imgzoom]

Improvements (starting from top):

• To be frank, her hairstyle was the main thing which was destroying the natural beauty of your art. I changed it to my favorite hairstyle (which I love to see in girls ).


• The eyes still looked like she's in shock. I lowered her eyes a pixel or two.


• I removed your entire white outline from the eyes which made them look similar to tennis balls. Instead, I merely added a white pixel near the lower eye on both sides.


• The color you chose for her lips made it look like her mouth's open, adding the overall impression to already presented shock. I removed it and made them to look more feminine. Plus, I also used a variant of pink to give her natural look or pink lipstick look - your choice. I also made her lips short (and juicy ). For more reference, please see: cat's avatar.


• Previously, Lydia's breasts made her look like middle-aged woman. Just by adding a pixel, I made them round. Thus, making her sexy, plus, giving her a youthful look. Since (not intend to sound like pervert) most young girls have round breasts. (be sure to verify in your vicinity - but don't get caught ).   

Shading is just a clever use of same color but using different variant of it.

My rule of thumb is: make your outline darker and then make your shading-color a lighter (but not too lighter - it should be somewhat-dark) shade of that dark color. Then outline every line of your sprite with your home-made respective shade colors.

Then be sure to shade those areas completely which you want to look behind. You'll understand more clearly what I intend to say by the following log of my shading work:

Shading:

• No shading for hair. It'll not make a difference. Unless mixed black and white is what you want to achieve.


• Where there are hair, its natural that a shade is formed on your forehead unless your hair are literally sticked with your head. So, I added a shadow outline below her hair with the same color you used for drawing her nose.


• First, I made your cloak's outline color, more darker. Second, using a lighter shade of the same color, I inner-outlined her cloak. Notice that I also outlined her hands because naturally when your hand is front of your clothes, it'll surely cast the shadow on the clothes.


• I shaded her breasts so that they would appear to heaved, sexy and gave her more feminine (and hot) look.


• I also shaded the sides of her waist so that it would look like she maintains her body and gives a youthful look.


• I shaded her belt too. While you may get away without shading here, but it'll give more realistic look especially when zoomed in.


• I also shaded her bracelet but that doesn't make any noticeable difference.


• I also outline-shaded below her bag's strap, so that it would appear that bag is an extra thing she's carrying - not a design of her dress.


• On her strap's buckle, I added darker shade of your color on the bottom-right corner for - you know why: to give it a realistic look.


• Her earrings were not obvious before. Normally, the lower part - which swings happily below the ear, is more brighter. Therefore, using the same shade color I used in the buckle: I added a dark shade pixel on her earrings' top pixel.


• You outlined her hands by shading - good job. But you left in the middle, so I completed the outline using same color as your's.

Rest assured, its the same sprite as your's. However, as you'll know by now: shading makes a whole lot difference. Good luck on your project and make sure to download this image and check it in your drawing software (since browsers show zoomed, small images blurry).

P.S: I have surprised myself. I just loved my improvement! Not to flatter myself or anything as such, but I'm happy that I tried to help you since it showed me that my drawing skills have improved (oh, yeah!) much . However, there's still room for more improvement, for example: you may draw her eyebrow, but I leave that up to you.

EDIT: Remember to shade the entire surrounding cloak near her hands (since it is behind). I forgot to do that. Never mind. I've fixed it.

[xil]

I'm not a massive fan of the 4 pixel eye and I agree that scavengers (although it looks fantastic) does make her seem a little pissed off with the raised eye brow etc - I think his eyes would fit an idle view animation perfectly

With that being said, here is my attempt at the eyes - I used Adeel's version as I agree with a lot of the points he made so it seemed appropriate to use it!

[imgzoom]http://bwdhosting.com/ags/lydia-cr-paintover1.png[/imgzoom]

Here is what I did:

1. Added new eyes!
2. Made head a little more round at the top
3. The belt was casting a shadow that meant the sun was sorta 'top left' so I did a few subtle shades to represent this
4. I wasn't a massive fan of the skirt either so I thought I'd have a quick blast at showing an alternative (sorry it's very rushed!)
5. I liked the hands in scavengers version so I made Adeel's look more like them.
6. I gave her more of a neck!
7. Re-did the bottom of the cape
8. Pulled her hair in a bit by her neck

[DBoyWheeler]

Thanks, all.  Um, my Paint Shop when I resized the pencilings kinda forces me to make the sprite just a tad blocky.  Probably the pixels per length setting.  I'll try to remember this the next time I do spriting, and maybe try to set the sprite up BEFORE shrinking it.  If I try to make too many changes at this point in my game, it'll probably take longer than needed.  So for now, maybe we can pretend the sprites are RotN style (to a small extent).  And, as stated earlier, maybe next time I'll remember to flesh things out (and do the transparency) BEFORE shrinking (if I try to set up transparency after shrinking, a weird antialias of sorts throws things off--something I learned in making Game Maker sprites in the past).

[Scavenger]

Wait.... what?!

Shrinking? You're shrinking blocks of colour into pixel art? That's the only way I know that could possibly result in someone using "shrinking" to describe the pixel art workflow.

I don't think that's quite the most... efficient workflow. Zoom in in MSPaint and use the pencil tool, download Aseprite, Graphics Gale, or any pixel art program. If you can't get an aliased line in PSP, don't use it. Once you're working at 1:1 scale, your work will be a million times easier.

[Adeel]

[...] I don't think that's quite the most... efficient workflow. Zoom in in MSPaint and use the pencil tool, download Aseprite, Graphics Gale, or any pixel art program. If you can't get an aliased line in PSP, don't use it. Once you're working at 1:1 scale, your work will be a million times easier.

I second Scavenger's tip. Use Aseprite. It is the best pixel art program you can ever find for drawing sprites and that too, for free (since Aseprite is mainly a program for drawing character sprites but can be used for other purposes too).

calicoreverie did a great job in improving the hands, cloak and especially the skirt. The skirt now matches with the rest of the art style.

I'll improve my sprite, taking points from calicoreverie sprite. (Danny, why don't you ask him to help you out?)

Regarding face I used for Lydia: It resembled the face of a tv serial actress and I like her. So I preferred to keep it that way. Come to think of it, I also made Lydia's hairstyle same as her.

Have a look at her photo:

[imgzoom]http://st1.bollywoodlife.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Zoya-200613.jpg[/imgzoom]

Here's another:

[imgzoom]http://img.india-forums.com/images/600x0/249578-surbhi-as-zoya.jpg[/imgzoom]

Beauty, isn't she? There are countless other photos of her on the internet but posting them here is unnecessary, not to mention tiresome. If you want to grasp the shape of her face more: Just Search: [lmgtfy=http://lmgtfy.com/?q=Zoya+Farooqui+-+Qabool+Hai]Zoya Farooqui - Qabool Hai[/lmgtfy]

[xil]

Yea I must second what Scavenger and Adeel say about spriting, you shouldn't be doing resizing, but you did say 'of the pencilings' which would be correct, because obviously you could be scanning in the pencil drawing and then resizing it, then putting pixels on top of the resized pencil drawing. However, if you are putting pixels on the page, finishing and then resizing it down, that's 100% going to make your life a nightmare. Choose your pixel height first, then ZOOM! It's good to have a window in which you have the zoomed version (for working on) and then have some other windows, maybe at 2x zoom and one at original. That way you can see how it's looking but still work on it easily. I don't think you need to change much apart from grabbing a free pixel art program.

I had a quick blast at making her resemble the photos Adeel posted a bit more (rather than the more anime route I took with the eyes originally), as I can't stress enough about those eyes being too blocky at just 4 pixels

[imgzoom]http://bwdhosting.com/ags/lydia-cr-paintover2.png[/imgzoom]

Unfortunately I'm a bit busy to help out any more than some critiques, but free free to use anything I have done for reference or just simply copy it, it's all yours

[Adeel]

Here's a more improved version. I used calicoreverie's improved sprite and tweaked some of the things to make it more good:

[imgzoom]http://websolutions.freevar.com/Images_Upload/lydia_enhanced_by_adeel.png[/imgzoom]

calicoreverie's improved it greatly. However, the cloak still seemed somewhat unnatural. It conveyed the impression that she has wings on her back, at least to me though .

Since a cloak can't end abruptly in the bottom, therefore it was necessary to draw it in the bottom. So I did.

Even though the bottom cloak is behind her but since she's wearing it, therefore it would show a little portion of the front cloak. Hence I added an outline to convey that idea.

I again added the shade under breast so that both would look balanced. Previously,  calicoreverie had removed by strictly following the lightning. But I don't follow it strictly, if shading looks good.

I again added a pixel to her breasts round again. I felt it necessary since the belt is in the middle of both and thus, it should create some pressure on them too thus making them more round.

Don't know why but when I imported  calicoreverie's sprite into my pixel editor, the design for her skirt disappeared. I had to make it from scratch. I am not a fashion designer but it was the best what I could think of.

Tweaked her hair and made them to look similar to the actress, I had posted above. I also improved the shaped of her head so the overall shape of her face would look similar to that of the said actress's face.

Kept the calicoreverie's styled eyes, but changed the eyebrows.

calicoreverie's gave her dark eye circles probably looking at the first photo. But this made Lydia look like she's suffering from some kind of illness. Therefore, I made the colors of her eye circles lighter.

Also shaded the belt this time, but it doesn't make much difference.

[...] Unfortunately I'm a bit busy to help out any more than some critiques, but free free to use anything I have done for reference or just simply copy it, it's all yours

No problem calicoreverie . Your & Scavenger's Art Skill are great!

The reason I can't help Danny with character sprites is that even though I've improved, I can't draw the sprites from the scratch. I can only improve already drawn sprites. That's why, for now I can help him only with scripting.

[xil]

It looks good - the eyes looks great, I like the cloak and the skirt is fine how you have it, it was just the dark lines of the first sprite that I felt were a bit too harsh on the eye and you're right about the breasts as well, it looks better with the shadow under both.

I enjoy seeing it in a game some day!

[Adeel]

Thanks, calicoreverie for your kind comments. You have taught me how to draw the eyes perfectly and many things more. Thank you very much . Copying experienced artists such as yourself and Scavenger and then incorporating it in my own style has led my skills to "evolve". I hope that I will become a good artist too, someday.

By the way, if I said anything that offended you or Scavenger, I am sorry. Its just that when explaining art, I say it explicitly but those frank words are not meant to offend anyone. They are just there to convey what I grasped by looking at it.

P.S: calicoreverie, I liked your initial design for her eyes and still feel attracted by it. Smart way of making lovely eyes along with eyebrow. Superb!

[Anian]

Draw a stick figure with proper proportions, a head, rib cage and hip shape and then on the stick figure mark where the joints go. THEN you draw the body and then you draw clothes, then draw the bag/satchel/purse and then draw the cape/cowl. Follow the steps, nevermind what top notch pros do, anybody below the level of pros that have drawn things billions of times correctly (and who have started with stick figures as well) needs to follow certain steps to get consistent anatomy and style.

Maybe something like this, you'll notice I gradually fixed the anatomy, muscle placement and jaw (to fit the actress more) from initial stick figure (and the hair might need a bit more contrast between outline and fill color):
[imgzoom]http://i.imgur.com/zXMBVBA.png[/imgzoom]
Good rule of thumb when drawing female anatomy - hips should be as wide as the shoulders (or perhaps more if you desire so) and a slight hourglass shape of the torso (width depending on what you want to achieve of course). Males, on the other hand, should have shoulders slightly wider than the hips and shallower hourglass shape. For almost any body type, those tricks give instant definition to the viewer if they're looking at a dude or a gal.

Scavenger gave a rather good edit, although there her legs are still a bit too short and arms too "manly" (and palms too big/long). But I'd try making a sprite without shading it, maybe never put it in (a lot of games don't shade characters), it'll make the animation easier and change in designs faster.

[DBoyWheeler]

Yeah.  As for the 1 to 1 pixel to whatever ratio, I tried it out on one of the pencilings I'm using for how I want the sprite to look.  Much of the penciling was intact in the shrunken size (if that made sense).  So I might do this with the rest of the sprites.

As for why her cape doesn't look long enough, well, if I showed back view, you'd see the cape doesn't reach all the way down.

But hopefully I'll get a little bit better as I go along.  Still, you have to admit, just attempting it on my own was a feat in itself.

Thanks again for the pointers, and I'll try them in future sprites.

[Adeel]

@Danny:
Listen to Anian. He has made some valid points. You should give his advices more priority than mine because he is my teacher (in a manner of speaking). Its because of him, I learned how to draw properly.

@Anain:
Nice tutorial. Not only it'll help Danny, it'll help me too. I'll try to improve my art using the tutorial, you have provided. Thanks for your help.

[DBoyWheeler]

Well, I have some how to draw books, so that's how I penciled it... it's just when I'm converting it into sprites that I start running into trouble.

But then, I forgot to set it to 1 pixel per inch or cm.  That may have been where the trouble started.  But live and learn, right?

I'll see if I can make up for it with other characters in the game, as well as for future games.