Black and white. (adult content warning)

[Chicky]

Looks like you could be making a battle royale game Jim 

[Jim Reed]

Heh, I forgot to tell you, this isn't a game, but a game concept and practice of my line art.

Scarab: Elongating his head makes him look weird, but I fixed his back and it now looks better, thanks!

Evil: Bah, you fool, your characters are worthless! I would never use them or draw something similar myself.

You can all observe I made 4! new characters from thin air now.
3x

[Matti]

Though I like the girl in the middle of the bottom I think her legs should be longer.

Btw, the original version of Evil reminds me of a character of mine. At least with a few alterations they look rather alike.

[Jim Reed]

Made the legs a tad longer. Added a girl admiring her fingernails.

[Danman]

It is quite amazing how many characters you made with just line art like that.
Are you from the 1980's or something  ?? But I think you shouldn't make the characters have
pointed elbows I just don't like it on the 4th last character.

[Evil]

I made something similar for a Sprite Jam back in March. Pretty tiny compared to what you're doing, but very similar in concept. Doubt that these will help, but I thought I'd share them anyway.

http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/yabb/index.php?topic=37013.msg487228#msg487228

As your characters develop and vary more, you might find it helpful to make standard height templates and adjust them here and there by a few pixels, that way you don't end up with a legs or arms that are too long or short. It's also not a bad idea to draw the resting stance of a character before posing them, this will also help arms and legs stay the same length.

Can't wait to see where this project leads you to. I'm curious how you attempt to tackle a background.


Edit:

Btw, the original version of Evil reminds me of a character of mine. At least with a few alterations they look rather alike.

For some strange reason, I frequently render women who like very similar to Chiaki Kuriyama. Hmm, I wonder why...  :

[Jim Reed]

Aye, Evil, those are some cute sprites! =D

This is not a game, just an experiment, but I did some b&w stuff earlier, and you need to have a while outline around characters so they can be ssen on a black background and such. That is really iportant.

Danman: Yes, some characters look a bit dated, must be all the afros flying around here. =)

To tell you a secret, the first guy looks like that man from Sin City (the movie) and the nail-admiring lady is a char drawn from memory from Wu-Tang: taste the pain/shaolin style (playstation1 game).

Maybe I'll do a background, who knows?

[Scarab]

I made something similar for a Sprite Jam back in March. Pretty tiny compared to what you're doing, but very similar in concept.

I think I remember these... but wasn't there a tree or something with them?

Back OT:

Coming along nicely Jimbo, although these are going to be a bitch to animate.
The last one seems to be a bit confused on her left side though; the arm struck me first as a bicep flex before a 'looking at fingernails' although I don't know how one would differentiate at this low-res. Her left

Spoiler

boobie

[close]

seems to be a bit pointy as well.

re. backgrounds:
If it was good enough for them back then, then it's damn well good enough for you, get to work 

[Jim Reed]

Haha Scarab, where did you dig up that? I'd be very glad if it was on spectrum, so I can play it on my mobile!

Animation is a pain in the behind, so I have an idea how to make it very less painfull. You see, the chars don't animate, They just fade in&out of the required positions (something like a comic), and have a few gestures for talking. It's hard to explain, but just magine them using only key-frames. I think it should make a stylish game, and as an added bonus, get rid of those hard to do and time consuming animations that I suck at. =)

Yes, the breast was an issue, I'm working on it.

* Jim Reed goes back to tweaking pixels.

EDIT: Yes mr.Matti, I see the resemblance. I hope it's okay with you to use it anyway?

EDIT2:


The boots are...doubtfull.

[IndieBoy]

Looking good so far. I really admire your pixel work here.
Here is a little personal tweak to your first 3 guys. (I might of done more, but I want to work on my game )

I played with the feet, added eyes and noses. Also at your current angle I don't think you would see the left arms, so I've removed them and played with the torsos. I hope my little edit would be of use, but they are looking good and your idea for an Animatic game would be awesome. Like the stage between storyboard and actual animated frames, that some cartoons do these days?
Example- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6jhJhmw2u4

Also thanks again for the feedback on IRC.

[Jim Reed]

Indy, I'm seriously thinking about your modifications on the arms. I'm undecided yet.

Anyway, presenting the mechanic (nice cap), the man from Texas (check out that moustache!), and the bad-ass vampire-hunting priest!

[Chicky]

The new characters are great Jim. Make sure you don't add eyes, those blank faces make the pixel pushing in the clothes and body language shine.

I made a B+W game once and thought it was awesome, it's so much fun to work with. I ended up cheating and making the white on the characters a light grey.

[Jim Reed]

Thanks Chicky!

The eyes were a big issue....I'm still not decided on implementing details or not. I mean, if I add eyes, I might as well add fingers, shoelaces, noses, pockets, etc. and that is a long road there.

Why did you use light gray? I mean I used it on my previous b&w chars, but just as an outline.

[Danman]

Well the idea of low res. Is that it is super simple. So you can't really add any details anyway  .

[Jim Reed]

Tweaked a lot here, #1 and #2 lost the arm. Some new legs here also, many minor tweaks. Added a new character (sailor)

[Chicky]

I was planning on using a darker grey and then using it again for a bit of AA.

I love that sailor character

[markbilly]

I love these characters, they are brilliant. On the subject of a matching background style, I think they would work on a full-colour background, even. Or if you drew full-colour then grey-scaled it, they would look pretty good...

Black and white backgrounds would be a challenge, but if you pulled it off it would be fab!

[Jim Reed]

[Wonkyth]

Nice stuff, Jim. 

I think they'd go well on a simple B&W background with only a small amount of detail.

[Jim Reed]

The lady in the fur coat:


Or this?


Edit: Added the girl from the beach: