This is a very quick version of a new character.
It's the captain of a sky-ship. It's supposed to be a southern gentleman like figure.
Things I want to improve:
- his posture looks weird (especially when mirrored)
- he doesn't look as arrogant as I want: he shouldn;t look evil or mean, but at least more stuck up then he looks now.
(http://www.jimmyshelter.nl/images/captain.gif)
(I didn't shade him yet, I first wanted to be satisfied with the general figure).
Edit 3 december: new character below!
Ideas for a more stuck-up/arrogant personality to show through:
A more rigid pose?
A more jaunty chin (jutting out a bit?)
Removing whites of eyes (Gives him a playful cartoony look right now).
Other points:
The eyes are currently barely visible. Perhaps you can darken the skin tone to show them more?
I don't think that the top of the hat should be visible in this view.
Have more consistent outlines: The grey parts have a darker grey outline, but then the yellow parts have a black outline.
I like the sprite itself but like babar said: Currently he lacks a good rigid posture.
Done a quick drawover:
(http://img253.imageshack.us/img253/5734/captainsuggestionsf1.gif) (http://img253.imageshack.us/img253/5734/captainsuggestionsf1.gif)
*altered his posture by putting his legs tightly together
*altered his posture by putting his arms behind his backs (for some reason I always imagion officers that way)
*Gave him thick eyebrows, which also cause a "disintressed" look in his eyes. Personally I found it to fit the character
*Lowered his right shoulder a little bit
Hope this helps you a bit
I like it. I'd love to see him shaded.
Based on your suggestions and edits, I changed the captain a bit. Then I added some very basic shading.
(http://www.jimmyshelter.nl/images/captain_step3.gif)
No comments on the latest version?
Edit:
I decided to give our captain a sailor to boss around. I saved some of the steps in between.
(http://www.jimmyshelter.nl/images/sailor_steps.png)
As you can see I kept changing the legs around, and I'm still not completely happy with them.
I'm pretty satisfied with his face. The colours could use some work.
Together with the captain:
(http://www.jimmyshelter.nl/images/sailor_captain.png)
(It's on purpose he's so much bigger than the captain: he's tall and the captain is small.)
I tend to not comment on these things cause I can't draw at all so there wouldn't be much to my words cause all I would be able to say is "I like it" or "I don't". But this time I'll give it a try.
I love the look on the sailor's face. Like he's constantly distracted by something shiny. However, his head looks a little small in proportion to his body... or something. I'm really not sure. Maybe his torso is too long?
And the captain looks good too.
The sailor looks odd because his proportions are all wonky.
His torso is very long, a lot longer than the legs and his arms are as long as his torso. Knees seem to be very low.
Make legs longer while taking that space from the torso, raise the knees, maybe make arms a bit longer and maybe give him a neck.
Also both on the original captain and on sailor the feet look like the character would float in mid air.
(http://www.jimmyshelter.nl/images/sailor_steps_2.png)
I changed the proportions a bit: smaller torso, higher knees, moved the head slightly.
I also tried to do some simple shading.
Any comments are welcome!
I think you might need to make his knees straighter, because at the moment it looks as though he's leaning back, but at the same time, he's got his head foward, and he's putting his weight foward with his legs. In other words, he's got his weight distributed all over the place, and the end result is that he looks as though he's very off balance and could fall over quite easily.
Straighten up the back leg, and make his back foot flatter, and his stance will look much more feisable I think. But I do agree that his legs are too low.
The problem I have now, is that each change I make to 'fix' his posture seems to give him less character.
(http://www.jimmyshelter.nl/images/sailor_choice.png)
I like the one one the left better, but that one does look weird when I mirror the image. The posture of the one on the right is better, but he looks less goofy. He almost starts to look smart. ;D
Pff, maybe it's time to move to the next character and let this one rest, but if someone has anymore input, I'd love to hear it. :)
If you wanna keep him looking goofy; have him slouch or lower his shoulders. He might look a little off balance, but this will come off as just part of his doziness, and the posture itself will be peferctly possible for someone to hold comfortably.
There's nothing wrong with giving a character an off balance stance, because sometimes people do indeed stand like this, but problems arise when there's no way they could hold it comfortably without falling over. A relaxed stance can't really be relaxed if you have to exort a lot of effort to keep it going.
I like these characters! They really have their own personalities. The goofy one is my favorite :)
--Erwin
I don't like the changes that have been made to the sailor : that's true, his proportions were weird, but it didn't distrub me since it looks like he's wearing a much too long shirt and trousers too large for him that fall down.
This apparently loooong body gave him the look that was described previously : "Like he's constantly distracted by something shiny."; the body contributed to this global attitude, he looked like a tall, slow and not very smart guy. Putting the proportions back to normal removes the spirit of this character, in my opinion.
Can you try and animate those folks for us? I'd love to see them walk around or sweeping the floor with a mop..
A new character!
This is an orc businessman.
(http://www.jimmyshelter.nl/images/orc_wip.png)
To Do:
- shading
- Make his face look more orcy
- draw feet.
How can I make him look more like an orc, while still fitting my current drawing style?
Well, orcs usually have a protruding lower jaw, so you could move his mouth a few pixels to our right. You could also try pointy ears.
(http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b37/manicmatt/orcbusinessman.png)
I thought the same with the ears, and also tried some orc jewelry.
Shifted some pixels:
(http://i208.photobucket.com/albums/bb259/khrismuc/_redraw_jim_orc.gif)
In the original version of the orc, the elbow is too high (especially its external side)
Apart from that, I like his attitude
An update based on your comments:
(http://www.jimmyshelter.nl/images/orc_wip_2.png)
I tried not to follow all your edits to closely, so I would learn from it, but I really like how the shoes looked. ;D
Feet are not my speciality.
Nice, you should get rid of the black outline on the clothes though :)
Quote from: Mr. SantaHat on Wed 05/12/2007 21:01:44
Nice, you should get rid of the black outline on the clothes though :)
It's not black, but very dark red. Too dark apparently. ;D
I have a very bright monitor, I guess. I'll have to lighten the darkest colours a bit.
First of all: This is a damn good sprite!
I know you probably would not see his left hand from that angle, but I still thought it looked strange without. So I put his left hand in his pocket showing of his Bling!
It also underlines his pompousness, if that is what you want to achieve.
(http://www.2dadventure.com/ags/Gorc.png)
I also got rid of some inconsistencies of the outlines, but I guess that is just a matter of preference.
I'm thinking of letting his left arm show, with a big fat cigar in his hand.
What about fading his right pocket a bit so its outline doesn't interfere with his arm?
Another one.
(http://www.jimmyshelter.nl/images/cat_wip.png)
How do I make his eyes more cat-like, and how can you draw whiskers on such a small size?
Quote from: JimmyShelter on Mon 10/12/2007 20:41:01
How do I make his eyes more cat-like, and how can you draw whiskers on such a small size?
Personally, for the eyes I'd go with a more cat-specific color such as amber. I know that cats
can have eyes of that color you're using, but so can humans. That's one reason they don't come off as cat-like. Another thing you'll want to do is suggest a slit pupil. Maybe lay in a darker value of the eye color on the inside edge of each? I don't know... that might make him look cross-eyed.
For whiskers, maybe try a couple of white pixels on the outside of the head where the whiskers would end. If that isn't convincing enough, I'd connect those white pixels to the snout by just using the shadow color of the gray.
(http://www.2dadventure.com/ags/Jimmy_Cat_Help.gif) x1
(http://www.2dadventure.com/ags/Jimmy_Cat_Help.gif) x4
Not a bad sprite to be honest. I did alter it's face and hindleg a bit, to make it more round.
It also might help to pick a fixed point for your light source. I gave you 2 quick draw overs with one having a right source, and the other one getting his light from the left.
And lastly: I would advice you not to draw whiskers on such a small scale.
(http://www.2dadventure.com/ags/Redraws.png)
Sorry, your chars were so neat, I had to do a redraw! ;D