Detective Elijah Baley

[Nightfable]

Does he look like a pretty boy? How the heck do I make one look older, while keeping him cool (you know, like Indiana Jones). LOL

He's the main character of the game and on this planet he's wearing some kind of silky shimmery body-suit. Weapons aren't allowed here (that's why he has none) and if I'm not mistaken Elijah is around his mid-thirties... or is it forties?? Anyway... my husband told me to give him some stubble but it ended up looking like he had some horrible skin disease.

Your opinion is well appreciated, thanks! 

[InCreator]

Pretty boy? Yes he does.

This mouth, eyes and lack of nose make him look VERY much like 1st-gen AGI character.
Remind me of Michael Jackson...

The character is really nice. He looks way younger than guy on poster, I'd say he's from 18 to 22 at most.
I actually don't think that you should make him older, he looks very likeable in a way he is. But early twenties is what I would stick to when using him. Head could be a pixel thinner, thinking about it, it looks too much like melon right now.

I could make a nice edit of my ideas, but you supplied only zoomed version of your concept.

His boots need some work, they look like something poor fisherman of our age would wear. How about large metal straps like on roller skates? Infact, I think that coolest futuristic footwear should be somethings rollerblades look like...



http://www.blackdiamondsports.com/photos/RollerbladeTwisterIIPro-2T.jpg
or
http://www.productwiki.com/upload/images/rollerblade_zetrablade.jpg

Minus the wheels, of course.

[scotch]

If you want a chiselled look, try using some darker shades on the face, more contrast. Suggest some harder edges and make the forehead more prominent (bring the hair up or the eyes down), add a stronger jawline. The light pink lips are pretty girly. The stubble suggestion was a good one, you can make it work, just be subtle, a little bit of darkening is fine.

http://caverider.com/temp/cl_dude.png might give some ideas.

[Nightfable]

Thank you both so much for the help!! How does he look now? I think it's perfect!!! 

[auriond]

Ah, you're continuing! 

The latest incarnation does look rather Indiana Jones-y, rather action-hero-y, which is not how I've always imagined Baley to be. But that could be just the pose. Otherwise, I think you've succeeded in making him look pretty and macho at the same time

[lo_res_man]

I know what you mean, his pouty 5 o'clock shadow makes him look like the bad-boy in a boy-band.
Now in this paintover, all I did was completely redraw the head. nothing else is touched. say what you want about the pose, but its WAY better then the dozens of hyper symmetrical trilby clones running around.
I based the head on how I remember from the book, with a little sam vimes thrown in, as well as the guy who played the priest in the DiCaprio Romeo and Juliet.
you see I remeber the guy having a wife and teenage son, not exactly mr young buck action hero I'm seen here

[Sparky]

I must confess I've never read much Asimov (I've always been more of a Edgar Rice Burroughs and Frank Herbert fan when it comes to science fiction).

Given what people here have said about the character, I think the second edit has a good feel to him. I like his face and right hand the way they are, but the rest of him could use a little more definition. The pose is good- I can tell where his weight is and where all the important masses of his body are. But the cloth has a sort of noisy look to it, almost more like camoflage than silky fabric. The creases and seams are a little flat looking- you've got enough colors in there, maybe you could vary their intensity or antialias a bit. He's really fine the way he is, I'm just making suggestions in case you want to push him a little further. Nice work!

[cat]

I think its the hair that makes him look younger. Most men start to get thinner hair on the left and right side over their forehead when they get older (widow's peak). Just look at your reference picture. Lo_res_man did something like that, although his character rather looks like 50 because of the gray hair.

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

There are a few issues to consider here.  The main issue is scale.  Reducing your sprite from x3 to its normal size produced less than desirable results, so in the future please post your images at their natural resolution and use the width= and height= tags in the image display to increase their size.

Once I reduced the size of your image I found that many of the details were lost, so I attempted to quickly make a somewhat larger version that included the necessary details to make giving the character facial animations and such easy.

1.  Reduced color count drastically.  You're using too many similar shades in this sprite, and the end result is that the player won't notice the shades.  The rule is: if you can't see an obvious difference between two shades, increase the contrast on one to make it stand out.

2.  Increased contrast on darkest skin tone and made it slightly redder.

3.  Changed background to a neutral color.  Displaying/drawing sprites on white/black/purple or a non-neutral color will leave you with excessively dark or bright sprites, depending.

4.  Altered the pose to a more heroic one.  When I initially tried copying your pose I found it to be overly effeminate, which didn't seem to work for this character.

5.  Added some gray to his temples.




The main change here was to focus on your high-contrast colors and eliminate the ones that blended together too much.  I didn't spend as much time on his pose as I should have, though you can see where I'm going with it.  I suspect you use a wacom or other pen-art device based on your other work?  It typically makes precision pixel art unnecessarily difficult, so if you're not using a mouse you might consider it just for sprites.  Keep at it!

[markbilly]

I prefer Nightfable's one with the stubble to ProgZ version. I'd say the best of ProgZ is the middle one, and maybe his arms and face would be good to use as inspiration, as I think that's the only weak part of Nightfable's sprite.

Good work, you have a much more natural stance for his character as opposed to the traditional forward facing sprite - which is a nice change. It will be interesting to see this character in his coat in a similar stance.

[Nacho]

Still far from being finished, I can still use some colours to make the hair, the boots, the hair and maybe a jackett.. I am not totally happy, maybe because I wanted to keep night's original sprite, but I would have made it different if made from scratch... I think it has too much contraposto, maybe it can be solved with a little of scripting, adding a frame or two before he walks. I think it finally ended as a little aberration, anatomically talking ^_^ too long torso, too short legs, (As usual, Helm... seems I can't learn) and chicken chest. I will try to write a short brief if this little "tutorial" is not self explanatory ASAP, but I am in a hurry.

(Lesson one, never paint an important character if you are in a hurry...)

[JimmyD]

I think I'd have to go with lo_res_man's Baley - while the others look very nice, and very protagonist-y, he is supposed to be quite an older guy, and agoraphobic.

[Snarky]

I based the head on how I remember from the book, with a little sam vimes thrown in, as well as the guy who played the priest in the DiCaprio Romeo and Juliet.

Haha, that's great! He does look exactly like Pete Postlethwaite.

I think of the hunkier versions, Nightfable's own edit is still the best one, but I agree that you shouldn't be going for action hero here. Lije is more of an unglamorous office rat, and by Robots of Dawn he has to be about fifty (or at least in the later half of his forties). Besides, Daneel is this Greek God-looking idealized man, and you probably want Baley to be a visual contrast to that (cf. scruffy detective Deckard and aryan superman Batty in Blade Runner, but even more so).

[Nightfable]

Thanks for all the help, Nacho especially for the step by step tutorial - it's will be handy for future sprites!!

I'm quite satisfied with the way Elijah Baley looks, I know he might look a bit young but I want to keep him likable for the players... and, I gotta say, he definitely looks unglamorous in comparison to Greek God-looking R. Daneel Olivaw.

Has anyone ever read that short story where Susan Calvin introduces a humaniform robot named Tony as a domestic helper in a home and the girl falls in love with the robot at the end??

Yep. That's what I've been dreaming would happen to me when I was thirteen, lol.

[Dualnames]

He reminds me of Ben(Full Throttle)... don't shave him please :'(

[hedgefield]

The sprite looks great, love the dynamic pose. Looking forward to this game.

[GarageGothic]

Looks good. Are Elijah and Daneel a couple? Somehow Daneel looks incredibly gay with that tank top and the blue booties. I think you should work a bit on the skin tones though, because Elijah seems very pale next to the other guy. But maybe he's intended to be monochromatic compared to the flamboyantly colorful Daneel.

[Snarky]

Also, he doesn't get out much...

[auriond]

Well, Daneel is a robot who lives on a planet where the residents consider themselves superior to Earthpeople in every way. Elijah lives underground on Earth. I think Nightfable was trying to bring that out.

Actually, now that I think about it, the Daneel sprite probably still needs tweaking. Elijah's fine to my eyes

[lo_res_man]

Nightfable, if you feel it is inappropriate for your game,  do you mind if I "steal back" my version? I will make my own body for him,  I am just really happy how he turned out.