I have made some character sprites for a Crocis Crocodile game which features my own characers I made up ever since my childhood. I have problem with one of them. This character who is a good guy character is called Ziri Zebra and is the one of the heroes you can controll (yeah, in that game you don't controll three characters like in DOTT and MM but six characters including this one).
(http://www.2dadventure.com/ags/Ziri_Zebra.PNG)
The problem I got here is the eyes. Since Crocis Crocodile chracters are cartoony she originally had black outlines for her eyes but it didn't look good so I tried to have different tone of white on her fur/skin but when I uploaded it from the laptop to my stationairy PC I couldn't tell any difference between the fur and the eyes. Can anyone help me with this little problem of mine?
Unable to resist a plea for help, I made this effort:
(http://members.cox.net/veradin/Ziri_Zebra.PNG)
(http://members.cox.net/veradin/Ziri_Zebra.PNG)
I mainly just outlined the eyes to make them more defined and put a bit of the pink outline from her nose on her forehead. Hope this helps.
Nah, I don't like the pink lines under her eyes and above them. They look so... weird.
I gave it a go, though it looks like she has glasses.
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v458/evil1359/mats_zebra.gif)
Nah, the eyes looks too much like glasses (like you said) or too stare-y.
I think that if she stares lower and the eyes are lower it looks more normal. I gave it a try but I'm not sure if it shows what I mean.
http://www.2dadventure.com/ags/mats_zebra.gif
Thought I'd give it a stab ...
It was tough 'cause I wasn't really sure what kind of animal this was!
(http://www.twin-design.com/fafmb/photos%5Cmatsb_help01.gif)
Anyway ... hope it was helpful!
cp: Well, it looks better than the others but still not what I hoped for. Here she looks a bit bored or almost ready to fall asleep.
Darth: I'm not sure if you read out her name but she's a zebra like her lastname. I know zebras normally don't have a pink mule like a horse but it looks better that way. Anyway I don't like how the color is around her eyes, sorry.
I took a stab at it, by changing the "snout" to look more like a zebra. I also added stripes to the face, which bring out the eyes a little.
(http://www.agagames.com/grundislav/zebra.png)
Grundislav: I don't like that because that's not how I draw the Crocis Crocodile characters. The way you have drawn Ziri looks so weird. I'm sorry to say this but the way I draw Ziri's mouth looks better than yours.
Speaking of the stripes, I was going to draw stripes but they didn't fit on the face because it would mix up with the colors of the hair.
(http://www.2dadventure.com/ags/littleslag.PNG)
(http://www.2dadventure.com/ags/littleslag.PNG)
I gave it a shot.
Well I like the middle one best (although I thought that the last one was hilirous) but I just edit slightly so it looks like this:
(http://www.2dadventure.com/ags/Ziri_Zebra_(new).PNG)
Thanks for the help, Chicky. And you others, I did appreciate your help too.
I think one of your problems is that she doesn't look like a zebra, she looks like a cow. Zebras don't have short, peach toned noses, they have longer snouts with dark grey noses. Also the tone of grey around the eyes is too light, making the white of the eyes dissapear. I personally think Grundislav's edit is perfect for making her look like a zebra without losing the style, but since you don't like it, just darken all the tones a little and make her nose a dark grey. Adding a few black dots on alternate pixels along the sides of her face might give the illusion of stripes.
Actually I prefer her mule to be pink rather than blackgray. I have drawn Ziri like this on paper since I was a kid. Besides, if you think about it mice aren't totally black, don't have fully round ears or have pink skin around their mouths but we all know that Mickey Mouse does look like that. Does cartoon characters really have to follow realism to be believible? Doesn't seem so to me.
Since you've been drawing her since you were a kid, and apparently only you understand how it has to look, why are you asking for help, Mats?
Hey, if you would suddenly draw your own characters on low res characters without have scanned the pics than you would have problems too. But hey, the look is locked now. I'm happy and satisfied with the latest results.