First attempt at hand drawn character. Shading help and more requested..

Started by poc301, Wed 18/02/2009 20:56:55

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poc301

CHARACTER VIEWS:
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Edit: Fixed the picture link.  Sorry for the confusion :)




I am working on Episode 2 of my series, and wanted to re-do my main character to make it look a little smoother.  The old one was a little rough in retrospect. 

I am overall satisfied with how the proportions and 'feel' of the character came out, but I feel it is missing something.  I did this with the help of the tutorials out there, and tried to make a conscious effort not to have the shading be "pillowy".  The light source is above and south of the character for this.

I am not satisfied with the hair either..  It looks a little.. wormy I guess is the best description.  Anyone have any suggestions for how I can spruce this up?  The pants around the crotch area also..  I was unsure how to add detail at the pants-crease without making it look.. pornographic I guess is the best word?  I am also worried the legs are too short, as the pelvic area seems aweful long..

Finally, the face.  I want to add more detail to it, but am unsure how to go about doing so. 

Any help, suggestions, tips, etc will be most appreciated.  I am excited to try out this whole pixel art thing.

Thanks!

-Bill

poc301

Was bored before bedtime since my wife is sick as a dog, so I re-tooled the image a bit. 



-Lowered the jacket length so that it looks a little nicer (in my opinion)
-Tried reworking the hair a bit
-Shaded the pelvis region
-Adjusted shoe height on side view
-Re-shaded as if light source were more above, casting deeper shadows down.

Again, and advice and tips welcome, I am a bit happier I think, but still not satisfied.

Thanks,

Bill

SpacePaw

Ok. First of all, I suppose it's not meant for low resolution adventure games (way too high for that).
Now, the colors need to be more contrasted, I didnt even realize that his face was shaded until I mafnified the picture. Also you may want to make bigger shadow areas, not just some lines, it makes his face look all wrinkled.
Hair look fairly ok but his clothes are too intense on color, try desaturating. Besides you should try to make the light come from his left or right not from in front of him (if it's too much a trouble, try remembering it for the next time :) ).
Oh and if you make solid lined lineart try keeping the same width everywhere (ie 1 pixel), it gets much wider in his shoulders, you should erase it and make it more of an arc.

poc301

Thanks for the reply.  I appreciate the feedback!

It is intended for a 640x480 game. 

The face was (and probably still is) badly shaded.  I am having issues with it..  I think in the re-do below it looks a bit better, but still rough.

I desaturated the clothes, and re-lighted it as if a source were off to the right of the screen.  I think it looks like the light source is really strong now..  I am not sure..

I re-did the lines in the shoulders, trying to make is non solid-line (except the side-view, where I needed to differentiate between torso and arm and I didn't know how to do that..)

Please let me know any other ways I might clean this guy up and make it look nice.  My game screens are rather dark in a lot of respects (coloring and ambience), so I am afraid this might be a little too bright.



Thanks,

Bill

rbaleksandar

I've learned something that might help you here :)
  When you do shading, try to make a nice flow from start color to end color. By doing is, the eye can't really determine it and looks very nice.

Here is an example I made (it's not perfect (hm...far from perfect :P), and there is this sudden change from dark to light blue, 'cause my program doesn't have much colors and it doesn't use RGB system :D):



I hope you get the idea.
I am a mighty pirate. Arrrrgh!

Ryan Timothy B

Quote from: rbaleksandar on Thu 19/02/2009 11:19:51
When you do shading, try to make a nice flow from start color to end color.

I believe this technique would make his legs look like they're covered with plastic or shiny material, instead of fabric. 

Ghost

Yeah, even in high-res spriteworks, a fine gradient isn't the best option. Gradients in general are *evil*- very bothersome to animate too. I suggest you go for two, three colours of good contrast, and use them to create an outline and a two-shade "filling".

A few things about the face- it's okay as a base, but I really think it needs some work. Especially the side view looks too much like a base circle with added hair. Basically that *is* what our skulls provide, but if you look at adventure games, there's usually a basic, exaggerated shape.

ThreeOhFour

Hi Bill,

I think it might be best if you work on getting your shapes a bit nicer, and then worry about shading and colouring later :).

Being pretty rubbish at high resolution sprites, I only had a go at the face, but I think this might be a direction you could consider taking the sprite:



Notice how I've tried to give the face a more realistic look? I noticed that your character had a very small forehead (one thing I learned drawing is that foreheads are HUGE compared to how I thought they were ;)) and also common things like googly eyes and an under-defined jawline. I tried cleaning these issues up with a simple set of colours, just trying to get a basic idea of shapes (which is the head on the left) and then I tried fiddling with the colours and adding some shading (the one of the right). As I said, I'm pretty rotten at anything higher than 320x240 res, so the shading is a bit terrible, but I think it's something you might be interested in :).

Hope this helps!

poc301

Quote from: Ben304 on Fri 20/02/2009 08:59:14
Hi Bill,

I think it might be best if you work on getting your shapes a bit nicer, and then worry about shading and colouring later :).

Being pretty rubbish at high resolution sprites, I only had a go at the face, but I think this might be a direction you could consider taking the sprite:



Notice how I've tried to give the face a more realistic look? I noticed that your character had a very small forehead (one thing I learned drawing is that foreheads are HUGE compared to how I thought they were ;)) and also common things like googly eyes and an under-defined jawline. I tried cleaning these issues up with a simple set of colours, just trying to get a basic idea of shapes (which is the head on the left) and then I tried fiddling with the colours and adding some shading (the one of the right). As I said, I'm pretty rotten at anything higher than 320x240 res, so the shading is a bit terrible, but I think it's something you might be interested in :).

Hope this helps!


WOW Ben, that is amazing.  The face looks so nice..  The forehead does look much more realistic, I didn't realize how bad mine looked in comparison.  Just, wow...  Thanks so much for the help with this.

I am using 3 colors, dark-mid-light for the shading.  Its come along nicely, I will post a screenshot when all is done (probably of the walkcycle).

Thanks again,

Bill

paolo

One other thing no one has mentioned yet - the profile image is shorter than the forward-facing image.

poc301


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