Yes I'm STILL working on this sprite

[Mr Flibble]

So I've been tinkering with this a lot and I've been trying to finally nail a final final version before I animate it. You may recall it, I've posted it several times.

What I tried to do in this iteration was increase the contrast and... interestingness of the colours. Any thoughts or criticisms? I've been working on him for so long that I can't tell when it's done. I was aiming for quite a clean look but simultaneously the sort of interesting and cool "Oh look how nice that is..." effect that really nice pixel art can bring.


And a 3x version to make life easier:


The old version can be seen here for comparison if you like.

Any and all help is, as always, appreciated.

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

I think it looks good overall, but the colors are rather dark on that mild background and his pose is terribly linear.  I made a couple of quick fixes to give you some ideas.

1.  Raised the brightness of some of the colors to make them pop out more, also replaced some of the colors on the jacket with colors from the rest of the sprite.

2.  Brought up his forehead by 1 pixel.  This makes his head look more anatomically correct since his eyes aren't so close to his hairline.

3.  Did some minor reshading.

4.  Moved the left side of his vest over a pixel to match the angle of the rest of the sprite.

5.  Rounded the arms a bit and brought the left leg back one pixel to make the pose less linear and more interesting.






I didn't significantly raise the values of the colors but you should be able to see the differences in the highlights and how they make the sprite pop out a bit more.  Hopefully this helps!

[Mr Flibble]

Prog, you know, I have often thought about the alterations you might make to this sprite and tried to make those changes myself before I came to posting a sprite here. But seeing the work you did makes it clear that you are indeed the one and only wizard of wallstreet. 
Or... low-res sprites, you know.

Some of the changes you made, specifically the colour values and the pose, I absolutely love. Those were the colour values I was aiming for but couldn't quite find. I also like what you've done with the shading on the legs.

I like how he looks more rounded than he did before and not like a skeletal wraith, but I'm worried he might be carrying a touch too much paunch so I'll have a look at that when I give this another whack. The shading on the stomach had been giving me gip for a while, in terms of trying to find a balance between no shading and giving him a beer belly and tits.

I'll post an update later this evening, you've given me plenty to think about! Thank you.

[Igor Hardy]

Sprite looks really cool. Very LucasArts-y. The character seems to posses quite a lot charisma just from the looks. Also, pleasant choice of colors.

To be honest I prefer your version to the one Progz made. Some additional raw energy about it.

[Mr Flibble]

It makes me happy that someone would prefer something I did over the work of Prog, but let's see what I came up with.

Precisely, what I did was this:
1. Moved the left arm all over the show so he's a bit thinner but also rounder.
2. Reshaded the torso.
3. Changed the right arm based on Prog's edit.
4. Recoloured the trousers slightly based on Prog's colours (though I didn't use his exact colours)
5. Not only did I move the right leg in as per Prog's sugestion, I also moved the left leg in a bit as well. As much as I liked his dramatic stance, nobody actually stands like that.


x4


What do we think? Better? Worse?

[Mazoliin]

It's better all right (really good actually), but the chest seems to bulge out too much, so I did this:

1. Removed 1 pixel of the right side of the vest, and added one on the other
2. Reshaded the sweater. The currently shading seems to imply he's completely flat
3. Brought the left arm down some pixels and reshaded the arms and hands



x2


And might I suggest to lighten up the shading of the pants a little, I'm not a huge fan of the high contrast.

[edit]
Ugh! Seems like the legs doesn't fit any more

[Igor Hardy]

When the legs were set apart more, the pose looked much more confident and cool.

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

Flibble:  I think your edit will work just fine for what you're after, and either leg pose looks good to me.  If you want to make him look a bit thinner you could try bringing his right arm to the right a pixel, but other than that I think he's ready for whatever you've got in mind.  Nice work!

[Mr Flibble]

I'd like to thank you all for your kind help so far.
Prog: Very nice to get your approval and your edit was of unbelievable assistance.
Ascovel: I did consider that too, but especially when I came to re-do the back and front views, having the legs apart looked too stiff.
Mazoliin: I took your reshading of the torso and hands advice onboard, thank you.

Now, I'm happy with the 3/4 view that we've been working on, it looks "complete" to me now. Unfortunately, the other views haven't been through the mill quite so often so, to me, they look nowhere near as polished.
(Note: I haven't done a "directly side on" view yet since I really only use that during walking animations.)



I consider the following to be issues:
1. The face on the forward view looks odd to me. Did you think so before I drew your attention to it?
2. I'd like some validation on the trousers of the front view but I think they look okay.
3. The back view... generally. I'm really not satisfied with the shading on the head or legs but I thought I may as well post it here while I work on it and make use of the thread I already started.

As always, your thoughts are taken with deep gratitude.

Edit: Just noticed one of the badges was a different colour in both sprites so I've changed that but also tinkered with the face a touch: improvement?

[Igor Hardy]

1. The face seems OK. Reminds me of Richard Chamberlain in Shogun . Maybe you could try adding one additional pixel of hair above each ear.

2. and 3. I don't trust my instincts when it comes to shading

[Mazoliin]

The face looks fine. But it's rounder than the 3/4 view and that might be why you feel it looks odd.

Put some more shadow on the lowest part of his right leg and make the hands bigger.

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

I think that the problem you're seeing with the face goes back to what I said about the 3-quarter view.  His forehead is too low and it's making it difficult for you to give shape to the face in the front view without it looking like a football.  Also, the leg positions in the front and back views are a bit problematic because most people don't stand with one leg cocked behind them, and that's the impression offsetting them gives in this case.  For 3-quarter it's fine because part of the character is turned AWAY from the viewer, but in this case we're seeing the character head-on.  With this in mind, I made two edits:

Edit 1

1.   Added a visible lip area to the side and front views.  This breaks up the beard so you can identify the different features more easily (like the nose).

2.  Adjusted front and back pose so feet are on an equal level.

3.  Adjusted arms on the front and back views so they hang more freely at his sides.

4.  Adjusted shading of arms and legs in back view so the calves and upper arms stand out.

5.  Altered face in front view to make it more egg-shaped.


Edit 2

I wasn't really happy with the face in the front view so I made a more drastic edit, returning to some of the ideas I offered earlier.

1.  Raised his forehead one pixel and feathered his hair so it flops over his ears (this allows me to get away with not showing them in the front view).  Also raised the beard slightly, getting rid of the dot for the nose (it just looked distracting to me) and using shading to establish form.

2.  Altered front pose to be a bit more dynamic but otherwise used the previous edit for the body.







By making his hair a bit fluffier and hanging over the sides I think he's become more visually interesting.  Also, because the standing out dot for the nose bugged me, I just brought up his beard a pixel on both sides and got rid of it.  It's really going to come down to a matter of personal taste whether or not you like the direction I took the character, but by making his hair stand out I've made his head more 'interesting' by breaking up the roundness.  Hopefully this helps!

[Ogon]

Overall I think your alterations to both the face/hair and the shading are good, but I don't like the new way he stands. If you take the progress displayed in your image in three steps, I think the way he's standing in the first three sprite couple is way more dynamic than the boring way in the latest three sprite couple of the final version with the better hair & shading. Especially the front/back view is a lot more boring when the feet are at the same height instead of slightly shifted like before, IMHO.

Oh and one small addition: Maybe the new shading of the legs at the back view is a bit overdone. Looks a bit as he would have tilted his legs at the knees a bit and wouldn't stand as straight as in the other views.

[Mr Flibble]

Okay! Let's see what I came up with.
Firstly you'll notice I haven't changed his face and hair. I don't want to seem like I'm consciously ignoring good advice, but when I increased his forehead and hair I felt he didn't look like my character any more. I did remove some of the shading on the face to improve the consistency between the forward and 3/4 views but I left the hair alone. As for the single pixel nose, I agree that it's not ideal in the front view, but of all the shading I tried on the 3/4 view, it looked the most convincing.

What I really took on from your last edits Prog, are the changes to the shading and stance. I've changed the front view to have separated legs and brought them on level, and reshaded the arms in the front view. I also added a tiny bit of darker shading to the 3/4 view's arm, so that the darker tones wouldn't seem to appear from nowhere as he turned. Actually, consistency between sprites is probably the most important thing I've learnt during this and it's not something I ever hear being mentioned, so there's my TOP TIP for the day kids 

I also reduced the shading on the legs in the rear view and raised/reduced the size of his previously gigantic ass. Ogon is right in that the old view made him look like he was standing very strangely. However, as for the shifted feet, whilst it did look cool I've sacrificed it for the sake of perspective. Since my sprites are so small, all the rooms will be viewed almost dead-on horizontally, so viewing the character at an angle would look odd.





Anyway I think these are pretty much finished, I'd like to thank you all very much for your help, it was invaluable. Any other advice is always welcome, however.

[NsMn]

I'm not a aprite artist, but maybe his face would look better if you'd replace the dot for his nose with a lighter, 2 pixels long line?

[Mr Flibble]

The problem with that is the size of the sprite. It's either 1 pixel or 3 pixels, since 2 wouldn't be symmetrical. And when I put anything to the tune of 3 pixels in, it just looks like a snout. (Speaking horizontally of course.)

(Hours have passed since I started this post)

I've now added the nose I feared as a snout, with the added companion of another facial colour to blend it in a bit. I also relented to Prog's advice about raising the forehead. I know the extra colour blends in too much and will almost vanish but this is also sort of the point of it. I like the hair better now but the head looks too big?

[bearseatbeats]

I think you may have finally done it. That nose looks much more natural in both sizes. Nice work!

[Chicky]

You realize your sprite looks like Kurt Russell's role in The Thing.

That means you HAVE to make a point and click based on The Thing.

Very good sprite btw 

[Mr Flibble]

You realize your sprite looks like Kurt Russell's role in The Thing.

Now that I've seen it, I can't unsee it.