Help me chose style!!! (UPDATED EDIT!!!)

[Gazzo]

Hey there everyone!

I'm starting to work on my first reall project ( with story and overal design, and I'm going to finish this ) but i have this huge problem, i don't know wich style to use for the art, i know it's going to be anime like cause there are going to be cut scenes and "movies" in this style so, please help chose between theese two :


High res (640 x 400)/Low res (320 * 200)

  (THE UPDATED HI RES VERSION BELOW!)

if any of you would have time and want to sugest a complete diferent style or change mine, your welcome!!

Thnx!

------------Edit:--------------------

I changed a few things in the character

I have another question now, whaaaa I can't really decide wich kind of "shading" i should use, in the first one i used the "border line" color to create the darker shadows, while in the second one i only used two tones for coloring and the 3rd color for borders, this one looks more cartoony but don't know wich one to chose. Any suggestions?

------> FINAL!!!

[Babar]

For something different and interesting, I'd go with hi-res. That is a nice art-style (despite her/his legs being over 2/3rds of her/his entire legs )

[Gazzo]

hmmmm ok so one vote for high res hehe what do you mean exactly with HIS legs, to short or to long?

[ddq]

I'd go with the high-resolution as well. I'm fine with the long legs, though. It's an interesting style, definitely bettered by its deviation from photo-realism.

[Igor Hardy]

If you don't have several skilled animators to work for you, then better go for the low res (which looks great actually). I think the high res is so detailed it would be a nightmare to animate, especially the shading.

[Lad]

 The lineart in hi-res is kinda whacky - although if that fixed I´d liked to see a game with such graphics.

[Gazzo]

Ascovel has a good point there, and yes it's kinda "whaky" cause i scaled de body up in a non proportioante way, and din't fixed the resulting weird pixels, anyways it's not the "final" version, just to decide on wich one to use, and focus on it. Thanx for the suggestions, i'm going to try drawing backgrounds for each style ! and check wich one is better

[InCreator]

I'd go low res.
Your hi-res is okay, but low-res is near excellent. Also, hi-res needs more colors than this.

And to be completely honest, low res has less of this stupid manga look, which I absolutely hate. You got good drawing skills, why waste it on anime? Every third amateur artist who has watched some cartoons seems to be drawing manga those days. This keeps very own distinct style (which is WAY more interesting) from developing and art is nothing but poor ripoffs of some japanese stuff.

For me, even a drawing from worst artist at critics lounge is still more interesting than manga, be it made from hundred times best artist.

You're from Peru? Make us something interesting and unique, instead of trying to sell yourself as a japanese.

[Gilbert]

Anime is good and everyone has his own preference and style. Calling it a waste is a bit too much.

Personally I'll say hi res here (there're often people who like to use hi res even when it does nothing good considering the detail and quality of their graphics but it's not the case here) and in fact, IMO, to achieve the same quality and style with this low res. sprite is even harder than the hi res one, not to mention animations.

[Misj']

Hay Gazzo,

your art looks quite good...however, I've never had much appeal for the whole manga-scene, and pixelart was a necessity back in the day but they appealed to me only because they were top-of-the-line and I imagined them to be high-res.

Anyway...animation of the high-res image shouldn't be that much of a problem (when compared to other high-res styles), since manga uses a lot of limited animation to cut production costs, and movements are often quite stiff and generic compared to other animation styles (often even a lot more stiff than Filmation or Hanna-Barbera, that used similar approaches to cut costs*). This is of course assuming that you'd want to go for the whole manga-style including the typical manga-movements.

The main problem that I see for animation are the lines that appear low-palette and pixel based rather than anti-aliased and line/traditional art based.

In the end you should choose the style that fits you best, and that helps you tell the story you have in mind (even though my personal preference is in general high-res over low-res).



* Manga often uses highly detailed characters (highly detailed for animation; which includes shading, highlights, etc), making each frame quite costly, while Filmation and Hanna-Barbera used relatively simple characters that made the production-cost of each frame relatively cheap...leaving money that could be used on other things (like less stiff animation).

[Mr Flibble]

I, for one, enjoy anime and so am going to support the high-res version. I think it's much more visually interesting than your low-res style. I don't find it "wacky" at all, it looks like a normal anime character to me. As long as you don't give him 50 belts and 20 zips which don't attach to pockets, and a weird hat and spikey hair, it's a good look.

My only concern would be if you could animate the high-res sprites, since the extra detail does multiply the work considerably.

[Gazzo]

Hey! to every one!

Thnkx for all the responses, hhahaa and i'm not trying to sell myself as japanese, and actually i DO draw in different styles reaslistic or the typical cartoon, but i wanted to give this one the "anime/manga" approach cause i've allways started my "games" in this style and never finiched them, this time i'm not working alone and someone is helping with the story, so I can put more effort on the graphics. I absolutly love the "realistic" style, and acctualy consider myself a better artist at it, but don't know !!! I simply like anime a lot ! nothing to take to serious. For those anime haters hahaha (just a joke don't take it harsh) i'm going to draw a more realistic or different style, and wait for your responses

THNX!!

[Darth Mandarb]

I fail to see how animating the hi-res would be more difficult than the low-res in this case.  Both have limited pallets and would animate nicely (just my opinion).

My personal preference here leans towards the hi-res version.  It has a very "Full Throttle" feel to it and I loved that style.

I too am not a fan of the anime/manga genre but I agree is not the genre really, but the artist that makes it worth (or not worth) looking at!

[Gazzo]

Just made "for fun" a different version using the hires i allready had as reference, basicaly changed the face shading and proportions.

   

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

I'm not a fan of anime either, really, but I think you should draw in the style you are most comfortable with and damn anyone who tells you otherwise.  I do like the face in your altered version more because the head is more anatomically proportioned (just personal preference) and the character now looks more masculine and 'adult' than before.

One thing you should practice with before switching into the hi-res gear is cleaning up your lines and working with higher contrast colors to make the characters 'pop' visually against a background.  Right now you've got a lot of jagged bits and double pixels that aren't such a big deal in low res but are really, really obvious in a piece like this one.  Work with your colors and work with cleaning up the lines and as long as you feel comfortable animating larger items go for it.  Darth's wrong in that it won't be any more difficult, though; the larger your sprites the more attention they draw from the viewer and thus the more effort and frames you are going to need to invest to pull off an acceptable animation.  The only other thing I'd recommend is that if you're going to use the more realistic head, thin out the arms (especially along the forearm) and make the legs about 8-10 pixels shorter.  The easiest way to check anatomy is by taking the character's head and stacking it vertically from the top of the sprite to the bottom.  7-7.5 heads is the 'ideal' for males, with 8 being for really muscular types.

[Gazzo]

Thanks ProgZmax for the advice, i actualy know about proportions but i just wanted to show the visual "style" i've made those sprites rather quick cause, i want to begin with the rest of stuff !!!as for the colours, Yeah I need some serious help there, I'm color blind and can't really tell subtle diferences in colors !!! well then as i said before, i'll practice drawing backgrounds in both resolutions, and decide with them wich one to use, cause in hi def i have to add much more detail in the backgrounds!

thnx!

[Cuiki]

I like your style. Both high and low resolution character are nicely drawn and would work, but I think hi res is better in this case since it's anime and it adds more character to it. The low res one looks too casual, it's nice but nothing special.
You should also make it more manly. I was quite sure it was a gal (or something in-between) until I saw a non-anime character standing next to him. If it works for you that way, then it's perfectly fine.. but if I were you, I would at least shorten his legs a bit and choose a darker hue or a different shading for the upper part of the pullover, so it doesn't look like he has boobs

[Gazzo]

I updated the pics and now i have a shading isue !!

[Gilbert]

(Just personal) I like the second one more. It's cleaner. This is similar to many cartonny games, like DOTT, but if there're lots of scaling involved in the game, the first one probably looks better (just look at how the outlines may be broken in DOTT when the sprites are scaled down, unless you enable filtering in AGS, which may or may not be better).

Also, *I think* animation will be easier to do in the second style, as you only need to deal with 2 shades of each colour.

In addition, I'm surprised that how the darkest brown shade (of the shirt) and the darkest blue (of the pants) look alike when they're put together. This makes the bottom of the shirt somewhat blended into the pants (and also the pants blended into the boots, I hope you understand what I mean) in the first one. That's also one thing I found annoying.

[Eggie]

I actually really like the first hi-res version but I agree that it's going to be a bitch to animate.
I guess if he only needs to walk and talk it's just about doable.