Are these visually appealling to you?

[sharksweetheart]

I've finally settled with a sprite style for my game (still working on the bgs, I realise these don't go with the one's I posted earlier, I'll try to find some happy medium). But before I get to comfortable I want to know if it will sell (I'm not going commercial but you know what I mean).

The two smaller characters were originally meant to be like, 5, but now I'm going with anywhere from 5 to 11. The next character is a fully grown woman, and the last is obviously unfinished and I would like some assistance with the body because it seems wrong to me. He's supposed to be wide, not necessarily fat, just big boned. A big burly MAN (he's a fisherman lol). I'm especially confused about what to do with the feet, as all the other characters basically walk on pins. I think his face is suitable, though.

So what do you think?

[pslim]

I like these sprites a ton. The only thing that bothers me is that the poses are rather stiff and unnatural, especially on the children. They don't really express much about the characters.

If I have time later, I'll try to do a paintover to show more clearly what I mean.


The colors and the shapes are just great, though.

[Afflict]

Agreed.

[sharksweetheart]

Alright, so how do I "bring them to life"?

I haven't animated them yet, but maybe that will spice them up a bit.

And thanks.

[Stupot]

For the unfinished man, I reckon you sould give him equally pin-like legs, as that will only enhance his big torso.  In a similar way to the likes of Johnny Bravo, who has really skinny spindly legs, but a massive buff chest... If he had big legs, too, it wouldn't work so well.

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

I think the characters are interesting but there's a lot of wasted colors in these sprites, colors that you can barely see that add nothing to your work.  The shading is also all over the place, meaning you're not shading these from a defined light source.  I made an edit to give you a few ideas.

1.  Altered the contrast of certain colors to bring them out and eliminated others.

2.  Reshaded the characters with a more overhead light source while leaving your outlines.

3.  Made the poses a bit more dynamic.

4.  Shortened the arms and legs.  This was especially important for the little girl.

5.  Added some tiny feet because the lack of feet seemed odd to me.



You used good contrast in some areas (the boy's shirt) and not in others (the girl's skin tones and hair colors did not vary enough to really stand out).  Once you get a good feel for using colors more effectively you'll find that you can use less colors and get a better result.  Hopefully this helps.

[sharksweetheart]

Haha, awesome paintovers. I tried to use some of your ideas:



I didn't change the boy's face much, though, because he's not meant to be that butch.

I'm having trouble with the Johnny Bravo man thing, but I'm trying.

[Snarky]

The lack of feet (1) looks wrong, and (2) makes it difficult to put any expression in their leg poses. Look at ProgZMax's edit and do something similar.

[Oddysseus]

Bah.  Who needs feet, anyway?  Besides, it'd (1) make walkcycles easier and (2) be unique.



I took a stab at reshaping Mr. Outline.  Really rough job, but hopefully it'll give you some ideas.

Really digging the style of these sprites.  Cheers.