Okay one thing I found up about myself is that I need to multitask, if I don't I might not 'task' at all.
So that's why I made Jacob VA cut (to test via trial and error and to keep me motivated on project hecka) Now that the first part of the game is finished, I'm ready to prepare for the second part.
(http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y271/dagaran/walkcycle.png)
This is the front and right view of the sprite template and April herself. It was animated using SSH's walkcycle generator and then edited by me so the body parts would actually join together.
I'm not asking for animation critisizm (That comes later) for now, I just want to know how I can improve the base sprite and/or April. The game will be in 16bit, this is 8bit quality. I want the extra kbs to be worth it.
Is she supposed to look like a bodybuilder?
She has a very, *er*, masculine body- females have broad hips and leaner shoulders, your design is more that of a trained man... Also, the legs seem too short and small to support the bulk of the upper body.
I would go for lesss muscular arms, longer legs, less broad shoulders, and a smaller bosom...
Sorry if that was a lot; hope you can use it to re-think the sprite.
Moox:
It ended up looking like that when I put the body pieces together in SSH's Walkcycle...I think it's the shoulders. The original drawing was of a tall (smaller head) long legged woman, with smaller breasts.
Ghost:
True... but I intentionally made her breasts big to attract a straight male audience.
EDIT: Like that?
(http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y271/dagaran/2.png)
Okay, here's my experiment with shading...looks kinda creepy...
(http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y271/dagaran/2-1.png)
EDIT: Now with April
(http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y271/dagaran/April.png)
I wanted to show that she struggled like crazy and in the next game, miserable as hell.
EDIT: Paint overs are welcome. If there's anything that doesn't seem right tell me, I'll try the best I can to improve.
EDIT: Can someone PLEASE tell me how I can fix the hands, they look like oven mitts!
I thought I would try to give you some help with this, but in a way that didn't look like something you couldn't easily do yourself with a bit of work.
1. The first thing I did was take a look at her anatomy. The combination of the large head, small neck, and large limbs made her look like a marionette, so I reduced the size of the head, shrunk the shoulders and rounded them more and reduced the width of the arms.
2. Female breasts are only perfectly round if they are implants. The real ones tend to have an almost teardrop look to them due to gravity, so I adjusted them slightly.
3. Widened hips considerably and made them stand out more. Wide, curvy hips are a signature of the female form.
4. Widened the upper thighs and made them taper down to the knee. I also lengthened the legs considerably.
5. Raised the eyes slightly and reduced their size, also made the cheeks rounder for a more youthful feminine appearance.
6. Widened neck and rounded it into the shoulders.
(http://members.cox.net/progzmax/girlcl.png)
The main things I think you should focus on is proportions right now, mainly the size of the head and the width of the arms and position of the knees. Some visual references would help you greatly with this, and many artists are not ashamed to use real models to learn from. My edit is far from perfect, and the head is still quite too large, while the feet and legs need some serious work, but what I did hopefully is easy to follow.
Nice edit, ProgZmax. That's quite an hourglass figure though. With that size of breasts I definitely think the waistline should be widened a bit to avoid her looking anorexic.
As for the skimpy clothes, I think you should at least change the color scheme so the top (and what's in it) doesn't bring up direct associations to The Forgotten Element (http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/yabb/index.php?topic=25205.0).
Thank you ProgZmax, you're paint over looks great!
I will try to take a closer look at the female anatomy and fix the sprite.
(by the way, I know natural breasts aren't perfectly round, I guess you can say I made them like that for a reason...hint, hint)
You were right, it did look like a marrionette, the longer I look at it the longer it reminds me of pinnochio.
GarageGothic:
Hmm...I didn't realize that, but tell you the truth, I based April on Milla Jocovich in 'The Fifth Element' (hence the hairstyle) and Lara Croft (hence the implants).
(http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y271/dagaran/3.png)
Okay, how's that?
1) smaller head and features (toned down the shading a bit)
2) the 'teardrop' breast shape and smaller breasts (April's is a bit bigger and higher though)
3)little detail on hands
4) bigger hips
5) longer legs
6) thicker neck.
Looking better. I preferred the old hair though, this seems a bit too stringy. I did a quick and dirty edit to show my point about her waistline. Maybe this isn't as close to your female ideal, but I find she looks a lot less sickly.
Edit: I didn't notice before, but her legs look somehow lumpy. Perhaps the position of the hands contribute to it, but you should work a bit on the areas just above and just below the knee. Or perhaps the problem is actually the position of the knee shading - the shadow seems to be above rather than below the kneecap, try moving it down 1/4 of the leg length.
Edit 2: Super quick edit. Lots of double pixels and her thighs should probably be a bit thicker (or calves thinner), but demonstrating the issue with the knee.
(http://www.2dadventure.com/ags/vertigoedit2.png)
Well I wanted April to be really stressed out so looking slightly anorexic does help, but since I did ask for critisizm and I do appriciate them, I made her waist a little wider.
Here's the recent edit:
(http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y271/dagaran/3-1.png)
changed
1) the hands
2) lighter eyebrows
3) hair less stringy
4) bigger waist
5) lower knees
6) shadows on arms
7) bigger thighs (again)
[Whoa, in your first version, April looks like my sister...]
(http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d123/lamak/vertigo_edit.png)
Somehow, I prefer your first version. It has a very effective manga style and she looks vulnerable, which is a good thing, considering the genre of your game.
I tried to keep that appearance : She's kinda short, looks innocent. She still has big breasts... Hmmm. Gah, that's hard to describe what I did, my english is terrible.
The problem now, is that she looks like these awful cartoon dolls you can find everywhere on the web and lacks personality. Probably because of the size of her head. I don't know.
Also, your character reminds me of Jill Valentine from the Resident Evil series. (hence the haircut)
Quote from: Andy R. on Tue 25/12/2007 15:34:09
[Whoa, in your first version, April looks like my sister...]
(http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d123/lamak/vertigo_edit.png)
Somehow, I prefer your first version. It has a very effective manga style and she looks vulnerable, which is a good thing, considering the genre of your game.
I tried to keep that appearance : She's kinda short, looks innocent. She still has big breasts... Hmmm. Gah, that's hard to describe what I did, my english is terrible.
The problem now, is that she looks like these awful cartoon dolls you can find everywhere on the web and lacks personality. Probably because of the size of her head. I don't know.
Also, your character reminds me of Jill Valentine from the Resident Evil series. (hence the haircut)
You mean Kisekae dolls?
http://embyquinn.tripod.com/embykiss.html
What got me into pixel art was Emby Quinn to tell you the truth, I strated off practising with her templates. You can make the connection.
The genre of my game is horror, so the recent one isn't so bad. I'll try to teak it again to make her look 'innocent' yet, a wreck.
EDIT: Wow, I feel like I should have a website with my own sprites and a few walkcycles, and post the link in the 'contributions thread'. Y'know to help the community. :D
Actually, I was thinking about that :
http://www.thedollpalace.com/dollz/cartoon-dolls.php
These dolls are not horrible, they are fine, but for some reason, I don't like them.
Okay, altered the head, kept everything else... how is it?
(http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y271/dagaran/4.png)
EDIT: with ripped clothing and hair tied back (Of course her hair was very short to begin with so you can't see the tail in the front view)
(http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y271/dagaran/5.png)
The breasts are far too big.
Okay, I shrunk her breasts by 2 pixels...and introducing a new character (with the same name [April-Helen] she has the same name for a reason, but we'll call her Helen to avoid confusion)
(http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y271/dagaran/AprilandApril-Helen.png)
Helen is either a detective or an investogator (what's the difference? Not much really, I think investogator [as in FBI] works for the government)
Is the hair okay? Or are the pixel-drawing-styles so far off from each other it won't look good when in the same game? And is there anything else I can improve (on both characters?)
I was going to give Helen a jacket/coat, but I want a style that says 'detective' without too much cliche. In the game, she'll give April her jacket to 'cover herself up' so you don't have to worry about April being too skimpy.
EDIT: There will be male sprites.
Opened up the "doll" site mentioned and...
EEEK! They Have No Soul, THEY HAVE NO SOUL!!!
In the latest pic, she looks very vulnerable and young. at least her face does. She reminds me how I picture Lucy from 'the lion the witch and the wardrobe' except the body, the mature body seems at odds with the almost pre teen face. as well the bare legs look weird. in fact they look fine as cloth, like on the new character but they the legs look weird when just coloured in as flesh, its like when you play 'the sims', and make the legs skin textured, but the body base is for pants. I like the new characters face, much more self assured. you can tell its a different character though you recycled the base.
(http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y271/dagaran/SpeechSpriteJacob3.png)
Okay, I know the right one isn't finished yet (I can't bring myself to finish it, the face just looks awful)
Since I've re-formatted my pc, I couldn't use the scanner to hand draw things first. (lost the installation CD) so I drew this using that sprite tutorial in that herculean effort website via MS paint.
I know the arm is wierd, I'll try to fix that and post an edit. I know that April's (the brunette) face is really, REALLY wierd. It's not meant to look like that.
If you could point out anything else that could use improvement (and the methods to improving them would be appriciated) I'd really be grateful.
These are sprites I'm going to use for a few speech cutscenes. Quite Unnecessary, but I thought it'd be cool.
I should really use a referance photo, but I can't find the poses I want.
The face looks weird because she looks like she's holding her breath, blowing her cheeks out! Combine that with the small mouth and it looks like this:
(http://www.fotosearch.com/comp/bdx/bdx187/gen-x-female-holding-breath-~-bxp34851.jpg)
Hehehe! You managed to find a photo with the exact expression!
Also, the one on the left has arms that are folded, however they don't look quite right. The hand probably shouldn't be so far away from the arm - fold your arms and look at them - you should see one hand resting on the bicep.
I was actually surprized he found a person with similar features! Short brown hair, light skin, green eyes, short eyebrows, small lips.
Okay, how's this?
(http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y271/dagaran/SpeechSpriteJacob3-1.png)
I've added freckles to April too.
My gods! Her breasts are bigger then her face! The hands miss bubular cluster is rather good if the posing of them is weird, but madame ribbon arms over on the lefts hand is far too small. A good guide to face hand proportion is the rule of thumb that your spread out hand should be as big as your 'mask' that is your features. As well I know from personal experience that this pose is a devil to do right, but the arms look far too flat and are posed rather weird.
So, more plastic surgery needed huh? ^_6
Ease up on the nipple perkiness just a tiny bit.
The bare feet look a little weird. They're fine with shoes on so if she's not going barefoot I wouldn't worry about it. But with all of her toes the same size and on the same plane they look like animal feet, not human feet. Human feet have a slant to them (take a look down at yours).
Quote from: frission on Thu 03/01/2008 20:56:55
The bare feet look a little weird. They're fine with shoes on so if she's not going barefoot I wouldn't worry about it. But with all of her toes the same size and on the same plane they look like animal feet, not human feet. Human feet have a slant to them (take a look down at yours).
*looks at own feet* OH MY GOD! I'M A FREAK!
Okay, I'll work on it and edit this post, her feet does look kinda wierd... ^_6
Okay... I worked my well-rounded ass off with miss ribbon arms on the left!
Her hands are bigger and the other one is slightly hidden so it looks smaller.
(http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y271/dagaran/SpeechSpriteJacob3-2.png)
April's breasts are less perky her toes are not all the same size and just to show that there actually ae going to be guys in this game...
(http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y271/dagaran/SpeechSpriteJacob3-malechar.png)
It's not done yet, but you can still critt it if you want to. I'll still take note.
I'm thinking of asking multiple animators to work in this project so I can speed up the process, think that'd be okay?
Here's a very sloppy attempt to fix the face:
(http://img140.imageshack.us/img140/1260/redrawverkt6.png)
It's still pretty off but should push you in the right direction.
(http://img293.imageshack.us/img293/9939/girlmodng3.png) (http://imageshack.us)
Reduced "side-cling" around the stomach area. I also gave her more of a (I can't think of a more tackful descriptive term than this) mono-boob to make her blouse look more natural.
Quote from: KhrisMUC on Thu 10/01/2008 17:01:47
Here's a very sloppy attempt to fix the face:
(http://img140.imageshack.us/img140/1260/redrawverkt6.png)
It's still pretty off but should push you in the right direction.
Might be off, but still looks a whole lot more natural than the original one.
I'll try to fix the face...
but meanwhile, please crit on the side view of this sprite
(http://www.2dadventure.com/ags/onthesidesprite.PNG)
(http://www.2dadventure.com/ags/onthesidesprite.PNG)