Hello! For some reason, I really struggle with hats. This is Ian Malcolm wearing Dr Alan Grants clothes. Naturally!
I'd like some help fixing the hat. I just haven't drawn his legs yet. If you see Boiled-Hard in the games in progress thread, you'll see they're not really anatomically correct, but any other advice is welcome.
Thanks!
(https://i.imgur.com/75rDemU.png)
[imgzoom]https://i.imgur.com/LLGOVCd.png[/imgzoom]
Looking up reference of the character, it seems the hat is more angular and floppy, so I did that. I also messed around with the rest of the sprite a bit. It's a bit muddy, you may want to use less shades of the same colour - another advantage of this is that animating the character will be infinitely easier.
Thanks Scavanger! I tried to semi-replicate what you did. I did originally try to flop his hat and it looked awful, but basing my edit off yours with some tweaks has helped immensely. I also shortened his sleeves. You'll notice his legs are rather short - this is just a weird style I've been going with! I reduced the different shades on his arms, it was a bit overkill and would be a pain when animating. It's kinda funny that my main character (Detective Boiled-Hard) has the least detail and shading, but you can understand why that is the case!
(https://i.imgur.com/TZNuHoQ.png)
Jurassic Park is frightening,
In the dark,
All the dinosaurs,
Are running wild.
Same critics as 90% of sprites submitted in Critics Lounge: Contrast is too low.
Solution :
- Drop one or two shades in the shirt (you indulged in unnecessary anti-aliasing)
- Instead, darken the darkest shade.
- make sure that the light comes from the top : illuminate the top of the hat (not its side!) and illuminate the top of the shoulders (not their sides!).
- The face which is under the hat should also maybe be a bit darker -- but the choice is yours for readability.
- Same thing for the legs : Darken the darkest shade a teeny bit (the one that's under the knees) OR add a highlight at the bottom of the legs, where the pants rest on the shoes.
(I replied to Mandle off-AGS)
His legs do look better with a darker shade under the knees having a mess around just to see, although I felt compelled to anti-aliase them then, lol.
I've done so much animation for this guy now and it's not really worth taking the time to go over each frame when I'm satisfied with it, but I will take your advice under consideration for future characters, especially the light source! Thanks!