Murphy: character sprite

[JimmyShelter]

This is Murphy, a character I just drew.

I hope you can give me some critics that would help me improve him. Anything that's wonky or weird? Is the shading good enough? too big too small etc.

O'm not completely sure about the face especially,

[kjetting]

Not bad at all. The shading is minimalistic and nice (except I find the highlights on the bottom of his hoodie pocket a bit strange...), and the character is pretty ok in general. His head shape may be weird and he seems to have his entire forearms in those pockets, but if you don't want to change it you shouldn't have to.

I think the most important thing about game graphics is that you find your own unique drawing style and stick to it. Let's just say that you for instance drew your main character with a grotesquely oversized head and really short legs. If you then drew all the other characters with oversized heads and short legs it would totally match the style, but if the others were normally proportioned the main character would stick out far too much.

Bottom line: If you want to change anything, you couldÃ,  reshape the head, adjust the facual features, make the shading more consequent, adjust the farthest leg's shape etc, but the character also works fine the way it is right now.

[AlphaMole]

heh, I love the expression, just the right amount of layed back. if you're still questioning the face, you might want to try on different expressions on it, or make it talk, might give you a better idea on what to change.

[JimmyShelter]

I made a few changes.

I didn't change the face, somehow he loses his 'attitude' when I fiddle with it.

I added his other arm, changed his leg and changed the shading a bit.




I'm working on a talk cycle, but I have find a program to make animated pictures before I can post it here.

I'm not sure about the 'new' arm, but I don't want him to look like he's got just one. Any ideas?

[InCreator]

Well, what can I say...
interesting face and look overall,
but verrry baddd shaddding here.

There's some tips to improve the way you shade.



Now, I used the first image, because hand is actually more correct there. Then again, it's not correct enough, if character isn't a fat one.

I didn't change the face, hair or body build, because it has personality and character wouldn't be quite same, edit was only for pointing out shading.

Note that my shading has exactly same colors you used, only usage of them is a bit different.

Hope this helps.
Good luck.

[jrl2222]

I think the original shading was just fine. Not every sprite has to be shaded to photorealistic quality. Besides it makes it much easier to animate the way it is originally.

[Indie Boy]

I like Increator's paint over but the neck looks funny

[InCreator]

I think the original shading was just fine. Not every sprite has to be shaded to photorealistic quality. Besides it makes it much easier to animate the way it is originally.

Actually, I was not going for photorealism.
It's just that original extruded look gave photorealistic cardboard cutout character feeling.

But difficulty of animating relies mostly in amount of colors, not the way they are used. So I actually didn't make it much more difficult.

But It's JimmyShelter's sprite and he's free to do how- and whatever he wants with his sprite.

[JimmyShelter]

InCreator, thanks for your shading example. I tried something simular.

I als removed the second arm: I can make it appaer in the walkcycles, I just can't get it right otherwise.





How do these look for different talking faces? Is it enough to move the mouth, or is it better to also changed other features?

[HillBilly]

I did a very quick edit, to make him look slighly more relaxed. Hope you don't mind.

[JimmyShelter]

How does this look? somehow the speeds don't seem right, but I'm not sure what would look better.

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

I made two quick examples you could follow for talking animations.  The one on the left is a style I generally prefer, and the other is a typical lucasfilm games bobbing head talk animation. 



I fixed the left arm because his left leg is so prominent that you pretty much have to show the arm as well, and I distanced his eyes a bit (they seemed too close together).  I made  a few cosmetic fixes here and there but it's a good sprite to begin with.  Hope this is useful.

[Bombadil]

Huh... how cool...!

[Arboris]

the middle one is absolutly gorgious   
Thats some slick looking talk animation, good work

[Babar]

I agree...the head bobbing looks friggin 3D. However, please let him blink once in a while, otherwise he looks scary

[Xadhoom]

Looking good. I like the minimalistic design.

[JimmyShelter]

I made two quick examples you could follow for talking animations.  The one on the left is a style I generally prefer, and the other is a typical lucasfilm games bobbing head talk animation. 
I fixed the left arm because his left leg is so prominent that you pretty much have to show the arm as well, and I distanced his eyes a bit (they seemed too close together).  I made  a few cosmetic fixes here and there but it's a good sprite to begin with.  Hope this is useful.

Very cool edit, ProgZmax! Thanks.

I tried to use as much from the different comments as possible. this is the talk animation I ended up with (might still be possible to improve it, but for now I'm done ).


I made the talk animation slightly slower: Murphy isn't the fastest kid around.

[nasu]

Hey, very nice character man, keep up the good work, IÃ,  can hardly wait to play the game , hehehe!
Ã,  I have some questions about your drawing tehnics. I am designing my own game and I'm not so good at drawing and animation. Please let me know what programs you use for drawing and then animating, and if you draw pixel by pixel or have other tehnic.
Thanks you very much.,


Best regards.

[JimmyShelter]

Well, with pencils and paper I can't really draw very good. But with a computer you can easily change mistakes.

I used Photoshop for this character, I used another character I liked as a sort of template, to see how big the character should be etc.
I just drew over that character, and then changed it pixel by pixel until he didn't look too weird anymore.

It helps a lot to use other characters you like as reference material. First simply changing colours, then making them thinner, fatter., changing clothes etc. You can learn a lot from that.