Need C&C on"believably-ish" Chinese character

[Ghost]

Back at spriting stuff for the fun of it, and I came up with a promising duo here.

To the left are two takes on a Chinese lass. The girl, however, lacks somewhat, to put it mildly. I find it pretty hard to make her look really asian- in the end, I actually picked likely-looking colours from a real photo, and resorted to putting her into the ever-so-clichéd sailor fuku just to make things clear. I keep thinking the eyes are wrong... but at the low resolution and size of my characters, there's only so much detail you can put into a face...
But there's more able pixel pushers than me out there, and maybe someone has a tip?



x2

And yes, the dude's a Revenant. C'mon, we all know they are adventure game hero material!

[Mati256]

The one in the middle looks like she is suspecting something.
The one on the right has big anime-like eyes which are now probably associated (by me, at least) with Asian people.
Now, the real reason I wrote this, what are those things in the legs called in English?

[ThreeOhFour]

I tried and am pretty sure I failed, but maybe you can take something from it:



My real advice though? Screw Imageshack Imgur all the way, these days.

[MiGo]

Well, Personally I can think of two things that could help. Really, you've gotten the cute faces down, such as the chubby cheeks and small features. Now, realize I don't mean to make any racial comments by breaking things down as if it's so simple to define an entire race: But I'd try making her skin a little bit pinker in this case, and with your style, shaping her eyes to be more cat-shaped like AMY WONG from FUTURAMA.

@Mati256 I think those are just baggy socks... but otherwise those would be called "Leg Warmers".

[Calin Leafshade]

Leg warmers are *awesome*. They should definitely come back into vogue.

[Ghost]

With low-res sprites, generalisation and exaggeration is both a blessing and a curse!

Mati- "Loose socks"- used to be quite a fashion at some point. And let's not start with the Neue Deutsche Welle looks...

Ben, that eye edit looks very good- exaggerated, but I think it'll work well. I tweaked it just a little because in the frontview, the eyes would've been technically completely black. Also made the pupil (extremely) dark brown, increasing the colour count by one.

Migo- Good tip and cute reference! I made the skin a bit paler, but with a yellowish tint. Pushed a few pixels of hair.

Result starts to look much more exaggerated than I first had in mind (the last missing thing would be buck teeth), but I (start to) like it, and it shouldn't come over as offensive.
Have a look.

(And thanks about Imgur. The 'shack really became annoying!)


x2

[Anian]

It doesn't look that exagerated (as in too racist or too cartoony), I mean, it just helps to define. Sprite looks fine now, except to me she looks kind off pissed off in the front view - her hair is more opened up in the 3/4 view, in fact, it looks like a different hair style.

And New wave? That was the late 70ies but leg warmers are from aerobics, Flashdance etc. which is early to mid 80ies...and I know too much about leg warmers. 

[ThreeOhFour]

Looks good!

[Hudders]

And New wave? That was the late 70ies

New Wave lasted at least a decade. From late 70s to mid 80s I would say.

[Gilbert]

Being Chinese myself, I haven't made any comment yet. That's because to me all Chinese look normal, and even though it doesn't look exaggerated, there are indeed distinctive features that we normally won't emphasise. However, being recognisable (from "ordinary" western people) in a game is required here, so I don't see any thing wrong there. (Same to us, as we will usually depict westerners with distinctive stereotypical features such as having blond hair, blue eyes and pointy noses, when Asians are the local focus of a production.)

One thing I'm more concerned, is, where and when she's from? The leg warmers are a bit distractive, as if she's from more "traditional" areas (such as the Mainland in the 70's or the 80's) virtually no one would wear them outdoors, and if she's from more "modern" areas (such as Hong Kong here) some people might wear them outdoors but it's still a rarity. Unless she lives in the west, or consider that the settings is in modern years (but still it's not that popular) I'll say the leg warmers don't fit that much. Ordinary white socks look much more realistic.

Another thing is the sailor dress. While some schools in Chinese places (be it Taiwan, Mainland or Hong Kong) DO use them as school uniforms, they're not that popular (it is JAPAN where they are popular). If it's not a school uniform then it's nearly non-existent as casual wear in Chinese places. However, as I mentioned some schools do use such uniforms (like the school I went to in primary levels, where both male and female uniforms were variants of sailor uniforms, but they're unlike the "Japanese-style" ones here), so it is still passable.

The last thing is the skin tone. In fact, typical Chinese girls can use a even paler colour (of course, there are people who have darker skins, but I'm talking about "typical" here).

Edit: Quick crappy paint-over to show my points.

If that's not recognisable enough, you can actually go for an even more stereotypical route, that is, to give her a Qi Pao like uniform. (Yes. Schools do have Qi Pao style uniforms, and they're actually not as rare as sailor dresses.)

[MiGo]

Awesome. It doesn't get more helpful than Iceboty's reply. My girlfriend can speak Chinese, and dormed in a Chinese hall at her college, but that certainly doesn't make ME any expert on their culture/visual aspects!

[Ghost]

Ice, that was very thorough and helpful indeed. Allow me to elaborate a bit.

Initially the school uniform was nothing but a saving throw and an easy way to suggest an age- a (superficial) google search made me believe that the "sailor fuku" was generally used in Japan and China, and thus I went with it, and added the loose socks to make it look more casual. A better search would've defenitely been in order. Your post indicates  that apparently there is a lot more variance to it, and even the possibility to guess a region/home town. That's pretty complex! I'm German myself, and I'd have a hard time distinguishing between two brands of jeans  

As far as this girl's concerned, she's to be a contemparary teen (16-17), and the game itself takes place in a rather generic, english town (intentionally no exact date and place, but defenitely 20something). What I want to have is a set of two main characters that really stand out because
a) they look different from what adventure games usually feature in their sprite-cast (mostly white, or relatively exaggerated black characters, or clearly fantastic creatures)
b) they have a background that reasonably explains abilities/views they take for normal, but which are "unusual" to everybody around them (Revenant should be self-explanatory, and the Chinese have some of the most amazingly wicked spell mythology I ever had a look at)

In fact, your tips together with the spot-on colour edit made me drop the whole school dress thing. Frame, skin tone and eyes should really do the trick now, and I'm currently respriting with simple casual clothes. (The Qi Pao style *is* tempting, though)

Thanks a lot, that really was an education!

[Gilbert]

(The Qi Pao style *is* tempting, though)

Spoiler

Make it an unlockable outfit for a 2nd quest after beating the game, mmmkay?

[close]

[Ghost]

And here we are...

* school uniform replaced by simple, "neutral" clothes. I swiped the colour palette from Hsien-Ko, of Darkstalkers fame, though.
* more relaxed pose, plus visible arms, to avoid becoming the AGS version of Rob Liefeld
* chest adjusted
* some shoe-pixel pushing
* third colour added to skin and clothes, to get softer edges.


x2

Pretty amazing what one "middle colour" can do for an image!

Re "spoiler": It's a DEAL! 

[Khris]

Played around with it a bit, great sprite!

           

-Slight palette adjustment (darker tones should have less saturation)
-moved hip down
-changed her left hand
-stance
-minor pixel pushing (right arm, neck, head, ti-- ah, chest)

[Gilbert]

The edits are nice, but:

-moved hip down

I think that makes her torso too long (especially for ordinary Asians). Same to the left arm. It's just too long, unless you favour noodle people.

[Khris]

Lolwut?

I don't see asian body anatomy diverge from those of other continents at all btw. Unless you count Sailor Moon's that is
Seriously though, the head is of course way too big, but that's alright, is it not? Because this is a stylized character and the anatomy can be exaggerated. My edit uses the golden ratio for arms, legs and torso/legs.

[Gilbert]

Nah. From what I see, the original proportion works better for Asian people.

[Anian]

Both versions I really like, but I'd go for Ghost's proportions ("higher hip") cause it kind of makes a style and goes better with the face which is cartoony somewhat (and the pose is cartoony as well, so it all kind of fits better). But keep those changes to shading on her breasts and legs that Khris made and especially the color pallete changes.

In the end, it's your call, G.

[Ghost]

Khris, valid points, and several of them I could use to good effect.
* smaller feet- I really have to work on these
* chest- makes indeed a difference, even though I kept the general pose and didn't alter the hips)
* palette: Yeah. One day I'll really get the hang of it.

I think I really have the sprite now where I want; I also updated the revenant (who by comparison looked pretty flat now). Little screenie:




Thanks a lot, all. This really reminds me of how much nicer times were with constant net access