Update: Robot Redraw

[Penguinx]

See last post.

[Nacho]

No glaring mistakes for me... It is teh cool!

[Pessi]

Personally, I think it's a bit flat because of the lack of shading and also a tad too detailed for cartoon look. Talking about criticism!

I've learned to put great emphasis on defining the shape with values. As you said, there's no shading so it's just hard for me to make out the shape instantly. The details do shape the object but only after a bit of inspection. Anyway, don't take my word for it. I'm not good at pixel work nor am I that educated anyway. Just my opinion.

Techically, it looks fantastic - very accurate work. I especially like the black outline as it really ties the thing together. It's perfect as it is - just not my style!

[Penguinx]

I appreciate the criticisms. My original paper sketches had a lot more shading to them and I wasn't sure how other people would perceive the end result.

I will do an edit that has the original shaded regions included. It'l be a quick one, but it will give us something else to look at.

Thanks!

[Penguinx]

Here we are:

or ?

[Mr Jake]

left I love this art, great picture

[Penguinx]

I think I'm liking theone on the left now, too. However, there is something wrong about the head's shading that I can't put my finger on. Also, I just noticed that in my haste to get something up, there is asymetrical shading on the chest area. This is mostly due to the call sign I4 confusing the issue.

[Mr Jake]

I think maybe if you add some shading around the green area (I'm guessing the 'eyes')

[strazer]

I like the left one better, too.
But why don't you try a more subtle shadow color. At least on my setup it looks a bit dark.

[Penguinx]

In regards to the green eye area, that is not shaded because it is supposed to be a glass dome that has lights underneath it's glass. Think of the clear tail-lights on many of the newer Lexus and Nissan SUVs. This will be more clear in the large portrait shot I am going to use next to the spoken dialogue of this character.

About the shading; It is really high contrast, isn't it? I just threw 50% black on top of all those areas. Maybe I should subtle it up a bit.

[Darth Mandarb]

Well, I did this just as you were posting I guess!

Oh well ... I'll post it anyway.



I did some depth to the eyes.  Tried to make it look like you could see the 'ledges' at the bottom of the sockets.  Didn't come off too well, but do you see what I mean?

By the way ... Awesome work

])]V[

[Penguinx]

Darth, as usual, that's great. Aside from the geen/glass/socket things which you didn't know about anyway, that is right on. I'm going to be doing a redraw of this sometime soon and I'll post it up.

Thanks everybody! (This board is ironically the best source for pixel art criticism I can find as pixelation just doesn't seem to have the traffic to make it worthy to trudge through their 15 required posts to start a new topic).

[Penguinx]

Here's an update with a south animation:





I'm still not sure how to properly bob the head on this one. Everything I try looks too 'jerky.'

[James Kay]

It's a robot, it probably doesn't need a jerky head. Though it might be nice for it to turn very slightly left and right as it walks.

Oh, and one more thing: Niiiiiice!!!!!

[Darth Mandarb]

This rocks man!

I agree with James Kay!  It doesn't, to me, look like it needs head movement (up and down).

What about if his head more 'turns' from left to right.  Just a pixel or two.  Make it rotate.

This could be hard to do 'cause it's not real 3D, but would look awesome!

Maybe something like this:

This was done very quickly.  More just to illustrate what I meant!

Keep up the great work!

])]V[

[Evil]

Darth did a good job with the head movements. Your art looks a lot like Gunstar Red's stuff. Keep it up.

[Penguinx]

Thanks for the comments; the head bob I was drawing was not the right direction to take this character. Darth, that looks great. I am going to rotate the head and try to make the shape of the head change a bit as it rotates. The character's head is a bit oddly shaped from a side-view perspective, and showing the change as it rotates should really make it convincing.

I'll post an update later today (or Monday as I am going on vacation for a few days this weekend).

The posts made in response to my stuff are all really appreciated. Thanks a bunch for the help!

[Penguinx]

Here she is:



I ditched changing the shape of the head slightly as it just confused things.

[Darth Mandarb]

This is ... excellent!

The way the light reflections don't move when the body does totally sells the image!

Keep up the great work!!

[Penguinx]

I've posted to a few different forums, and the general consensus is that the character needed a hop in his step. I added the hop, corrected some shading issues with the face, and added a little bit of perspective to his hips.



Whattya think?