Character portrait - Meet Ivory!

Peter Bear · Sun 14/10/2007 20:42:28

dont mess with circular carpets :x lol

now, your drawings do look as good as you do

this is a compliment
( sorry for beeing french

)

Nice work, you seem easy with sketches, good for you !

Nightfable · Sun 14/10/2007 21:17:03

x3
Meet the mean bully who still remains unnamed - she's the one who sucker punched Ivory while the other two girls were holding her down. I attempted making her gorgeous but evil like the dark soul she has.

Candall: Ah, thanks for explaining! I will try it out with my backgrounds. I intend to redraw the backgrounds but with accurate perspective this time and hopefully it will show it as I imagine it.

Oliwerko: The silent type... I like that!

Pierre: Thanks!

Edit: My third character portrait!!! Wow, 2 in a day... I'm on a roll!

x3

ThreeOhFour · Mon 15/10/2007 11:24:33

Damn! These things have some class. All your portraits have great feel of personality.

I'd like to mention that the green in the blue part of the last portraits eye's is awesome.

Keep em coming!

Andail · Mon 15/10/2007 11:37:42

Hm, hold on now sister, take one and stick to it for now

There's plenty of room for improvement, and none of those portrait are "finished". You need to learn to refine your pieces before you massproduce them...

I suggest you select one for c&c and we'll see what we can do with it.

Nightfable · Mon 15/10/2007 15:19:18

What's wrong with mass-producing my character portraits, Andail? And if you find that there's a lot of room for improvement, why don't you be more specific about it and tell me instead of pointing the finger? I've seen lots of people posting more than one character sprite at a time in the Critics Lounge before and no one's told them that it was a bad idea to do so.

You say none of my portraits are "finished", please elaborate! Thanks.

Nikolas · Mon 15/10/2007 15:21:50

Adrey?

Please, how about a male character? I'm starting to feel a bit weird here...

Nightfable · Mon 15/10/2007 15:29:32

Alright Nikolas, I was just about to draw one, lol! How about a middle-aged teacher?

Nikolas · Mon 15/10/2007 15:47:06

Hmm... doesn't sound bad really.

Oh, btw, something artistic: Don't know if it is called style or it's something one should avoid:

All 3 portraits have the same proportions betwen head-body, and mainly their body is a tad big. I know that Audrey's not after realism by no means, but was wondering if changing those ratios would work in favour of a character. If, for example, the male character (middle-age teacher) would have a smaller head/body ratio.

Just an idea, but this would probably clash with styles a bit, so not sure about this. Just throwing my idea in something I know little about.

Andail · Mon 15/10/2007 16:16:46

Quote from: Nightfable on Mon 15/10/2007 15:19:18
What's wrong with mass-producing my character portraits, Andail? And if you find that there's a lot of room for improvement, why don't you be more specific about it and tell me instead of pointing the finger? I've seen lots of people posting more than one character sprite at a time in the Critics Lounge before and no one's told them that it was a bad idea to do so.

You say none of my portraits are "finished", please elaborate! Thanks.

There's generally nothing wrong with mass-producing, but you can often benefit from stepping back a bit, looking critically at your own work and ask yourself how you can improve it, instead of leaving it behind and starting on something new.

If these are meant to be concept sketches, then I think you should be more careful with proportions and anatomy. Perhaps take a notepad and some pencils and draw real faces, just for practice. After that, you can start exaggerating shapes and forms to make them more cartoonesque.

If they're meant to be portrait sprites, then you need to transform them into portrait sprites, which means that you must clean up the lines and the pixels, reduce the sketchiness and work out a more stylistic way of shading them. Dialogue portraits are generally just some 100x100 pixels large, depending on the game resolution.

You should select on one picture to start with, and ask us - and yourself - how you can improve it, because right now it's hard to give a collective judgement. You'll mostly get pretty generic oneliners like "keep up the good work" or "they look as good as you do!" since people won't know what to focus on.

Nightfable · Mon 15/10/2007 16:58:24

Here's a male character I just drew. Kinda looks like Picard.

Thanks for your detailed reply Andail, I appreciate your feedback.

You know what, I thought I could create a game, but even a small one is just too much work - especially with kids around to look after. I've had about 5 hours (in total) to myself yesterday, I drew and colored the portraits as quickly as I could and even skipped doing the housework in order to work on my game. Now, today, I'm faced with a mountain of clothes and dishes to wash because I spent time drawing - it's pretty much like a kick in the face. It's my own fault for sticking my head so far up in the clouds; I have to come back down and deal with reality. The truth is, I don't have the leisure of time to sit down and "refine" everything - hell, I don't even have time for myself anymore.

I'm sorry to say that I have to give up on game-making, AGS isn't really for me.

Good luck with your games everyone and thanks for the honest C&C on my drawings.

Peter Bear · Mon 15/10/2007 17:30:24

if can produce fast sketches, you are still an interest for who plans to make a team game ...

others could colorize, refine, animate, script etc ...

Good luck with the remaining of your life

Nightfable · Mon 15/10/2007 18:43:37

Quote from: Pierre HOPQUIN on Mon 15/10/2007 17:30:24
others could colorize, refine, animate, script etc ...

HÃ©, merci Pierre, moi aussi je parle franÃ§ais. Disons que je me sent Ã©puisÃ©e ses temps si, peut-Ãªtre je devrais moins passer de temps sur les forums et pas prendre tout a coeur. Merci pour Ãªtre si sympa avec moi.

I definitely need to piece my game together and to post in the Critics Lounge isn't perhaps the right thing to do right now.

I'm going to take a little break and will come back when I've slept a good night sleep.

Snarky · Mon 15/10/2007 19:47:17

I think it'd be a shame if you didn't persevere, although I completely understand your dilemma. However, don't let calls for further refinement hold you back.

I'm sure Andail is right that the portraits could benefit from various improvements. However, it's important to point out that they're absolutely acceptable the way they are now. I really like their look, and the slight remaining sketchiness is a plus in my book. I like how in the first one you're drawing her left eye even though it's mostly hidden behind her hair--many cartoonists just omit it completely, which tends to look really weird. I also really like the shading on her dress. You have a good sense of color. They are very large, though, unless they're intended to be completely full screen, or you're running in 640x480 or higher resolution.

If you can make two of these in five hours, maybe you can work for half that time every day: two and a half hours, making one portrait or something else each day? Even if it's a little rougher than you could have achieved with more time, it's still going to be a good-looking game.

Don't let perfection be the enemy of the good. Posting in the critics lounge is always going to lead to people suggesting ways to improve, but when something is good enough, it might not be worth spending more time on.

Oliwerko · Mon 15/10/2007 20:54:34

I think giving it up is not a conclusion. Well, it might take a very long time to finish a game, but as long as it is fun for you, there is no reason to stop. It hasn't to be completed fast. That is not the goal. The goal is to have fun creating it.

auriond · Mon 15/10/2007 23:34:51

Quote from: Nightfable on Mon 15/10/2007 18:43:37
I definitely need to piece my game together and to post in the Critics Lounge isn't perhaps the right thing to do right now.

Yes, I think the main problem is that you're posting in the wrong forum, Audrey.

You have to stop and think about what is most important for you: finishing the game, regardless of the time spent on it and the quality? Just having fun, and not worry about finishing the game or not? Finishing the game, with the best artwork that you can do?

If you post in C&C, people will want to comment and give you feedback on how to improve, and from what I've seen in this forum people think nothing of 4-page threads about one single background or portrait. That's what this forum is for. People come here to help one another improve. I've seen absolutely breathtaking work being criticised and, to my amazement, it got even better than before.

But if you just want to go on and get your first game under your belt, I don't recommend that you post here. Get a few backgrounds done in the style that you like, get a few sprites done, get your game started. If you haven't lost heart by the first few rooms, post a couple screenshots in the GiP forum and update from there.

Posting in C&C for your first game can be very disheartening, because what you thought was a perfectly good piece of art can and will be criticised. I will say this though: this forum is full of members that give the best constructive criticism I have ever seen. Once I have my own first game done, I will post my pictures here for criticism and improvement; until then, my first priority is getting my game done, even with imperfect graphics.

Your pictures are fine if you think they are fine! If they are the best you can do given your time constraints and other limitations, then you can go ahead and use them.

Andail · Tue 16/10/2007 16:58:35

Good post, Auriond.

Learning is painful, exposing yourself and your creations to the anonymous masses can be awkward, but c&c and feedback is the best way to learn.
I've published my art on this board ever since it was first opened, and every time, no matter how much I've tweaked and adjusted it, I get useful advice on how to improve it further.

Ah well, made a little paint-over.

x2

Not really into manga/emo stuff at all, just tried to stylize your portrait a bit, pull it together sort of. Rather drastic changes I guess, although I tried to preserve her slightly sickly image.

Oliwerko · Tue 16/10/2007 17:18:58

Wow, I am speechles, Andail.

Sylvr · Tue 16/10/2007 18:10:46

And nightfable... I love those coloured portraits you did up there. I think you captured what you were going for... gorgeous and evil, did you say? Awesome... and that second one... I love the eyes.

Erwin_Br · Tue 16/10/2007 21:47:34

Andail's edit is a bit easier on the eyes because of his strokes, but I actually did like the vibrant red more than this "plain" shade of brown, to be honest.

--Erwin

Tiki · Tue 16/10/2007 22:19:52

I'd like to point out that it's a bit strange for a black woman to have blue irises, or a blonde to have dark eyes