C&C for a character

[OneDollar]

I spent far too much time this afternoon making my (effectively) second sprite ever from scratch and I'm not entirely happy with it. It started at 60 pixels high and is now 45, so the proportions are a bit out, and I don't like the legs much. I was trying for attractive but not Lara Croft, though its hard to tell at this resolution. In the sprite she is wearing her hair tied back.

The character holds a fairly high position in a large interplanetary power company sometime in the future. She is sent out as a kind of representative/engineer to check on gas extraction plants and their crews, making sure everything is running smoothly and suggesting solutions to her superiors for any problems she encounters.

Anyway here she is:

1x and 5x

All (or at least most) C&C welcomed, paintovers and the like are also appreciated.

Any resemblance to Trinity from the Matrix is purely unintentional.

[Lionmonkey]

Well I'm no expert, but her head's right side seems to lack hair. Of course, maybe you did it so intentionally, but if not, then you could try add there some more pixels.

[Khris]

That piece is in desperate need of contrast! The face's and top's light & dark colors are practically indistinguishable from one another.

Also, women's hips are usually wider than their shoulders.

[Buckethead]

Nice sprite. Her hair is indeed kinda short. Like she shaved the sides. I also think you shouldn't let her rest her arms on here hips. If she holds them in the air it might add to a stronger pose. Another thing, her shoes seem almost the same colour as here trouwsers. I think you should either make them the same colour or add a bit more contrast between them.

[JimmyShelter]

I would have gone for more pixels It's very hard to pixel a character this small.

Her pose is a bit manly. But overall nice start.

Another thing: try making the character not too symmetrical. Now the body looks like it's mirrored in the middle. It makes a character looks less natural.

If she would lean a bit more on one leg, she would look more natural and less manly.

[Arboris]

   
I'm afraid I went a bit overboard with the drawover, but hopefully you can take a few pointers from it (most have been mentioned). The things I altered were:

Excess colours
You used alot of different "almost black" colours, almost indistinguisable from eachother. Same goes for the shirt, her hair and her skin. I altered those for fewer colors in total, and gave them a higher contrast from eachother.

Posture
I don't know if you intended it this way, but you made her look very butch.  Her shoulders are the main cause for this, so I nibbled a few pixels off to give her a bit more slender shoulders
I also altered her posture alittle bit by making it asymetrical and in the process made her legs (1 pixel ) a bit longer. I altered the left arm and leg to give the impression of a 3/4 frontal view.
Her face was altered (but not that drasticly, it still has your original shape but without the ears) and gave her a bit more hair. I used 2 pixels for her eyes instead of 1, and put them a bit further apart to lessen the "pinhead eyes"  effect. I Also removed her red lips, but you could add that again if you wished.

As a last note: I have to agree with Jimmy. The size of this character is quite limited and makes it hard to create a decent looking sprite. A bit bigger would ease the process alot

[OneDollar]

Thanks for the feedback. Yup, she does look rather manly now that I've come back after taking a break. Here's my second version, complete with (slightly) improved posture, more hair, no ears and higher contrast.

   

I might have another go tomorrow, in the mean time any more suggestions are welcome. I might increase the size too.

[Arboris]

It already looks alot better, I would make the eyes a bit bigger tho and you should clean the skin colour up a bit. It still has the indistinguisable contrast differences. Also: you might want to try putting her left arm 1 pixel closer to her body. I think it would make her posture look better

[OneDollar]

Thanks, I'll try those out tomorrow. *Her* left arm, or the arm on the left (like you did with your paintover)?

[Arboris]

Thanks, I'll try those out tomorrow. *Her* left arm, or the arm on the left (like you did with your paintover)?

her arm on the left, like in the paintover Sorry about that

[OneDollar]

Right, I've now bumped the sprite up to 56 pixels tall, and yeah, it is a lot easier to work with. I ended up redrawing a lot, so her pose and shading have changed yet again. Here's an interesting progression so far...
       

Let me know what you think.

[Babar]

It probably didn't warrant an edit, but I felt like it, SO:



* Removed the topmost dark pixel on the breasts
* Removed the eye white
* Added an ear
* Tried to fix her left arm
* Tried to do some shading on the face/head

I'm not so good at shading, but how you've done it on the shirt seems very random. I couldn't begin to clean it up, but I suggest that you do.

Also, she seems to be turned slightly to the (our) left, while her face is looking slightly to the (our) right. I'm not sure how you should be handling her left arm, because it still looks somewhat strange.

[ThreeOhFour]

Rushed late night paintover. Might try again later. Use more pixels, I say. And more contrast.

[OneDollar]

Ok, I've done one more edit, had a go at that arm, virtually redone all the shading and added the ear Babar suggested. Since then I've had a go at her back. Again I'm having difficulty with posture and shading, though I don't think its too bad. Any more comments, thoughts or suggestions?

 

[Arboris]

It's good to see such progress on your sprite. Personally I don't have any problems with her backview, the shading is pretty good as it is.

[OneDollar]

Thank, though I've just spotted a small problem I'll get around to a side view or two at some point and then... *shudder* ...walkcycles. In the mean time any other thoughts are appreciated.

[Sparky]

She looks good as is. If you want to improve the shading a little it might be nice to light her from above, and perhaps add a bit more contrast to her skin.

The lighting here is a little more uniformly from above. Her shoulders have been rounded out a tad, she's been given a slightly heavier build and her breasts have been made more natural in shape. Her face has been re-shaded a bit- the main change is that her nose is lit a light spot instead of a dark spot. These are all really fiddly edits; as I said before the sprite already looks fine, and doesn't really need any work at all.

Nice work, this sprite has really come a long way!

[Lamak]

Yay ! I made some changes on your character, I hope you don't mind.
Lowered the shoulders, the boobs, made her legs thinner, modified the haircut and the way she stands. I also added a belt and opened her shirt.



[PS : how do I put the images side by side ?]
edit : Thanks for the tip, OneDollar !

[OneDollar]

Thanks for those, especially liking what you did with her hair Sparky. Both sets of edits will be useful for shading too (something I need a bit more practice at). I'm starting work on my third attempt at a MAGS competition, so I'm gonna put her on hold for a bit, and see what I think when I come back.

[PS : how do I put the images side by side ?]

Its as simple as writing all the image embedding code on one line

[SpacePirateCaine]

The sprite's looking pretty good, I think. Just remember that when it comes to doing sprite art for gaming, less is often more. If you want to avoid a lot of headaches when animating a sprite, try to cut the color count down: two-to-three colors at a higher contrast per item can usually achieve the effect you want, and save you a lot of time later.

I don't see the smaller sprite as having been a large problem. Yes, you're limited in the amount of detail that you can fit into the character's smaller features, but that doesn't make it any worse. A well-drawn low-resolution sprite can still do what a hi-res sprite can, and be a whole lot more efficient when it comes to animation.


I pushed a few pixels here and there to make her pose a little more dynamic, and took the color-count down from 21 to 8, raising contrast and limiting myself to 2 colors for skin, shirt and pants, one color each for hair and epaulletes. I know her eyes are blue, but from a distance, eye color doesn't show up. Guybrush Threepwood's eyes are blue too, according to the close-ups in Monkey Island, but were represented by a single dark-colored dot, because it would look awkward otherwise. I also managed to save color count by using the same dark tone as the shirt for the eye.