C&C for a character

[OneDollar]

Thanks, those are some useful tips. Sprite drawing and animation are something I need to practise, but unfortunately I don't have a lot of time at the moment. I will have a go at animating her at some point, and probably find that it is difficult with lots of colours... we'll see.

[Tuomas]

There's still a very common problem present. The pants look very baggy, as if she lets them hang below waistline. It's typical, that people first draw the hands and the shirt down to where it should be, and only then consentrate on the pants when the imagined waistline forms around the line where the shirt ends, and because most shirts hand over the waistline making the belt invisible, the crotch is usually there where the shirt ends. And like SPC drew her, the hands go halfway the thighs, when before they were way too short.

Imagine a belly button and measure the hands again, the elbow should be just about where it is, or just above. So basically the torso is too long and the feel start too low for it to look like a proportioned human being. Also, I would advice more contrast, perhaps less colours and thusly more detail, in which case it'd go pretty much to what SpacePirateCaine did.

However, the sprite's gone a long way from what you started with. I think I might make a paintover of the first one to show what I mean, also, I like the face, the mouth etc in the original the most. It's got an innocent look to it

I yeah, and forgot to mention, 50 pxl seems a bit small, but how ever you like it. I usually make them at least 80. tall. Well, it's a completely different thing using less and less pixels, but basically it just means cutting back on detail and really focusing on what's needed in the sprite. Also, drawing this "fix", I started thinking, is the clothing thought through, I mean, it does look a bit dull, so is this girl like one who doesn't care what she looks like, or are these just some clothes she wears at home, etc? here's a quick sign as to where I'm going with this. It's not my best work, but for the 20 minutes I decided to give to you, the original on the side for comparison:


A quick Xplanation (): I made the head smaller, yet trying to keep the facial details, and added some hair to give her a somewhat of the touch that I find pretty. I made the posture a bit "elegant". Basically I turned her to her right some 5 degrees, not too much, but yet easier to put the balance on one foot more then the other. I raised her other hand a bit to put it on the pelvis, just to show how it in my opinion should look there under the hand, basically, a female bottom, which is more round than the male one, at least in stereotypical cases like sprites usually. Also, the other hand is a bit behind the thigh, but yet reaches down as much as it should. The other leg is behind the other and neither of them is really straight because you'll realise if you try standing both legs locked straight, it'll be difficult. I also took some colours off the shirt, just to realise this version didn't have the yellow shoulders, oh well, they're easy to fix. But with low resolution I think tits look better with just a little detail, and to show this I left the 3rd colour, to show that they come out a bit. I also opened up the collar a bit thinking it wasn't a polo, again, easy to fix. and my biggest point here is the crotch which goes all the way up to the shirtline, as I said before. Oh, and the one pixel on the elbow is to show how much difference one can in fact make, try removing ti for fun and see which way it's better. I hope this helps at all.

EDIT: yeah, ok, so you get the point, the legs were too short in mine too, from waist down they're better more than half of the whole length, usually exact half. well, who cares, it's not my sprite and I like girls with short legs

[OneDollar]

Thanks Tuomas, that's really useful. I'm almost tempted to redraw her for a 640x480 resolution... anyway I'll think about it and play around with some of the ideas people have suggested

[OneDollar]

Bump

One MAGS duly out the way and I'm starting to think about this project again. I haven't corrected any of the later suggestions yet (colour count, eye colour, baggy 'pants' etc) but I had a go at a side view anyway.


I'm not at all happy with the face and the arm looks a bit stuck on... at some point I'll knock the colour count down and see if that solves that problem...

Anyway, critics lounge do your worst! Suggestions, paintovers, any other faults you want to pick with it...?

Here's a comparison of the three so far...

[Babar]

I must really like this character! I had a second go at it:


Aside from the stuff with the face, I don't think the little bit of skin on the collar would be visible, and she seemed even fatter than in the other views, so I tried narrowing her down a pixel or two.

[yarooze]

It was allways difficult for me, to make left/right face views, without making the "cubik". So it is better to use 3/4 view. IMHO

I used the babar's pic to show this (also the eyes/ears are to high IMHO ):


Of course I couldn't loose the oportunity to strip some lo-res girl... 

[OneDollar]

Right, I've doctored the side view a bit following Babar's advice, and tried to raise the crotch as Tuomas mentioned. Also as everyone is adamant that she should have less colours I had a go at a different shading style...



To be honest I do actually quite like it, and its going to be a lot easier to animate.

RE: 3/4 views, is the general idea to use a 3/4 view for when a character is standing but facing left or right, and a 1/2 view when they're walking?

Any more comments or ideas? Looking at the sprites with different shading I'm slightly worried her arms seem a bit too thin, especially her left arm, what do you think? Does the shading have too much contrast?

Yarooze, your version is great. She looks like she's saying "Where did those come from?"

Thanks for all the help guys!

[Newton]

I really like the new style of shading, and I think it fits perfectly. Nice work!

What bugs me now though is that once the lighter shade on her shirt was removed her breasts kind of looks like orbs attached to the sides of her torso. I think it might be how the darker shade frames the lighter shade on the breasts, but I'm not sure what would make it look better. Maybe make the lighter shade go a little further upwards?

Also, you might wanna make the lips a little less brownish.

Other than that, I'm really impressed! It's such a huge improvement over the original.