New sprite based on a photograph

[Trihan]

Okay, here's my next attempt at spriting, using a photograph as a reference. Here's the photo I used:



And here's my really pathetic attempt at spriting him, at 1x and 4x:



I'm aware of most of the glaring flaws. I don't have a very good grasp of shading with sprites this small, and there's no detail in the face. I couldn't really figure out how to get any real detail in there. Any comments, criticism, requests for my deportation and dismemberment, death threats, marriage proposals or random poetry are, as always, welcome.

But go easy on me, this is the first sprite I've really done "by myself" in years.

Edit: And now that I think about it, it's entirely possible that I made the sprite -too- small by not realising that the background I compared him to wouldn't be the same size in-game as it is in the editor... oh well. Feel free to comment on my tiny sprite while I make one that's actually a normal size.

Edit: Here's my latest attempt. It's a bit bigger and more detailed. I'm still not all that hot with shading, but I think it's an improvement. The face looks horrible, I couldn't figure out how to salvage it so maybe you guys can give me some pointers. (As a challenge to myself I limited it to 16 colours for this version)

[Trihan]

Edited first post with a new attempt.

[..]

For a first sprite, it's really good.

I definately prefer the updated one.  I thought it looked a bit like he had a moustache or something in the first post.

Some advice I'd give though would be to draw in a little more of that left arm.  I know it's not strictly visible in the source photo but I think without any of it, it looks like he doesn't have one.  Also, maybe make the eyes a little smaller, would make him look a little less shocked !

[Trihan]

I gave him a bit more of a left arm, although given the pose the sprite is in if it were ever used for anything it would obviously be intended to be leaning against a wall, making it a moot point. I also removed the light pixels beside his eyes, changed the colour to a slightly less bright one to make them seem smaller, and took a little of the face highlight out. I also lightened his mouth to make it less harsh.

[Uhfgood]

Personally for an image of that size, I'd just give the suggestion of eyes and a mouth.  Make the eye area a darker shade of the face color, and same with the mouth.  Otherwise it just looks a bit bizarre.

[ThreeOhFour]

I've only touched the face here because it seems to me like the part that could use the most improvement.

Quicko Edito:



Some points:

-Skin tones are not all one hue that just have more black added into the mix. On a character with skin tone like this I usually have the highlight with more of an orange hue, shifting to a slightly more red hue for the dark shade, and the middle somewhere inbetween. Sometimes I ignore this completely and go with what looks good, but that's a pretty good general guideline.
-Nobody's eyes are bright freakin blue from that distance. Look at the photograph: All you can see are dark colours there. Use dark colours. If you're drawing cartoony characters, hell, use all the bright colours that you want. But from a photo, all we see is darkness.
-Make him smile like he is in the photograph!
-Make his hair to the sides of his head, as in the photograph.
-Personally, when doing game sprites I will just leave the lighting from basically top down and ignore side lighting and such.

He still doesn't look too much like the dude in the photo, but at least he is happy now!



Hope this helps a little.

[Trihan]

Thanks for the pointers. I knew the eyes were too bright, and the hair was off, and the mouth was crap, and the skin tone was awful...I just wasn't quite sure how to go about salvaging them. XD

Can you post that at 4x size so I can get a better look at it though, please?

[Matti]

Can you post that at 4x size so I can get a better look at it though, please?

Why don't you do it yourself?

x4


By the way, you could just download it in order to have a closer look..

[Trihan]

Sorry matti, I was being retarded. It's been a long day at work...

I actually momentarily forgot that I could do that. XD

[pslim]

I think perhaps this picture is not ideal for making a sprite from. The light is coming from behind him and to one side, whereas most sprites are made with top-down lighting simply because it's easier to work out and it's less likely to clash awfully with the lighting schemes of the various backgrounds he's going to be superimposed over.


If I weren't having stupid problems with stupid Vista that prevent me from downloading files from the internet I would do a paintover. :/

[Trihan]

If I was actually going to use him in a game I'd agree with you, but I don't intend this as anything but spriting practice so the feasibility of the subject in a game environment is a moot point.

[pslim]

I gotcha, I just think that shading him in general would be much less of a headache if he were lit more tranditionally. If your intention is to challenge yourself at shading something out of the ordinary, though, it seems like a good selection.


I took a ss of the page because I couldn't help myself and had too much fun doing a paintover. I hope you find it in some way useful. 





x2



-- The first thing I did was block each element in in one color and alter the shapes a little bit until they looked more like the photograph to me.
-- I did some straightforward top shading in some places, like the face, but still tried to follow the photograph.
-- I fiddled with the different hues of the shirt, skin and hair somewhat; made the darker tones more saturated and redder and the lighter tones less saturated and a little more yellowy
-- I tried to make his hair sort of dome-shaped like in the picture, and gave him some sideburns.
-- I gave his shirt lapels like in the photo.
-- I gave the poor guy some ears.
-- I shaded the protruding and receding areas of the face in light tones and dark tones respectively.

[Trihan]

*bows*

And this, folks, is why I have no right even attempting to do art.

That's brilliant, palim. I can only dream of doing something that good.

[pslim]

Now I totally have to post one of the old files I have, an NPC talk animation I made for my first AGS game (never finished  ) so you can know that you're really just seeing into the future.

[Trihan]

Haha. At least it was original. Also sorry, I typoed your name. *pslim