Works of Sparky

[subspark]

Heres some of my work from the past. Critique as you will:

Complete:




Characters:

            

Portraits:



Work in Progress: This room wraps around to meet again. Basic outlines for now.



Sparky.

[Buckethead]

The critic lounge is not for pimping your stuff... make a game already! 

[Takyon]

Wow, looks great.

[Matti]

I was always wondering if your signature is a work of yours and probably be part of a game in progress...

I second Buckethead: Make a game already!

[subspark]

A game is indeed on the way folks. Stay tuned.

Hey come on my work isn't THAT perfect. Any constructive feedback? You know you want rip these baby's apart!

Cheers,
Sparky.

[Nacho]

I have a question... The huge amount of colours used for the sprite is intended or happened something with the file conversion? Because you are really good, but you could be one of the greatests if you start studying pixel art with limited palletes.

[subspark]

Well I got down to the pixel level. However I prefer not to limit my palette because I believe pixel art evolves with time. Just as our computers have gone from 2 bit to 16 bit right up to 256 bit, now our palettes aren't hindered by any visible technical limitations and we are free to create art in the form it might have originally been imagined.
Another example might be MIDI. Most AGS'ers these days seem to have dropped MIDI altogether and gone for digital music not for the sake of upgrading but for the quality of the presentation. The same does apply to art.

Of course, I love good pixel art and the limited palette is more of a style to me than a mark of a genius.
Actually this piece has already been reduced to 256 colors but you won't notice that thanks to modern palette down-sampling.
Glad you like my art.

Cheers,
Sparky.

[Matti]

Of course, I love good pixel art and the limited palette is more of a style to me than a mark of a genius.

Yeah, I never understood the point in limiting one's palette. I say go for it, your artwork is brilliant (sorry for not having mentioned that before  )

Really looking forward to your game (yet another Indie game it seems..).

[JimmyShelter]

Yeah, I never understood the point in limiting one's palette. I say go for it, your artwork is brilliant (sorry for not having mentioned that before  )

Well, if you do limit your palette, than really limit it, to for example just 6-8 colours like Ben uses in his games. Use it evoke a certain atmosphere or mood.



Back to topic: great artwork, subspark!

I really like the characters, are they inspired by the Indiana Jones style?

How did you do the night/day background? Pixel by pixel or using layers in photoshop?

[subspark]

yet another Indie game it seems..).

Nope. A completely original commercial title called Adlanto. We have a team of 8 spanned across the globe working hard on it right now. I've got a couple of friends in Canberra who are also interested in helping. Tom Vandepole has also been a BIG help to this project so look out for his name in the credits. Although we are working on this in our free time, due to the scale of the team, we're not looking at the usual 4-5 year development cycle. If we're lucky, we'll have a demo out early to mid next year.

Cheers and thanks for your interest gentlemen.
Sparky.

How did you do the night/day background? Pixel by pixel or using layers in photoshop?

Layers in Photoshop and then pixel touchups. The first scene (day) took me 11 hours straight. The night time version took me half an hour because I had already laid out the bulk of the work.

Cheers,
Sparky.


Edit:  Please don't double post.  -ProgZ

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

What Nacho has offered to you is good advice, particularly in light of the brilliance of your backgrounds.  The sprites you've designed here fall short of the backgrounds for several reasons:

1.  No distinct light sources.

2.  Random, dithered shading with gradients

3.  Overuse of similar shades of color.  My number one sprite rule is if you cannot clearly distinguish one color from the rest it's wasted.

4.  Washed out colors that don't lend any character to the characters.


With the first three points in mind I made an edit of the large guy:

1.  Reduced color count to a selection that kept reasonable contrast while allowing for natural shapes to come through.

2.  Reshaded character to bring out his natural bulkiness with a basic front-overhead light source.  Also adjused the left leg and arms to have more natural shapes.






The main piece of advice here is that it's not the amount of colors you use but how you use them.  Dithered gradients with lots of colors aren't improving these sprites at all, so a simpler application of well-contrasting colors (and perhaps trying out some more visually pleasing hues) will greatly improve these sprites.  Again, the backgrounds are wonderful so you definitely want the sprite quality to measure up in terms of clarity and detail.

[loominous]

Looks great!

The rocks look really nice, did you create them from scratch or from a photo? The reason I ask is that there's quite much light inconsistency, where the rocks on the right are lit from the right, and the light on the center left one is from the front/left, while the left is kinda hard to tell but leftish, almost from behind, so it kinda suggests a photo montage, but it could very well be a creative decision.

It's the same thing with the grass/plants on the right side, which would be in shadow from a lightsource from the left. I think placing them in shadow would make that area a bit less monotone and make the whole thing more dynamic (though it's a very interesting scene as is).

A few small things:



#1 The light seems to be coming from a strange direction on this object, making it feel a bit pasted in. It's a tricky angle though, but there's something not right.

#2 The ground tiles/bricks (or whatever they're called) seem to correspond to a higher horizon (a bit too little X rotation) - we seem to be looking "down" on them too much for our perspective. They seem a bit too uniform as well, making them seem almost like polished bricks.

#3 The light in the cave seems rather tame and uniformly lit (there doesn't seem to be any real light strength fall off)

#4 The tree crowns don't strike me as very natural, more like trimmed trees/bushes you'd find around a castle. I don't really get a sense of regular leaves either, more like large bushes with tiny leaves.

But all in all a really nice scene!

[subspark]

Awe shucks, ProgZmax and loominous. You guys are a BIG help.
I've got a little work to do on the characters. Some of them were a bit rushed.
The reason for the lighting angles in the scene are because of montage. I use techniques akin to matte painting where you'll take a couple of photos, mod them and place them around and then paint over them many times. I guess I simply flipped the photo invalidating the light source.

The rock tiles are particularly disturbing to me now that you mention it loominous, I'll tend to those right away.
Tree's definitely need to be less trimmed hedges and more wild willows or something. I was kind of going for a magical haven kind of look but I think I'll throw the ol' hand of time on this one. It will be a stronger image if this place feels long uninhabited or cared for.

I'll keep working on these rooms and characters and post results soon.
Thanks again guys!

Sparky.

[ThreeOhFour]

Aww man, matte painting. I always hear about it and wish I could do it 

Some of the sprites have things that caught my attention but ProgZ mentioned them all. The backgrounds look really great, good work . I'd buy something that looks like this  .

[subspark]

Thanks Ben, that means a lot.

Updated mr fat guy. His name is actually Hugh Mandle. And here he is:



Again thanks for the constructive pointers ProgZmax.

Cheers,
Sparky.

[Mr Flibble]

The character portrait looks a bit like Indiana Jones... or is that just wishful thinking on my part?

[subspark]

It IS Indiana Jones my good man. He's one of my favorite movie/game characters so I just had to take a whack at it.

Cheers,
Sparky.

[Kastchey]

If so, then you could put some more work into his facial details and into the shape of his hat. It's a step in the right direction, but as for now the portrait looks more like an, uh.. a redneck (sorry for the term) version of Indy made for a parody of Indiana Jones series. Or at least as if you were trying to sprite a farmer head using Indy picture as a reference. Something like that.

A quick paintover for a better explanation:

[rbaleksandar]

Damn, those backgrounds look awesome! Incredible I say  :o :o :o
btw I'm looking forward to seeing the hall with colors and shade. I'm sure it'll be amazing.

[Nacho]

My friend, the "limiting pallete" thingie is not for being a smart ass elitist... It actually makes the sprites cleaner, brings a new world of contrasts when you have to chose between values and makes it easier to work with... Less work, easier and better result. Try it, at least once, and you' ll realise that 16 colours is more than enough for small sprites