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You are good on the way, but your piece lacks confidence. It's all a massive amount of tiny scribbles making up undynamic shapes. You could go Baron Yoshimoto and practice making only lines on pieces of paper until you have improved your coordination, and first then sketching.

Nah, seriously, you can see a good sense of anatomy behind a resonably good picture, but the massive amount of scribbles remove any dynamics this picture could have. Look up crosshatching pictures and see how it is shaded. Perhaps start out with fruit exercisesor other types of still lifes.

You have great potential. Better use it! =)

There is no golden rule on how fabric is folded and should be shaded. You are best of using a reference and go by it. The new version, to the right, looks really good. The highlight on the left is a bit awkward.

Pity it was not open for all countries.

Your piece is very smooth and lush, but it lacks some contrast in the "flesh". The bark is dead on, very fairy taleish, and I like it much. The skin tones however could benefit from some clearer shades and hightened contrast. Especially in the face. It has no real characteristic and seem blend. The nose disappear and the shape of the ears are unclear. Also, you could go over the piece with some different hues, try to make it stand out more.

A solid piece, great concept!

[Beyond Good and Evil]

I'll just go on and recommend the best game I know namely;

Beyond Good and Evil which came out a couple of years ago. In this masterpiece you play a young girl struggling to take photos of all different animals in the world, but it doesn't stop there. No, the fusion of gameplay and storytelling is sometimes mindblowing, the story is enganging from scratch, and the characters are simply great. All this is is presented in a sci-fi world with a blend of human, extraterrestials and fableanimals, all very very much like a european comic. I started playing it 20:00 and stopped not until I had beaten the game 09:30 the next day. Five thumbs up!

Your posture is confident and secure. But if he should be laid back, perhaps a slouch or hanging head would suffice.

All the major anatomy oddities has been taken care of, and Drawkens take puts a bit off effort into the strange dress. In the previous versions, it seemed like she was placed within a red jelly blob.

You still need to work a bit on the fabric. It might work with keeping the upper line, and removing the other two, but it is not the most suitable solution. I'd try to find a reference picture of dresses and how the fabric is shaped, and go from there.

The design of the character is rather nice. Very eviliscious, a femme fatale and lady in red, all packed intoone neat package. Bens edit takes away those amazeing wrestler shoulders, and gives her a sense of vulnerability (probably false.. you looks venomous!). The rose is a nice symbol, it suits perfectly. A'nd I wouldn't worry too much about those eyes, they look fine to me. Ã, 

The sprite is technically appealing, but those characteristics you wish to portray is sadly not there. To be laid back, he could have even worse posture, and the arrogance can be achieved with a raised chin or a smirk. Try different facial expressions and see where it goes from there..

Tis a good start indeed. The horizon and distant mountain is really good, although it will only reflect in the water like that if the water is absolutely still, and on the seaside, the water is never still

The foreground has some problems. One is the non-existant variation of hues. The other is the lightsource. Try setting up a direction and making the shadows relative to it. As it is now, the shape of the dunes is unclear.

Death Rally..mmmm...

I'd say your middle windshield looks best. All in all, a very solid sprite. Good work!

I think the new version is simply great  Now try to make her as evilicious in the sideways view.

So I played it through. Didn't get all the points but hey, it's a near rock solid game. Great design. The flat perspective feels joyously oldschool,and plays great. There are some minor inconviniences when you have to walk to locations before being able to click, but they are mild in comparision to the great gameplay you've provided.

Graphics are solid and well developed. You deliver with a nice style, and keep it throughout the game. Kudos!

The puzzles are mostly by adventure standards, only some might stretch the logic a bit too far. I got stuck several times, but mostly due to dreadful pixelhunting. Yes I know, some people might find that sort of thing challenging but I am not that person. Oh well.

The story, oh the story. A bit of anticlimax at the end, but upto that, intruiging indeed. I felt midly amazed by the plot presented, but you are ammediatly thrown into a mansion to explore, and then the extra dimensions of gameplay (badum-dish).

The music. Oh the music, and sound is very impressive. Certainly worthy of my eary attention! No complaints there!

All in all, a great game!
Three thumbs up!

I made a random tips and tricks image..

If you do rooms in the same tiltedperspective, you can account for some highly original ingame graphics 

Since you trace a photo, the pose is dead on. Tilted yes, but nonetheless, very human. Either way, I like it. But unless you plan to make the backgorunds tilted, you had better pretilt your reference to match a proper top-down perspective.

Designwise, I think it is lacking in the facial department. Using a high resolution, you ought to take advantage of the amount ofpixels you have for disposal, and add characteristics to your face. Unless ofcourse, you want him to be a tabula rasa, in which case the face is brilliant.

As I posted in another thread, you can add characteristics only with using eyes (eyebrows) and mouth.

IMO, the first version is better. Nothing wrong with flat coloring, it is just a matter of style. The second has vague shading at best, and it seem random, depicting no real shapes.

When it comes to concept, I think your character is good, but has room for improvements. Especially her face, which brings no actual characterisation, but rather an empty page, which can be good. But judging from your writing, your character HAS well developed characteristics and should be equally depicted within her face. Perhaps work with eyebrows or altering her mouth and eyes.

Here's a swift display of how you can alter your characters apperance with only facial expressions.

Conceptwise it is very good. Simple yet effective, with some props to define the character. When it comes to the sprite, I can see what you strife for with the face, but Mr Flibble showed with his edit, you can increase the contrasts without ruining the vagueness of said sprite. the face's shape however is not that much like that of your concept. Maybe define the chin somewhat further, or remove one pixel in the sprite width. Either way, a very solid piece of work.

(you could work on the posture in your concept though, but it is good in the sprite )

tis a good start, but my main concern is the animation. He seems so rigid, that I fear any attempt to animate his would be equally rigid animations. Krysis take is a good alteration. It is however a much more mellow character. I like the stubble in your piece. Naïve yet effective.

When creating a cartoon character you must think about what you plan to deliver. My guess is your aim in simply a badass bunny. You can exxagarate this by altering the posture, making him look confident and secure.

The second thing is props. A leather jacket or trenchcoat convey noir themes of the lonely hero. I think this fits what your aiming for. Is the gun important? So important he shows it off constantly or perhaps it is a shooter game, inwhich the gun is crucial, but otherwise, he might want it tucked away.

Thirdly, what Krysis says is much true. Simple lines and simple shapes does wonders. Don't clutter your character with to many details. as it is now, less is more.


This is a quick sketch made to convey youth, confidence and recklessness. Note the use of an exaggerated posture and handling of the gun.

It doesn't necessarily need a bounce, mamsells are often trained to move slideful, like skating. Walking ladylike.. remember Colonel's Bequest

Animating fabric is not an easy task in any way. I'd recommend picking up some sort of filmclip and monitor the fabrics movement in a walkcycle.

Another things that comes tomind is the rigid upper arms. They usually sway aswell while walking, here they seem rigid and only the lower arms move, quite rigidly so.

Looking good, albeit the blue pixels and white tooth(?)might gain from being outlined aswell. It's unclear what it is.

GM uses objects for their collissions in the same fashion TGF or MMF does. What I strife for is a rendered enviroment, much like Lieros.

Taking a rundown of GM, I have come to the conclusion that it is not worth the effort trying to abuse the engine. Much like Clikteam products, it works well making games of the most common fashion, but the way it handles collisions is not suitable, and call me lazy but I have interest in learning a wholenew system just to learn how to work around it. Better then learning C. The search goes on..