Messages

That's an awesome character... Great work... You need a bit of sway in the chest shown by the slight movement of the clothes (maybe wrinkling or the bottom swaying) along with head movement... You could also double-loop the animation and throw in a blink to make it more alive...

Oh, and I have a full story and puzzle design written out for a character and world just like that which will blow your mind if you have any interest...

I think I'll leave them like that for now... The backgrounds will be shaded so I'm hoping their flat look will help them stand out more. I'm going to draw up a few backgrounds soon and get a walking animation going for Kronk to see how it all looks.

I'm just trying to keep it simple so I can actually finish. With all my other projects I thought too big or tried to hard with the art and never finished it.

Great style... I've been looking forward to your game for a long time. I wish I could draw like that... It looks so simple but I can never get it right.

Anyways, I thought it looked like a poor mob boss that isn't doing so well. I like where you're going witht he more colorful clothing (like in that reference picture). I think his coat looks like a big winter coat for some reason. I just simply changed the colors on it and removed the bottom, although if I were an artist I would have changed the top portion into a "popped" collar which I think would fit. Also, after changing the shirt and jacket the hat popped out so I changed the color on that too.

Even it was awhile since I saw Emperor's New Groove, I know that Yzma is shorter than the Emperor and both Pacha (right spelling?) and Kronk are taller than the Emperor.

You're right. I got that fixed...

I got the colors wrong?Ã,  Hmm...

http://images.barnesandnoble.com/images/10280000/10289442.jpg

His shirt looks blue to me.Ã, 

You know, I have that DVD cover sitting right on my desk and didn't even notice it. I was going by memory and a googled image which showed a light purple shirt. I just grabbed this screencap from the movie too:

I just eye-dropped all the colors on him onto my new sprite edit. Also, in the movie there's no shading really. Only in some scenes and close-ups.

Anyways, here's my new Kronk. He's even taller now and his arms are longer. I also changed the shoulders a bit, and I eye-dropped the colors straight from a movie capture so no complaining about colors.Ã, 
->

Pacha is a bit taller with longer arms...
->

Yzma is shorter with a few other minor changes (shoulders)...
->

And here's a new one.
Rudy (I think that's how it's spelled):


By the way, the reason I'm showing all these characters is because they're all mostly well-known and it's not spoiling anything. Although when I make the game I'm going to throw in a few original characters that fit the theme.

ProgZmax, nice paint-over but it's not the style I was heading for. I'm going with no shading (maybe some simple shading eventually) for a cartoon look plus it's easier to animate them that way (hopefully). Plus you got Kronk's outfit color wrong.

What I do need help with is the general pose for each character as well as facial detail especially in the skinnier characters (Kuzco, Yzma, and now Birdwell).

I'm thinking the sprites could maybe be a bit bigger (pasted one to a 320x240 background and stretched it to 1024x768 from there and the character was pretty small across the entire screen) but I tried redrawing Kronk bigger and it came out horrible. I'm really proud of my current version of him. It's Kuzco and Yzma I'm not real proud of.

Anyways, two new ones:
Papi & Birdwell from Kronk's movie:


I also did some slight edits on Kronk.
-Made him slightly taller.
-Squared his shoulders (thanks for idea, ProgZmax)
->

I also gave necks to Kuzco and Yzma:
Ã, 

What needs to be done:
Relax poses and make them have more character. Possibly detail/characterize faces better. Possibly add simple shading.

I still have to draw a few more characters too, and then I'll start the animation process for a walking cycle on each and start up programming. I have a story in mind (unique story that continues off the end of Kronk's New Groove) and a couple puzzle ideas but nothing solid yet.

I'll post about it in the Currently In Production section when I get some background work up.

Very quick and sloppy color edit...

Hmm... My water is better (in my opinion) but I think my edit isn't green enough...

Any tips?

I guess they could use some shading, but but is really bothering me is the lack of detail in the faces but it's so hard to cram detail into such a small resolution.



Just an idea right now... I'm thinkin' of making a game but I'd probably have to get permission to use the characters.

Also, except for the dirt dragged into the doorway, it's hard to tell that doorway leads outside. You need to texture the grass and perhaps add a bush or something outside.

As others have said, it needs more dirtyness, and also more examples of smithy work. I like the style though. Good work.

Combining my paint-over and Darth Mandarb's paint-over:

Thanks for the reply...

About those two particular backgrounds: They were made for a project of mine called Party In Room 26 which was never finished due to the character artist falling out of line. Also, the backgrounds took me on average 3 to 5 hours to make. I made them by taking a photograph and tracing over, and then coloring and adding my own details, looking at the photograph for color reference. In this way it was sometimes difficult to find the exact background I was looking for, and for a fantasy setting I'd really be out of luck. Here's the two photographs I used for those particular backgrounds:


The reason I traced was because I was really having problems with perspective, as I said in my first post. I know what it is, and how it works, but I just don't know how to use it.

I am checking out other drawings and tracing their lines to see where their horizon and vanishing points are so hopefully that'll help me out. I've already found out that in one particular room background the horizon is above (out of) the image and there is one single vanishing point in the center. I had always put the horizon in the lower-middle of the image, creating a very, very deep room where the character would have to walk about a hundred feet to reach the back. 

I'm working on a paint-over right now but in general I'd like to say that the sky should match the style of the rest of the background (which is a nice style, by the way). As for the colors, I'm actually experimenting with it myself to see how it should be, but I would also like to say that the general scene should have a warm glow, with possible orange-ish highlights on certain objects, especially the vehicle and other reflective surfaces.

Here it is: I ignored my own advice of doing highlights because I was a bit lazy, but I adjusted the natural colors of the entire scene (through a Color Balance tool in PSP, not manually, and also made a pixel gradient for the sky that you can improve upon if you wish). I also adjusted the color of the shop windows because at that time of day (and the way they're facing) they won't be recieving much light.

I'm not artist but that's my take on it.

Edit: I just realized when I converted to 256-color it didn't work out so well, so I uploaded with a full-color PNG.

Now I know about perspective, shading, coloring, and everything else and I can draw with pixel decently, but every time I try to make a game with AGS I end up quitting due to the artwork.

The reason is I just can't seem to get certain things right. I have figured out that it's because of perspective confusion and proportion...

First off, I know there's 1-point and 2-point perspectives, but which should I use? Should I use a combination of both or just one? Also, where should I place my vanish point(s) and how high/low should my horizon be? What extremes should I avoid to not make my character sprite's perspective out of place? Also, for a 320x240 game, how big and wide should my character be (for an average weight, average height type of guy)?

Are these things I just have to figure out on my own? Or is there some general knowledge that could be shared?

Sorry if this is the wrong forum... I couldn't figure out where else to post it.

By the way, some of my example work can be found here.

Here is some random art from unfinished projects that I'll share:
Asian themed 320x200 backgrounds:
http://www.byron-koontz.com/AdventureArt/01_c.gif
http://www.byron-koontz.com/AdventureArt/02.gif

Cartoonish 320x200 backgrounds:
http://www.byron-koontz.com/AdventureArt/02_Bad.gif
http://www.byron-koontz.com/AdventureArt/03.gif
Related character sprites:
http://www.byron-koontz.com/AdventureArt/Mann.gif
http://www.byron-koontz.com/AdventureArt/Moe.gif

640x480 "realistic" backgrounds:
http://www.byron-koontz.com/AdventureArt/hotel_outside_detail.gif
http://www.byron-koontz.com/AdventureArt/lobby_incom_edit_edit_edit_detail.gif

Feel free to use any as I doubt I ever will.

Thanks for the great... uhh... paint-over ProgZmax. I've seen your edits in other threads too and it's great stuff.

However, I think I gave out the wrong idea when I said I wanted it underground... What I meant to say is that I wanted it hanging down in a hole in the ground, suspended by some sort of beams on one side, with a way to get down to it on the other side.

After trying for a while yesterday and then trying to draw a character for the scene, I realized that the scene and the horizon were indeed to far back, making everything seem small.

I always have trouble determining where my horizon and vanishing points should be. I've read several tutorials on perspective drawing but even after all that I'm still not very good at it. It's such a simple thing too.

Anyways, after looking at your drawing up close... I wonder and have always wondered for such detailed shading... How do you do it? How do you separate texture from shading?

I mean I look at all those pixels and I wonder, do you place each one individually? Or do you somehow incorporate the use of other devices like gradients or dissolve techniques in layers?

I feel really bad posting this here in its current state... But I'm really stuck on how to progress with it.

I decided to get back into game making with AGS and hopefully finish a game, and I started to draw something from an idea in my head. From that idea I spawned an entire game storyline and some puzzles and I think it'll be great.

Unfortunately I'm no artist and I can think of and program many different stories and puzzles but I rarely finish a game due to the huge amounts of pixel artwork involved.

Anyways, here's a background I started on:


Basically what I wanted to do was to have a house underground in a huge hole... But I'm having trouble deciding how it should be resting underground and how it is connected to the ground. First I tried a wooden bridge with rope sidings but it just didn't look right because I couldn't figure out the perspective. I was thinking stairs too possibly but I don't know how the perspective would look on that either.

Bleh... Also I was trying to draw a tree on the ground, but I'm just horrible at drawing trees. I wanted to have the roots hanging down underground and stuff to complete the split-view scene, but it wasn't working out. I wasn't sure how to texture/shade the tree trunk.

So what I'm asking is some suggestions, and perhaps quick black-line sketches over my drawing that I can follow in with and color/improve.

I think you can all probably guess why I'm not even going to try.

Norman typing (without going back to correct, of course): shbazjinkersn

Yeah, I know...

Hahaha. I don't know much about CJ (other than the fact that he made AGS), but my honest guess would be that it's his girlfriend if he has one.

It's hard to tell exactly what is on his shirt...

Try crossing your hands and typing without looking at the keyboard (in other words, putting your left hand on jkl; and your right hand on asdf and typing).

I got this: dcpttdpp,.m

with my penis elbow:
y7opure an idioty

Wow, that turned out better than I thought

Hahahahaahahaha. Ok, I'm going back to writing the script for the Team Competition before I try this with other body parts/objects.