Messages

Yes, absence of tail was most certainly the first thing I noticed.

The walkcycle itself is ok, but the legs seem to be going in a back and forward motion rather than in a circle. If that makes any sense. If you watch people's feet when they walk, the feet themselves make a circle. If you try to keep in mind that the motion of the feet should form a circle (elipse, rather) then you should be able to work out motion of knees and hips afterwards. At least that is how I do it.

As a bit of a branch of from the move toward realism posted by Al_Ninio (which still leaves him looking a tad hunchbacked), I thought you could perhaps go all the way cartoony, and give him human-esque proportioned. To show what I mean:



Obviously the lines are a bit basic and so is the shading, but MSPaint is my master and I must obey its every word.

I think you're doing well. If you can draw like this at 13, you'll be showing us how its done in a few years time. Keep practising and you'll do very well. And dude, you're another West Aussie!!! Good to see a fellow countryman (and stateman or whatever) around the AGS forums.

Alrighty, so if I do a very quick mock up of game like such:



Then I could add this to my list of feasible game graphics styles?

With the shadows, I think you could just make regions where you want the character to be inverted, create a second character view where its all the same frames but you've just inverted the colours, and then set the script so that while the character is standing on that region, the character view is set to something else. Not sure if this would change the character view when they walked off this region though...

[EDIT]

I couldn't help myself - did a version of the over used but terribly cool "Hero stands in doorway and looks incredibly menacing" scene - I think this one could be used in a still frame style intro, which runs like a slideshow but is reminiscent of a comic book style.

As a bit of an experiment, I was drawing a quick sprite (practise, you know), and I thought I might have a bit of a go at coloring him in a high contrast style. Obviously the proportions of the sprite are a bit stretched and skewed, but I'm having a go at trying out this to see whether I can do this style of coloring any justice. Comments, crits, paintovers... all is welcome.



The pics are all in the order that I did them - I just went with ideas as they came to me so some of them might be a bit basic, but I at least think some of them are effective. My personal favourite of the moment is number 3.

Ok:



I tried to fix the other breast, make her expression more confident, make that damn arm straighter, changed the wrong shading on the left boot, added highlight on left shoulder. Fixed?

And yes, n3tgraph, I liked the pose on the knees too. But the gun one was good when I did it as an outline. I just think I got the shading wrong.

2 colours

Not actually an entry (in case nobody else enters and I win by default - I don't have internet access during the week, therefore I can't create a new competition!!)

Thankyou for your suggestion. I've had a shot at fixing arm, breast, shoulder, face:



How did I do? Did I actually fix it? Or does it need more work?

This is a very nice, piratey sprite that you have created.

Thought I'd have a go at the eyes too (aren't we unfair, focusing on 4 pixels, instead of the rest of the thing???). Do not know whether these are an improvement or not, but at least they don't look like he's cross-eyed, or look left or right.

200%


Didn't change much. Though not much needs changing on this marvellous fellow.

Alright, cool. Any other things that I could fix? What do you guys think of the coloring? I was quite pleased with it, but can I possibly use less colors? Or should I go crazy and throw in more colours? And did I do the right things on the sides that there are meant to be shadows?

I think it is quite nice. The head turning frames seem to be in the right idea, however would make a bit more sense with a few tween frames to explain how the head is getting to that position and how it is getting away from it. If that makes any sense. Good stuff, anyway.

I think its a nice sprite and a nice pose - although perhaps this pose represents more of a "rearing to attack" unistorm pose than the "idly awaiting unsuspecting adventurer to attack" pose. One little thing I'm not sure about is the front leg's thigh. It looks a little bit rounded, but then again I'm not too familiar with horises, (or unistorms) so perhaps it is right an I am wrong. Well done on a nice sprite anyway.

And might I add that your water elemental is lovely.

I agree with Haddas - the buildings that are in the foreground need to have more definite edges. If you look at the example that Nacho posted, you'll see that the sail, ship and stonework all have very definite edges. As these objects get further away, the blurry style is fine. Your choice of colours is pretty cool though.

I think that it makes a little more sense as a logo if everything is positioned in a central sort of way. Try this:



Just tried to get everything towards the centre, and leave a bit more black space.

If you look at the pixels in your original zoomed right in... wow... that's a mess. In order to clean it up, I had to trace around the rough borders of yours and then fill in with solid color. I then saved mine as a .png - it wins hands down as it is color and pixel accurate and yet so, so tiny. If you want to be friendly to people who may be willing to do a paintover, use a .png . That way we can spend more time editing your image's form, and less time trying to clear the thing up.

I had a go, but I'm not sure how I went. Used a reference pic from google to get the head right, and just painted over your jpg



A couple of different arm poses. Not too happy with all of them. Semi original on far left.

I sorta had trouble with legs - they were always way too short and made my characters look sorta goofy, so this time I thought perhaps I should draw them ridiculously long, and was quite pleased with the way they turned out. I think long legs make her look tougher.

Ok, so if I move the eyes down, and extend the top of the head, like so:



Then it should be a bit more fixed, right???

Hey guys. In order to improve my understanding of anatomy and coloring for sprites, I came up with the following sprites:









Ok, I'm not happy with the feet in the first one, the colouring in the second one, and the leg on the left in the third one. I tried to make a little point of keeping the colour variety to a minimum, to see what I could achieve.

Just to give you an idea of concept - I am entirely guilty of lacking creativity for this sprite - I was going for the tightly clad superhero babe with impossible proportions, and impossible skill. Any comments would be appreciated.

Coolest thread title ever. When I saw this thread, I just HAD to check it out.

Anyway, you've got some wicked colouring going on there (the smoke is awesome!) but I'd suggest giving him more of a natural pose.

I couldn't paint over your one very well, coz I only use paint, so here's an original to give you an idea:



The colouring isn't flash (I don't think I need to show you how to do that) but I find that a pose like this says "Cool flame soldier" more than a rigid, feet together pose. And two flamethrowers just had to be done.

And if you are planning on using your work in a game, pixelled may be a tad easier to animate that hand drawn. Just some thoughts.

Yeah, I second the motion for cooler weapon. If I were a pyschotic person, I would wanna use a cool weapon that is so much freakier than a double barelled shotgun. Using a double barrelled shotgun is so... ordinary. Chainsaws have been done to death but are still cool... an old plank with nails hammered in the end with a couple of bloodstains would do the trick - I think for psychos crude is pretty cool. Why can't he just get an old fence picket, load it up with nails and then go crazy? No reloading, no ammo, and having someone shoot the character in the back will be way less freaky than a naily-plank weilding psycho dropping through the ceiling onto their head, knocking the character to the floor and then bludgeoning him to death. Extra points if he licks the blood off his weapon once he's done.

Artist's Impression:



Oh wow. I am bored, aren't I? I really should be working on my game. But, anyway, when describing this guy to you I just HAD to sprite him - I call it practise, but its really just more proof that the potion of life getting + 7 that I had such faith in probably wasn't as effective as I'd hoped. I'd change the pastel colours for darker ones - for examples of VERY excellent colouring, refer to examples by the likes of ProqZmax, Big Brother, Krysis (and he's getting very damn good too!), Mordalles and MashPotato. There are heaps of other good colourers out there as well, so keep yer blinkers peeled.

Glad you like it. Looking forward to the result. Now that I look at this after I have done it and come back to it, I of course hate it. This always seems to be the case. Hips need to wiggle more, chest should stay the same but breasts should bounce a little bit more... legs look crap (though I do wish I could see that final version moving for a more accurate idea), left side of her torso gets chunks taken out as she walks, arms and hands suck... you've got a bit of work ahead of you if you wanna fix this baby. Oh yeah - and face is still UGLY!!!

Good luck. I may not see the result for a while (going away for a week or two) but will look for it when I get back. Happy pixelling!