Hello,
I'm working on what will be the main character of what might be my future game, and I'd much appreciate your comments on this, the first frame of the front walk cycle.
The character is a boy, around 7 or 8 yeats old (so imagine a properly-scaled background behind himÃ, ;) ). The game's look will be cartoony and backdrops will most likely be pretty simple (to make things easy on me, the non-artist :) ). Resolution will be 640x480 with 16 bit color.
This is the plain filled version:
(http://www.dmgenie.com/ags/Main_front_plainfill.png)Ã, Ã, (http://www.dmgenie.com/ags/Main_front_plainfill.png)
And this is with some attempt at shading:
(http://www.dmgenie.com/ags/Main_front_shaded.png)Ã, Ã, (http://www.dmgenie.com/ags/Main_front_shaded.png)
Since I'm not too good at shading and it significantly increases drawing time, I'm thinking of not shading. Plus it might look out of place in a cartoony background. Comments?
Any constructive criticism is welcome!
well, first thing first.
first create a light source, then create the shading, making the one behind the light source dark and the one directly in the lightsource lighter
I like it. The shading one looks much better, but to say what fits your background style better I would need an example of your backgrounds. There's one thing I don't like: The hands look as if there aren't any fingers except the thumbs. You should work on it. (I'm not very good on it myself, so I can't make a paintover for you, sorry)
Thanks for your comments! I don't have any backgrounds to show for comparison, I'm afraid, cause I haven't done anyÃ, :-[
But here's another attempt where, starting from the plain version, I've added a sort of "cel-shading" effect. I put the light source on the left side. I used the polygonal lasso tool to select the shaded areas, and then used the burn tool on that. I'm not sure if that's the best way to do it???
For the first shaded version, I had used the brush tool with darker/lighter versions of the plain color, and tried to fill in the dark areas by changing colors and brush sizes constantly; it was kind of fiddly.
I also added some fingers, but there aren't enough pixels for more than 3-4...
(http://www.dmgenie.com/ags/Main_front_cel_shaded.png)Ã, Ã, (http://www.dmgenie.com/ags/Main_front_cel_shaded.png)
Hmm, I'm not sure the color of the face's shade looks right. Ok, here's a 3rd try at shading. This time I created a 35% opaque layer, on which I used the brush to paint the darker areas in dark grey/ black for the pants.
(http://www.dmgenie.com/ags/Main_front_cel_shaded2.png)Ã, Ã, (http://www.dmgenie.com/ags/Main_front_cel_shaded2.png)
Good work for someone who calls himself a "Non-artist".
I'll give you some advises, about the character.
First: I see him a little big, knowing it is 7 or 8 years old. It looks like a teenager. Change his body, the legs should be shorter, and of course, arms a little shorter too (just a little).
Second: The face looks like the one from a problematic teenager, it's good if the character is 15 o 16 years old. Try to give him a sweetiest mouth, and the eyes are hieratic... if the game is cartoonish you can make two things:
-Make them bigger and give them a little bright.
-Make them smaller and make them look like little points.
The face could be more like a circle.
Third: It looks very strong. The shoulders should be not so big.
I'll try to give you an attemp of all this, If you want.
I hope this can be useful.
Good luck!
Quote from: G on Sun 05/09/2004 03:37:43Second: The face looks like the one from a problematic teenager, it's good if the character is 15 o 16 years old. Try to give him a sweetiest mouth, and the eyes are hieratic...
You're right, he does look like a surly teenager! But what do you mean by "hieratic" eyes?
I've shortened his arms and legs by a few pixels here. However I'm tracing over eric (Mr Colossal)'s walkcycle images on his tutorial pages (here (http://sylpher.com/kafka/tutorials/walkcycletut.shtml)), so I can't deviate far away from that.
I've enlarged the eyes and given him a kind of half-smile, and made the shoulders less broad.
(http://www.dmgenie.com/ags/Main_front_cel_shaded3.png)Ã, Ã, (http://www.dmgenie.com/ags/Main_front_cel_shaded3.png)
I still don't think he looks 7-8, maybe he's 11 now?
i don't like the ears, i don't know why but there is something about it
if it's going to be a teenagers, which it is, add some letters or a picture on the t-shirt
Ok, the legs needed to be much shorter, so I took Eric's walkcycle and shrunk all the legs to 40% of original length:
(http://www.dmgenie.com/ags/Eric_cycle_short.png)
And I redrew the first frame. Now the legs look unnaturally thin when at an angle, such as the character's right leg in the first frame, so I tried to thicken that when redrawing. The shoes I also made bigger when redrawing.
The head I simply copy/pasted after removing one pixel from the ears.
Before: (http://www.dmgenie.com/ags/Main_front_plainfill.png) and after: (http://www.dmgenie.com/ags/WF3.png)Ã, Ã, (http://www.dmgenie.com/ags/WF3.png)Ã, Ã,Â
I think the new proportions make him look younger, maybe not 7, but I'm going to call it "close enough" :)
yes, as janik mentioned, the legs were too long.
also, maybe try making the entire body a bit smaller, (or head bigger).. and give him bigger pupils: that will help give the innocent puppie dogs eyes which all kids that age have.
[size=0]edit: typo[/size]
first of all i wanted to to tell u Janik that i was sitting with this guy on my screen and trying my magick to make him younger :) but i couldnt do it. its just not a kid. i made his face different etc but it still wasnt a kid. especially with that hair. then i started distorting image completely and it came t me that im making something that isnt ur character. if it was me i would've redraw it entirely. only option left to me is to offer u a kid piccie i made, but its manga so im not sure how would u find this style. its manga with disproportional body style:
(http://galeb.etf.bg.ac.yu/~pdejan/manga_colored%20copy.png)
if nothing else u can alter face to be more childish but only with altering whole head shape. current outfit and character are waaay of age 7-8.
next thing is that on new ones char doesnt look like child or younger - he looks like midget. ofc u have a point there children are midget size etc but still... body and hands are way too long and legs on that new one look bad. especially that bent one.
regards
Well your manga picture looks a lot more "midget-like" than what I'd like. Obviously my character's proportions aren't those of a real child, but I think it matches what I had in mind.
Here is the front walkcycle:
(http://www.dmgenie.com/ags/Wf-11.gif)
I also don't much like the way the legs bend. It kind of looks like the leg is stretching, instead of just getting closer. Still, not too shabby for my very first animation ;D
Here's a page with different sizes of a human body: http://www.saveloomis.org/FigureDrawing/29.htm
Also, Eric's tutorial is a little weird how the legs look like they're going miles out to the sides. I suppose it's good for a cartoony style though. You could never trip over your feet walking like that!
But the animation does look nice and smooth, nice job.
Truly better! Nice work Janik!
It could be better, but that happens always.
Keep up the effort!