Old Man Sprite and some others (UPDATED 30 Apr 07)

[Alynn]

Ok, well some of you may know that my artistic ability is... somewhat limited. So instead of fighting it, I decided to go ahead and try a 320X200 game, with 256 colors. Perhaps by starting small I'll gain the skills needed to come up with something decent in larger resolutions. So I finished a front view of what will be the main character (probably), so I'd like some critiques. Grand total 12 colors, 13 if you count transparancy.

1X:

2X:


I tried making his arms a little longer at first, but it just didn't look right (made him seem as if he had monkey arms).

Anyways, thanks in advance.

[Kreator]

Lookin pretty good. His arms do look rather small though. The reason they look 'monkeyish' was probably because you made his arms look wobbly. If you made it clear where his elbows were it might help. And also, his hands look.. perhaps a bit small?

But apart from all that, It's pretty good. nice work!

[ThreeOhFour]

I thought I'd have a shot at giving him longer arms. Hope they're not too monkeyish.



I think one reason he may look like a monkey is because his dressing gown covers his thighs. Short legs + long arms = monkey.

[accolyte]

I think the sprite looks very decent except for the shadows. Avoid net-patterns and color the whole shoadowed area instead. Also, he doesn,t strike me as very old. Make his hair more gray and put some wrinkles on his face if there is place for it. You could also color his nose with a more darker color to make it more visible.

[Alynn]

He's not supposed to be very old, just old his 60's give or take. I'll see if I can wrinkle him up some, and work on the arms a bit, and try with the solid shading. Thanks for the advice.

EDIT:

OK, I lenghtened the arms, gave a bit of definition to the hands in the front view, salt and peppered up his hair a bit, and added head wrinkles (only place I could really put them) and did a preliminary sideview. Let me know what you think.

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The one thing I can see is I may have to adjust his feet in the front view, flatten them a bit to match the side view a bit more.

[Jon]

It's starting to look good now, my only piece of advice would be to make the arms' a bit plumper. As he seems quite "big", his arms seem out of proportion in this aspect.

[Sparky]

He looks good! The style is consistent and his face implies a lot of details without being noisy. You could stop now and have a perfectly decent sprite. But if you want to obsess and be nitpicky, read on. Otherwise please roll the rest of this post into a small ball and toss it in the trash.

Tiny nitpicks
His feet are a bit too far forward in the side view- his center of gravity would probably be under his shoulders.
Posture: heavier people are fat in the front, but not very puffy in back. He'd probably look more solid if his shoulders were further back.
Angle of view: as you pointed out, in the front view his feet are tilted downward as if we are looking slightly downward, but in the side view we appear to be looking perfectly horizontally at him. If your game is a perfect side view, the right view is OK and the front view should be changed. If your game uses a slightly tilted camera angle, the side view could use another leg behind the foreground one, with the foot slightly higher.
Symmetry: a lot of people seem to feel that asymmetrical poses are more lively and engaging. It's a matter of opinion, but in the future you might want to take that into consideration. This man looks like he's posing for a photograph or standing on the scale at the doctor's office, rather than lounging around his house in his bathrobe.

[Alynn]

Ok updated again (check 2 posts up)

I realized after others said it that yeah, I made him a bit chubby, so I thinned him out some, flattened out his feet in the front view, and made the robe sleaves a bit wider (after noticing how big they are on my wife's robe).

I see what you mean with the feet, but his pants are baggy.  Tomorrow I'll move them back a pixel and see how it looks.

Oh and sparky, what makes you think he's at home muhahahahah! Sorry

[Sparky]

You're right, after my grandmother went senile she used to walk to the post office in her bathrobe.

Nice edit, by the way.

[Medical Waste]

You know how on the front view in the middle the bottom of the robe is at the lowest point, but on the side view the middle is also the lowest point? That doesn't make any sense at all, please think about that. If you are trying to show the roundest of the man by a curve in the line on the shirt, then it should not be as curved as the the curve on the belt, because the focus point is most likely higher. So one of them should be straighter. I can't really explain it in my current state so I hope you understand 

[Alynn]

Ok, all 4 views now... after moving the legs back one pixel.

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2X:

[Kreator]

Its lookin pretty good, but i don't like the arms. Ben304's edit is much better. I recommend you use his edit's arms.

[Tuomas]

Basically because they're still a bit too short, and on the front and back view they're not relaxed enough. Just try lenghtening them a bit and lowering the shoulders from the tips.

[Kweepa]

I like this guy, but I thought the colours were rather too saturated.

[Alynn]

Ok, here we goes again

Steve, Yeah I see what you mean, I'll work on that later once I get the whole cast done and decide if I need to combine more colors, for some reason I just favor brighter colors.

Anyway, 32 colors here, includes 4 of the 7 characters. The two big guys should have more defined arms, but any attempt I made to give definition between the forearms and the biceps tended to look wrong, so I scrapped that completely, and just had the indention from the top of the forearm to where it meets the wrist.

Anyway, for more character goodness...

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Be gentle...

[Steel Drummer]

Love your style, but the sprites are hard on my eyes because of the colour scheme. Tone it down a bit, like what Steve said. If the backgrounds are as saturated as this, I don't think my eyes will be able to survive the game.

[ThreeOhFour]

I agree with Steel Drummer and Steve McCrea that your colours are very saturated.

I am also confused by the fact that you have shadows that are darker that the outlines. I've done a paintover:



-Changed shape of eyes. I personally don't like the cross-eyed look.
-Made muscles across back of neck bigger.
-Gave arms, legs and torso more muscle tone.
-Changed colour of shadow to one lighter than the outline.
-Adjusted shape of footwear.

They certainly have a nice cartoony feel, but need a little work. Hope this helps.

[Alynn]

Ok in an attempt to try to work with the saturation problem (and taking some of Ben's things into consideration... The desatuation thing I tried with a desat layer over my origional, the darker version just used darker versions of the same color on the palatte I'm using... so that all said I give you this..

Origional 1X:

Origional 2X:

Desatuated 1X:

Desaturated 2X:

Dark 1X:

Dark 2X:


Ok, and quick add... I do appreciate the paintovers, but I won't use them as is, I want to do this on my own steam as it were, so while Ben your redo was great, I personally don't have that kind of skill presently, so I'm working with what I have on my own. I take ideas from them, and do those ideas the best I can, with what I currently have.

[Scavenger]

These are very good. They have lots of character =) Here's a couple of points to improve them ^^.

- The dark ones are better, yes, but I have a comment about the hulking guys - they have too many colours on their chests. If you use the dark one, and just use two colours (the main red and the darker one you used for outlining the pecs), it might look a lot more consistant with your other sprites.

- The cross-eyedness can be solved simply by moving their eyebrows down, like the sprite on the far right. If they're simply lackeys, you can get away with not showing the whites of their eyes at all =).

- The sprite on the far right... he looks evil. But his shoulders are too hunched up. If you want him to look more natural, just lower his shoulders a bit, make them less square. If you want him to be hunched over, move his head down, and do the hand wringing thing.

- The big guy's groin area looks painfully small. Move it down a little! =)

- The saturated colours are often one of the hardest parts, as different monitors display things slightly brighter or darker than another. Try to steal colours from Lucasarts games to see what kind of colour you need to make (they are a GOLDMINE, I swear.)

[Buckethead]

the arms of the char's on the sides are still un naturaly straight imo