Attempting HKs

[Aranak]

Im trying to ease myself back into spriting, so here we go.
Here's My first attempt at a HK.:thumbsup02:
http://img518.imageshack.us/img518/32/h ... morfs9.png[/IMG]http://img84.imageshack.us/img84/2543/halfplatearmor2pv9.png[/IMG]

 

[Venetia]

The face is cute and the hair is pretty nice!

Methinks you're using gradients a bit too much in the armor, however. It's hard not to in metal.

Add a few more dark shades, and decrease the number of shades used in the palette. Also remember that each individual piece of armor's gonna have its own shading, too.

 

[Aranak]

Lmao, I'm glad you like his face.
I saw your Bartender and that just blew me away. :thumb:

How is he now?
http://img137.imageshack.us/img137/7595 ... or2sh1.png[/IMG]

 

[Grathea]

Looks a bit better. The armor isn't as gradienty(sp?), which is a plus.

 

[sixtyandaquarter]

First off: Great from the neck up. The facial hair seems a bit dark when I right click and zoom, but it's not too dark in it's original size so that's not really a problem at all.

His right wrist covering seems off, the shine looks too big. As it had it's own spot light. The lighting is a bit inconsistent too in spotches but it's still pretty good. You used additional shadows under the hair which is great (not enough people do, including me hafl the time), but you could use more on the armor plates in sections.

The pointed nub on the feet look off in shading, the shading cuts across, like a seem, I'd fix that. I can tell what's going on but it looks a bit funky.

I suck at armor, and you didn't do a bad job. Keep it up.

 

[Aranak]

http://img212.imageshack.us/img212/6678 ... mortn3.png[/IMG]

Better?
Btw, I cant take credit for the hair, i took it from an RTP sprite and edited it to fit. I dont know who the author is though. (Been looking for thier site.)

 

[CODEONE]

As everyone has stated the job from the neck up is great, however the armor and sword could use some work.

The armor lacks contrast, you need to bring the shine out more and identify your darker areas. At the moment (at least on my computer) the armor looks like one shade of gray, unless you zoom in.

The sword was weird, I was confused what the bottom of it was. Couldn't tell if it was the swords end or the sword case...

I made an edit to show what I am stating:

Spoiler

http://img208.imageshack.us/img208/4731/halfplatearmortn34ji7.png[/IMG] Yours

http://img81.imageshack.us/img81/5241/h ... dithv7.png[/IMG] Mine

I'm still new to pixel art so I can't comment on how the shading or how those other good things are :p (The outline on the edit is probably too dark). This is just how I feel about the sprite.

Overall, the design owns. I don't like the point at the shoes though >.<

 

[Showkaizer]

Dude! you must do a full sheet! ^^

 

[badmonur]

it looks kinda pillow shaded in areas. Like the shoes and shoulders..

 

[NexS]

one thing to make note of always remember: the smaller things are, the more obvious the details need to be made..

for example you should make the chainmail far darker to show everyone on the first glance that it is indeed seperate from the plates of armour :D:D

that also applies to colouring and shading(mainly the contrast between colours). your outlines need to be darkened and whatnot

hope it helps

 

[lostingeneral]

The sword is... well, the hilt is too small for him to hold.

 

[Venetia]

Because I'm feeling particularly helpful, I did a little editing.

http://www.pixelcocktail.com/hosted_ite ... akHelp.png[/IMG]

I did a little color shifting and some quick edits, but I didn't change the structure. A little work still needs doing in a few places but I hope I put you to a decent start. I think his right foot (his right, not ours) needs some lightening at the outline and the skin could use some darkening, for starters, but hey, nothing's perfect ^_^. I also edited the face a little but I have this "style" of faces I'm all anal about, oh and the sword, since its sheath was about 1 pixel too fat for the hilt and the grip was a little too short (but I think it could maybe still be longer).

It wasn't that you were pillow shading, I realized once I really zoomed in, it's that there were too many light tones and not enough dark shades. If you want his armor to be really shiny, you can shift the brightness and contrast of the palette up, but still maintain the same number of colors.

Hope that gets things rolling :'3

 

[NexS]

i can't believe how many people make this mistake. the outlines in the template are darker and more saturated than the ones used bythe artist in question... i don't know any other way to explain this.... hmm

there needs to be a defining line that shows to every viewer that this is the border(for example: the seperate plates of armour) in the darker areas, i need to be able to tell where one plate finishes and the other on starts, this however is not the case. what i'm saing is that there should be an "outline" tone to all the colours in the pallette. short of taking the sprite an actually showing you what i mean (which would be a bad idea because you wouldn't actually be learning anything), i've explained this the best i can..

sorry venitia, but this applies to yours as well

i hope this helps take care

 

[Venetia]

It's "Venetia" .... (Sorry but everyone spells it wrong)

I just did a few edits to it, not a complete overhaul. I left some things undone (and I mentioned this) so that he'd have some stuff left to edit. The outline does need some lightening still. I'd started it in some places. But it seemed like he was getting into a rut of changing the same things over and over so I was trying to get him to look at it differently.

Sometimes just saying things in text isn't helpful. :')

And there should never be one outline color. The outline should be faded with the tones of the light source, just like the fill. It's just usually a shade or so darker than the fill color it's touching so it still can be delineated by the eye.

Edit: I just read over my previous post and dammit I realize I mentioned lightening the foot's outline not the general outline. Heh, I was tired. Ah, well, ignore me :'D

 

[NexS]

don't get me wrong, i was just expanding on your post. by "outline tone" i mean the darkest of the shades that is used to define the fact that there are two seperate 'things'.. yeah i hope you understand what i'm crapping on about :D