Musician Sprites - updated

[Ash]

:crazy:

I searched and i searched but couldn't find any Musician sprites, so i thought i would make one. Not feeling too confident as my last attempt was abismol i set to it. I actually supprised myself though.

What do you think?

Spoiler

Before
http://i26.tinypic.com/r7w1h4.jpg[/img]
After
http://i32.tinypic.com/255v2wo.png[/img]
yeah i know about the slight extra pixels on bottom row i acidentaly moved a loada crap on a layer i didn't realise i had ><

PLEASE i want critisism ! :P

and p.s cheack out my other post on the new game :D
http://www.rmxp.org/forums/index.php?topic=38371.0


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My Old work
http://www.rmxp.org/forums/http://dev.r ... 82#p373682

 

[Mascarpone]

the cello and the musician seem to miss-match a bit.

 

[Ash]

the cello and the musician seem to miss-match a bit.

how do you mean?

i did draw the cello from scratch if thats what you mean, and half the women

 

[Mikee]

Okay.  Some criticism.  Number 1.  The girl's face looks a bit off.  Like... it's too long and it goes straight to her neck.  Maybe use a little darker shades to give her some sort of a jaw-line.  2.  The bow from the cello goes over her hands in the bottom pictures.  3.  The top pictures, her sleeve needs a darker line to define it from the rest of her clothes.  4.  The cello needs a little more detail... it doesn't look like it's positioned correctly, and it has problems with the 3d aspect.  5.  her hair kind of looks like it's got some strange fly aways.  Though I'm not really sure.  My eyes aren't really all there after drawing about 60 icon sprites in the last three days. : ) 

Other than that, I really like the sprite.  It's a good idea.  Is this just supposed to be a standing pose for a character?  Or what do you plan to do with it?

 

[Ash]

Well i did intend to have her just standing playing, but it doesn't work very well so hey. i dont think i shall include her in any of my work as i cant work out how to get a good bowing action.

Thanks for the critism though.

I dont know what i'm going to do really, because for my game i wanna make allmy sprites myself but everytime i try they just dont turn out right. maybe i ned practise i dono :P

 

[Link in Pink]

You need some rockers with guitars :D

As far as the cello person goes, it looks fine to me. Good job

 

[Ash]

You need some rockers with guitars :D

As far as the cello person goes, it looks fine to me. Good job

thats very kind of you to say so and i only had a cello person because i wanted to include some music i recorded for coursework. its a brilliant cello piece

 

[Mikee]

Oooh!  That would be awesome, Ash!  I'd love to see how you incorporate that into the gameplay!  And the cello doesn't look bad at all.  Don't think that I criticized you because it looked bad.  You asked for criticism so I picked through it to find the worst attributes.  I hope you include it.  And yeah, from what I've heard, with spriting practice makes as close as you can ever get to calling yourself percect. XD

 

[Ash]

Oooh!  That would be awesome, Ash!  I'd love to see how you incorporate that into the gameplay!  And the cello doesn't look bad at all.  Don't think that I criticized you because it looked bad.  You asked for criticism so I picked through it to find the worst attributes.  I hope you include it.  And yeah, from what I've heard, with spriting practice makes as close as you can ever get to calling yourself percect. XD

I know you wern't saying it was bad and i did incorperate your suggestions. I'll upload the new picture when i get home (at college atm). i hadn't had time to do so

 

[___]

I suggest making it a full four frame animation rather than two repeating frames, you'll get a much smoother motion and it's not important for the third frame to repeat the first one in this kind of sprite.  Your first frame should represent an at rest position that will look good out of animation but still be a part of a full stroke.  The next three frames should each be a quarter of the full motion it takes to come back to the rest state (rest state being the fourth quarter of the motion).  You can always speed it up or slow it down in the game so don't worry about how fast or slow it appears.

As for the rest of the sprite, it seems to lack contrast and form (a sense of depth, as opposed to shape, which exists in two dimensions).  Try using an outline on the lighter elements, especially the bow-thingie (no I don't know dick about musical instruments, I'd think that was a guitar if she wasn't holding it funny).  The highlight you use in the corner of the instrument where the character is facing to the viewer's right should be present on the face of the instrument where she is facing left, and the instrument should cast a shadow on her body as well.  I suggest losing her eye entirely on that set too, it looks really odd peeking out from around the side of the neck of the instrument.  Having no eye would be more forgivable, IMO.

I'll do what most people here to and suggest you use a ripped palette for a while to learn spriting on.  I also recommend reading some of the excellent tutorials on color theory, palette building and shading here on the site and elsewhere in relation to pixel art.  They're a huge leg up.