peri your stuff's fucking incredible and you're probably a lot better than me and honestly seeing this spaceship project of yours has been a large inspiration for getting back on the pixel bike if you will.
i think that the tiles eclipse the game sprite, but not in a bad way, in—um—a social way, in that people are so immediately impressed by those tiles that they don't really comment on the sprite—or more accurately, and what i wanted to point out was i think the sprite makes BEAUTIFULLY-colored outlines in a very READABLE way that iconically stands against the more highlyrendered environment.
now
Norton, man. i think that these guys are pretty badass and really sound structurally. your characters are very readable (in haven't even played mass effect but i know that these are masseffect sprites because they are instantly recognizeable so awesome job here man).
but your colors could really use a lot of work to help make the characters feel
solid. take a look:
i believe that a solid understanding of color contrast is vital in making a character POP.
now first off, don't put your guys against a jeg background like that if you're looking for legitimate crits (and i take it that you are since you're posting on a art forum). removing it was a bitch and almost discouraged me from rocking out with your characters for a while.
you have a LOT of unnecessary little greys in this guy's suit, man—like it was done with a brush or something. i mean the whole COLORCOUNT obsession among pixel artists is mostly a thing of the past, but it's pointless and sloppy to have a bunch colors that lack serious contrast. each color should be used to convey form and light, moreso than in painting or something. in pixel art we have to put a lot of information into a small space, and the contrast between colors is a really important tool to get there. i mostly had to just redraw some of this but my point point is color: the thesis here is .
yo
Alypt this is pretty good man, i really love what you have going on with the boots and legs (i'm speaking in terms of color here: in terms of anatomy she seems like she's leaning forward in an uncomfortable way so i reworked the positioning of the legs just a little): i think it makes a great use of contrast. personally i think that if you let yourself have one more really dark shade you could really give her a lot more three-dimensionality:
i think this is important to always try and make all sprites feel like they POP for the sake of gameplay.
okay so
coreball your guy is a bit cartoony and not very much in my style but let me give you this bit of advice bro: when going cartoon, you've got to balls-out stylize or your thing will be thought as just—idk—bland in an MSPAINTerly way (in other words, it lacks any sense of individual style):
to be fair, i ended up just redrawing your guy on my own and I might have taken it a little farther than you might have wanted. but this was really fun so thanks dude. i really like what came out of this.
jbrist your
head guy could use a treatment similar to alypts, but i think that the biggest problem in this guy is the face is like all highlight. i mean the reason its a problem is because it seems so white and the contrast is at its strongest here which is something you want to take advantage of in tight spots. in other words, spread out your midtones.
your
mariu bros on the other hand are adorable. since they're in such a clearly unique style there isnt much for me to say or do.
mariosuperstar this is really sweet dude. it has a lot of character and is totally right for a mario RPG style. i like the outline a lot.
jrbist dude don't limit yourself to "two shades per color", that's horrible and arbitrary (what you want to do, is if you want a low-color palette kind of thing, is to work AWAY from a common outline color if that makes sense. use your tints and hues and all that and there are hundreds of article on color theory out there). the problem with this robot guy again is the lack of CONTRAST. "but i have a lot of contrast", you say. and to that i say "yes, in your colors, but look at your outline."
your second edit of the guy is a lot better because it's working with this very idea, but you still need more contrast among your darker colors. either more contrast or one at all (as in merge the colors (which brings is back to the outline thing). you don't want to just RECOLOR THE OUTLINE, you want to make it invisible. do not be afraid to let colors really rub against each other and think of how best to use the varying contrasts. a huge part of being a good pixel artist is to be able to see
invisible colors in the space between differently-colored pixels.
Cait this isn't a bad start but it feels way too—ehhh—UNIFORM i guess. it's just straight lines and straight dithering. be more adventurous dude!
so yeah what i came here to post in the first place ( :smoke: ):
is now:
Mainly I'm talking about the character sprites. I included the templatish part and the color palette for anybody who might like to have a go at it. I'm going to try and animate each of these characters individually and avoid the template approach, because i think it's important for your PLAYABLES and your primary antagonists to be of the best quality since we're going to be spend a lot of time looking at them.
the main differences here are the details on Risk (the cop who is now hopefully more recognizeable as such), Leopold (the black guy who got some bling) and the somewhat-not-finished beginning of the game's primary villain. im probably going to take away the cape. again these are all things i'm trying to do in terms of making them stand out as legit characters what do y'all think?
