Pixel Art WIPs/Small Things Thread

[noise shaman]

this might help. i didnt change any of the lines or structure, thought it would be most useful if i kept it to a strict shading edit :kiss:

:!: This sprite's BIG—so there's no reason not to use more colors. it makes sense to limit yourself with smaller sprites, but on something of this size let yourself have a middle ("buffer") color to soften the shading
:!: i used my own colors, but yours are actually p good. they do need another color though between your light and darks for dat buffer color. too much contrast without it, brah. makes the pixels look too jagged/boxy
:!: You mentioned having trouble w/ the creases/folds of the clothing—you can see what i did on the arms and a little around the waist. use GRAVITY to your advantage
:!: Dont be afraid to use LARGE SOLID CLUSTERS to show form. talking about the changes that i made to the hair.

 

[noise shaman]

so its obvious that you put a lot of time and work into this and are pretty proud of it, so ill try to be nice :box: :box: :box:

i didn't do a lot with this (mostly b/c im lazy (and/or busy)) but i think you can get a lot from the few small changes i made

first off, the colors (particularly the skin). i added more contrast and had the darker colors skew towards purple. your colors looked very very very flat. the new colors make it easier to see depth and they also breathe more life into the flesh.

i made some quick color edits on the hair, too, but they're probably not perfect and i didn't get around to re-pixeling any of the hair to show off what i'd do differently. basically, though—you want to make it SOFTER. use a "buffer" color (like i explained above with the link sprite and will explain again when i talk about the jawline of yours). basically your hair looks very... grainy? pixely. you obviously want this entire piece to look SOFT—that's why you're using so much dithering on the skin, i'd assume. the hair looks the opposite of soft—and my higher-contrast colors emphasize the problems. as-is, it's actually a good base, but to go further you need to really soften the hair itself...

i've illustrated what i mean around the chin/jawline. (i started to do it on the ear too but was too lazy to go much further, so look at the jawline)

I added two more colors, and got rid of that abysmal black. You're using dithering (something that i normally am not a fan of)—so I tried to emulate that in my shading. but im not the best at dithering—mostly pay attention to what i did with colors.

Basically, I replaced the black with a new darkest shade, and then created another color BETWEEN that black replacement and the darkest skintone—to serve as a buffer color that allows for a softer transition between the colors.

it also looks a lot less like JAGGED PIXELS and smooths the piece overall.

i hope this helps

 

[dcbd]

yeah, i need to work on my contrast and choice of color.
i actually want dither for the skin, and the hair to be pixely

anyway, your input was much appreciated. :smile:

 

[StrawberrySmiles]

These sprites are amazing! I do feel like the hamburger guy's head needs to be a little more top down. I don't know, though!

I love what you did for Jason and dcbd as well!

Looking at this thread in General makes me want to pixel again, but each time I start I stop. XD

 

[Jason]

this might help. i didnt change any of the lines or structure, thought it would be most useful if i kept it to a strict shading edit :kiss:

:!: This sprite's BIG—so there's no reason not to use more colors. it makes sense to limit yourself with smaller sprites, but on something of this size let yourself have a middle ("buffer") color to soften the shading
:!: i used my own colors, but yours are actually p good. they do need another color though between your light and darks for dat buffer color. too much contrast without it, brah. makes the pixels look too jagged/boxy
:!: You mentioned having trouble w/ the creases/folds of the clothing—you can see what i did on the arms and a little around the waist. use GRAVITY to your advantage
:!: Dont be afraid to use LARGE SOLID CLUSTERS to show form. talking about the changes that i made to the hair.

Right, cheers for the help with this, got a few things to say:

First - Yeah I definitely should use more colours, the reason I stuck with a two colour tone for each area is because I'm used to doing smaller sprites, spriting and shading on a (slightly) larger scale isn't my strong point when it comes to certain forms, it's something I'll have to work on... it's also why I decided to go with more contrast too, thought it'd help out, but it just looks messy compared to your edit now, lol.

Second - It's nice to know, from looking at your sprite, that I still managed to get the basic idea and location of the creases in the right place, I'm actually kind of proud! Getting creases around the belt was driving me insane so I just left it, I wanted it to look like the material from the vest was being pulled in behind the belt, but only using one extra shade, it was proving to be very difficult, so I just got rid of it and resorted to the horrid pillow shading you see there...

Third - Likewise with the hair, I went through three different designs, even did a swirl but it ended up looking like an upside down snail on his head, lol... couldn't figure it out for the life of me, that's definitely something else I need to work on. I've got to say I really like the lighter palette you chose for the hair, it works out really well.

And then just a little PS. here, I've just realised I did NOTHING with the eyes... didn't even notice they went uncoloured! Oh well, I was too busy with the lines trying to get the eyes to look right, I think I succeeded pretty well... infact, to be honest I think I did a pretty decent job with the lines overall, I didn't even use a reference to look at, just started it a few hours after playing The Wind Waker HD for the first time, loved the art style, and thought I'd try and recreate it... once I'd got Link down I was going to move onto designing my own characters... not to be used for anything, but just for fun...

Again, cheers for the help, really appreciated, I'll use it and see what I can cook up next!

 

[Jason]

I did this in the time it took me to listen to Shogun by Trivium, which is 11:55, lol. It's pretty shitty but meh... got bored and didn't really know what to do, so I opened MS Paint and away I went.

... To be honest I might use him as my avatar, lol, move on from Final Fantasy IX to X... (X is my favourite, IX is my second favourite, but I love the character design of IX a lot more!)

(Changed the skin tone on his chest since it looked weird before, the dark patch was meant to define his chin, lol... look at my avatar to see the "improvement")

 

[Jason]

Tidus equips Brothehood Sword!

 

[Glitchfinder]

I was trying to think of what your sprite reminded me of, and it took a bit to figure it out. Have you ever played SimTower? (it's also called Yoot Tower, I believe.) The sprite reminds me of the peeps in that game. I think that the same kind of simplistic "I'm here and a person, but I'm not actually going to do much more than be in the background." statement is made by your sprite.

 

[Byron]

I'm working on a UI for one of my projects and thought I'd make a small "Attack, Defend, Magic" That sorta crap.

I'm not sure which is better. All Semi-opaque or only the center opaque.
The sword needs to be centered on both.

 

[Glitchfinder]

I think partial transparency should only be used when the context allows it. Typically, I've found that darkening the icon does a better job of indicating that it is inactive. For example, the menu system I put together for Strawberrii a while back took advantage of this.

 

[Byron]

I'll take that into account.
Although with that being said, I like the idea of making it more opaque when not selected:

 

[Ellie]

Is it a sword or a knife? Shortening the handle by 1px and lengthening the blade by 1px might help, I'm not sure.

 

[Jason]

Well I could write a paragraph of tips and help you out... but I've just done it on Skype with you and actually edited the sprite for you, lol :thumb:

 

[StrawberrySmiles]

I have not sprited in such a LONG time. Am I on the right track with proportions? And no, her hair is not finished. XD

I kind of think it looks boring/plain. I like noise's sprites - they each have such personality! I wonder if I have to make her wider to do so? o.o

 

[Jason]

So this is what I did to help Potion with his sword icon sprite... I also made a few more for him, and I'm working on some others that he's requested too... methinks he's having them showing at the 2x zoom level while ingame, which looks the best in my opinion anyways.

... And yeah, the Items icon is a mini Potion potion! :thumb:

 

[Jason]

Finished the icons for Potion, he said it's cool to post the finished set here, there's only six since they're just battle command icons, but I'm pretty proud of how well they turned out, lol:



In order they are: Attack, Magic, Item, Summon, Stance Change, Run

 

[Ellie]

Looks good to me. Is the whole game 2-up?

 

[Jason]

Well if I end up making all of the graphics for him, they will be, but I think he's given up on it now... according to the where are you on your project (Whatever it's called) thread... o.O

 

[Ellie]

Lol, that's rpg maker in action ;o

 

[StrawberrySmiles]

I have not sprited in such a LONG time. Am I on the right track with proportions? And no, her hair is not finished. XD

I kind of think it looks boring/plain. I like noise's sprites - they each have such personality! I wonder if I have to make her wider to do so? o.o

I still need assistance.