The VG Resource

(04-14-2010, 10:10 AM)jbeave Wrote: [ -> ]@Vipershark - How does it? The idea behind it was to be similar to a MMZ droid but I didn't actually use a MMZ sprite as a reference.

dunno.
I can't really pick out any specific detail, but thewhole stance just screams MMZ to me.

(04-14-2010, 10:10 AM)jbeave Wrote: [ -> ]Why would I erase all the shading and details if that were the case? To make it harder on myself?

pff, you're not the first one to trace and reverse engineer a sprite just to try to impress people with your "improvements" and "skill".

you have yet tp show any real progress, besides working over the edits people made for you at pixelation. as my final work, its clear there's more than you say. if anyone thinks this is legit and i'm just bullshiting, go ahead.

i have no problems to apologize and eat my words if its proven that he's right.

I'm not trying to impress anyone, and I don't consider myself "good" by any means. I posted this to get ideas to make what I have better. I'm sorry if I came off as arrogant as what you make it seem. I don't really know how to prove anything more than what I have already..

Here's a WIP of an alternative idle frame, since it seems my other one is overused.



C+C?

How long have you been working on the main "character" sprite? he looks much better and much more refined than the other stuff.

the main character is pretty nice - the other two things, not so much.
continued below: AB

Quote:I can't really pick out any specific detail, but thewhole stance just screams MMZ to me.

i'm gonna go ahead and say that i'm probably more familiar with MMZ than baipa-shaku and that he's pretty much wrong. there is very little about it that implies mmz, aside from the whole BLUE ROBOT WITH GUN thing. but then, a lot of things have that.

AB - continued from above:
also I am not saying that this stuff couldn't be without some touch ups.

I toyed with and edited one of the frames of your main character sprite.
I altered the shading and palette and may have added a color or two, i don't recall. its not your "style" i know, and its probably a little too smooth in some parts but w/e

make your colors more contrasted. another thing about colors; even if they're not going to be vibrant, its ALWAYS a good idea to have some variety in the colors that you're using. its also important that, when using grey, you avoid neutral gray. always give the grey some kind of tint towards a color, a miniscule amount of saturation.

when it comes to black, its usually a good idea to try and contrast it as much - as a lot more of the darker colors than you normall would, and try and give the other shades a blueish tint. black by its nature should be more "radically" contrasted than most colors.

its also usually a good idea to make your background a mid-tone as opposed to white, contrast and colors show better.

Well, I guess it's been a little over a month now since I started the main character. I spent about 2 days each for the blue and red ones. I hit a block so I tried stepping out of my comfort zone. =/

I appreciate you editing a frame to show your point, but that black outline is hideous. Thanks for the advice on the colors though. I took your colors and edited in a few minor things, and this is what I got:



Step in the right direction? I'm still trying to learn better shading, so it's probably still sloppy. While I'm at it, my running animation is awful. Can you guys hit on it a little more?

ah, I actually made a few more edits after I uploaded that and I forgot to change it, my bad.

I got rid of the really dark blue outline on the jeans; its important to have a decent amount of contrast, and to convey depth, but that was a little much.

its a step in the right direction, yeah, but its still really messy and kind of unfocused.

the pants especially have really dirty shading. this is partially an issue of palette. the palette is very improperly contrasted and often the shifts from a dark color to a lighter color are too radical, and in these places the dirty shading is highlighted. don't use such a dark reddish purple for the pants outline peices (and don't inconsistently outline like that, if you're to break an outline make sure its consistent with the depth/shape trying to be conveyed).

are you familiar with hue-shift at all? its a shading principal which states that colors that are "darker" will be natural tinted towards "colder" shades, like blues and greens and in some cases. these shades also tend to be less saturated. similarly, shades that are "lighter" are usually bound to be warmer, more tinted towards yellows, oranges and reds.
there are, naturally, exceptions towards this but more often than not those involve funky light-sources or textures.

anyway - I digress; as I was about to say, its not usually the best idea to have an outline shade be such a saturated shade of dark reddish purple, especially if the object in question is gray-tinted. I'd go for a blueish or greenish gray to help balance it out. I used a greenish shade here so that I could reuse the shade I added in the jacket.

don't be afraid to reuse colors in other areas - value is more important than hue when it comes to shading or creating the illusion of depth and lightsource, which is the primary focus of shading.


speaking of values (that is, how bright or how dark the shade is), some of your values are kind of off. the jacket, especially, has some awkwardly bright spots and some inconsistent shading on the sleeve.


i'd also recommend, although i might be tooting my horn, altering the shape of his hand to more fit the one that I had. his right hand, that is, my edit of his left hand is miserable. i'd also recommend contrasting the skin a little bit, especially the hands; they just kind of blend together into an orange blob.


would you mind if i did an edit of the two other guys?