The VG Resource

protip: i'd say remove all these useless black outlines and rather define shapes by the use of proper shading(not selout, purely shading alone).

that, and myself not being particulary fond of the pose. seems like a rather unnatural way to stand, and makes the legs look as if one was longer than the other.

So you mean, for starters, removing the outline color from within the sprite and just using the other colors to show that detail? Like on that front leg where the boot part intersects with the knee pad? Also, I think the pose seems unnatural mainly because of that back leg. You're right, standing like that isn't very comfortable at all. Thanks for the comments.

I tried fixing the pose. New one on the right.


I'm having quite a difficult time with the upper body armor. Does anyone have any advice/links to references on shading metal? Thanks.

I made a body and arms, but something about this thing is making me not really like it too much. I think I may restart with a different style or something. =/

He's leaning FAR too forward to me. And is the armor on his right leg supposed to be so low compared o the left one's?

The leg armor was more of an attempt at making him more assymetrical... You think it might look better if he's got 2 boots that have the same armor?

Here's a potential leaning fix.

I hope you don't mind the edits, I just had to do it, I was inspired for some reason.

But yeah, keep your stances more natural and you can see the you initial stance shows him with a very unatural balance as well as posture.

I moved his left foot, (our right side) more outward to emphasize a more balanced pose. It helps if you demonstrate with your own body if the pose is naturally balance and if the arms or legs are in awkward positions or not.

I appreciate the edits. I tried my own hand at fixing the legs and such. I also tried to make the arms a little shorter and in a better place. The right one is with arm fixes, and the left one is just my first attempt at trying to fix the legs.

I tried making some other characters. I'm struggling on the poses for the middle two. Still not sure if the sword guy's pose is natural looking enough, especially in the arms. The spear guy's legs and back arm are a big problem for me right now. I'm fairly satisfied with the first guy and the girl on the end, but any C+C to make me even more satisfied would be excellent.

The stances are stiff and a bit awkward, they could use some exaggeration. For example, the first guy looks like a brawler, maybe a violent-type of character (I'm just assuming here so correct me if I'm wrong) so I'd make him lean forward, and instead of bending the arms like they are now (looks a bit awkward) I'd try something more aggressive, maybe like this (leaning forward a bit more.)

yeah

one thing that people tend to forget is that personality isn't given only by text and clothing; their stances also tell us a lot about them. give life to them!

Thanks for the critique guys. I figured it would probably be most effective if I were to reduce everything down to skeleton type things to try to get the pose looking more natural. I feel like the legs and knees are the key to making these things look more natural and less uptight and stiff.

The first guy is kinda supposed to be just standing up with good posture and when he gets hit he just takes it like nothing happened. I guess that's how I could describe him. Perhaps a more dynamic pose would be more interesting though, but I definitely want to at least get the standing posture to look more natural.

Here are the skeletons:

Here's some edits to help you get some ideas for your poses. The top row are the originals and the bottom row are my suggestions.

For the first guy, based on your description I gave him a dominating pose, by puffing out his chest, ala Superman tanking bullets from hapless criminals. My skeleton edit is actually a bit off on the legs, they should be straighter.
For the second guy, it looks like he's raring to attack, so I bent his legs more into a "ready to attack anytime" pose. I don't know if the weapon he's holding is a two headed spear or sword, which would affect how his arms are positioned.
For the third one I didn't edit too much, just leaned him forward a bit more and bent the far arm. Not much to say here, I tried posing myself and got something similar.
The last one, I get the "elegant but deadly" feeling from your pose, so I emphasized the "elegance" by trying a more female pose.

I guess one general piece of advice I'd give is to ask yourself: "If I was this guy, how would I stand?", and study what you do. For the first guy though, you might not notice a lot of difference, so I'd ask: "What is the difference between my current pose and the pose I would take if I was relaxed?".

Those are awesomely helpful. I really like the poses you made there. I took some of your advice and I tried to make my own skeletons. I ended up with something really similar with the black guy, and something that I feel better (but not completely happy) about with the black haired guy.



Old ones on the left; new on the right. Again, much thanks. =D

it is a good excersice that, if you have a camera or a mirror, perform those poses and observe how your body works. joins can only articulate in certain ways, each limb also has a weigh and mass, and there are comfortable and umcomfortable ways to stand.