The VG Resource

So a while ago I had an idea for an epic game with an interesting twist. I started making it, and found that the interesting twist couldn't work cleanly, so I left it alone. About a week ago, I thought of a way I could make a similar concept work, so I started planning for it.
I know in my head what I want this to look like, and the palette is largely grey and green, because the game's world is shrouded by a dust cloud, which stops the surface getting direct sunlight. The game plays around with light levels a lot.

Thus, I tried to sprite the main character. There is a low contrast and a high contrast version, though I fear both have not enough contrast in them. I'm reluctant to boost the contrast too much for fear of losing the slightly "washed out" look I'm aiming for, but I'll see what you guys say. There are a few versions of this. The one on the top has the lightsource on the top right, but after I shaded this I realised that all the light is actually coming from a lantern on his hip, so I reshaded it to account for this, which are the bottom 3. The left most is "high" contrast, the middle one is low contrast, and the right one is low contrast without his equipment (sword and lantern).

So yeah, basically, I'd like some C&C.



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Being all by itself and not integrated in a scene makes it hard to judge if your idea of a washed-out style works. Right now, it does just look like a lack of contrast.

The torso looks twisted and your shading isn't helping. The body should cover the far arm more. The illumination on the close arm and the far leg don't make any sense, neither do the boots.
I'm not sure where you're going with the outline, that'd totally destroy your washed-out, dull, dusty impression.

Unfortunately, I don't have a scene drawn, but I know what you mean. I can always work on the palette at a later date if needs be.

I think I see what you mean about the twisted torso. As for the far arm, I was using one of the Fire Emblem sprites as a pose reference, since I tried this several times before without success, and I thought the way they had the arms (which are usually held slightly away from the body, hence why it's not covered so much) might work. I can change it if it doesn't.

The light source is supposedly from his hip, where that lantern is hanging, so I'm not sure what you mean about the illumination on the arm and leg.

The outline is my way of allowing the player to be clearly visible against the washed out background, while retaining similar colours. Again, I'll re-evaluate when I actually have a scene together. Really, this is just looking into the line art and shading at the moment, rather than colours and such.

I understand the lantern lightsource story. However, the lower arm apparently has its lightsource at the right top while the upper arm is not illuminated at all (while ist should be illuminated from the bottom and slight right). The boots have their light source somewhere beside them instead of above. The far leg's lightsource is the the left but should be top left. The way you try to built volume doesn't work.

Ah, okay then. I did mess around with lightsources a bit, and I can't seem to get the arm to look right. :/ The leg seems to look better if I treat is as totally shadowed by the other leg, i.e. just removing the highlight. I'll see what I can do about the boots. I tried to shade them from the top, but I think I see where I've gone wrong. Thanks for the help.

EDIT: I readded a highlight to the back leg, higher up and in line with the highlight on the other leg, it looks a lot better now. Still struggling with the arm, though. :/

I'll post it up later, I have other stuff to do now.

Okay, so first of all, I brightened the palette so that we can all see everything more clearly. The game requires at least two (more likely 5) palettes of this character to deal with various light levels anyway, so this is definitely not final. I changed the shading on the boots and back leg, I changed the shading on the arm, I moved the back arm inwards slightly, slightly changed the shading on the belt, moved the scarf out a pixel to remove a horrible black patch caused by the outline.

I realise there haven't been any posts in this thread for a while, but I could do with some CC on this, since I do intend to actually use it.

The blue shades need more contrast. They're too dark so they just kind of blend together, and you're not gonna get an illuminated look with dark shades. The boots have this problem too.

It might do some good to make the farther leg have more shading. I don't see it being this bright. But again, the dark green probably needs to be brighter or something. Right now all the dark shades kind of look like a bunch of indistinguishable black areas. The anatomy looks pretty funky too? The most jarring thing is how weirdly straight the farther leg is. It doesn't really fit with the balance of the other one and it just looks awkward.

If you're making a point of making the lantern the lightsource, then it needs to be way more noticeable/readable. I had no idea it was there until I read the posts.

(01-17-2012, 03:51 PM)StarSock64 Wrote: [ -> ]The blue shades need more contrast. They're too dark so they just kind of blend together, and you're not gonna get an illuminated look with dark shades. The boots have this problem too.

It might do some good to make the farther leg have more shading. I don't see it being this bright. But again, the dark green probably needs to be brighter or something. Right now all the dark shades kind of look like a bunch of indistinguishable black areas. The anatomy looks pretty funky too? The most jarring thing is how weirdly straight the farther leg is. It doesn't really fit with the balance of the other one and it just looks awkward.

If you're making a point of making the lantern the lightsource, then it needs to be way more noticeable/readable. I had no idea it was there until I read the posts.

I see your point. I'll work on the palette.

I'll see what can be done about the shading on the far leg when I brighten up the darker shades.
Interesting you should say that. I used Fire Emblem's sprites as a pose reference, and they seem to use very straight legs in a lot of them. I tried that because my leg poses always seem TOO bent whenever I try, but regardless, I'll look into it.

It's not that I'm particularly trying to make a point of it, but that I'm just shading it from that point because it makes more sense in context (the gameplay focusses a lot around different light levels, and the player is always shrouded in a circle of light from this lantern). However, I would like it to be at least somewhat noticeable, so I'll work on that, too.

EDIT: Quick attempt at fixing some of this. Any better?

Bumpity Bump with a new sprite. I decided this one was too small, so I made it again but bigger. I know it's very flawed at the moment, but I've been fiddling with it and I can't seem to pinpoint where the flaws are, exactly, so I'm uploading it here. Also because I'm tired and can't be bothered to work on it more at the moment... *shot*

Made some changes. New is on the right.

I actually like the smaller one, because the larger one has weird shading in the hair, and the pose doesn't look natural at all where as the on the smaller sprite it did and the shading fit the smaller sprite.

Hmm... I might try again, and go for something about half way between, in scale. The smaller one is just too small for what I have in mind...

'Nother edit. I made a little edit to the pose of the large one to try and make it seem more natural. Let me know whether it worked or not, please.

I think that the small one still looks better, I think he still looks just a bit unnatural in the larger version.
It could be something to do with the foot?