The VG Resource

So... I haven't done any pixels for a while, and thought I'd give something a go. In my opinion it's slightly better than I usually do when coming back into pixels after a while, but I know it's far from perfect, so I thought I might as well drop it in here. 16 colours, no particular style in mind.

i'll let the pros talk abou all the contrast and pixel-related issues

but for now what i have to say is that the pose is really stiff : she's leaning forwards too much

also the shoulders are impossible, think about the length of the arms

and it's impossible to have feet in that position (well it's possible, but physically painful)


those are all small problems though
the bottom line is just that this whole sprite feels like it wasn't thought out, like you wanted to make everything in one go
the idea is to construct your drawing and really think about what you want this character to do/feel/mean/convey

i'd say start over, and focus on constructing the sprite before getting to the details
(and when i say start over, don't feel bad, there are some things done right in your sprite, but the big mistakes here lie at the core of it
even though editing it till it's fine could work, it wouldn't make you learn from your errors in a productive way)

other people feel free to tell me if my crit is bad, but that's my two cents

I suspect what's making the shoulders look weird is the poofy sleeves. I drew out the pose as just a figure first, then built the clothes on top of that. Here's the wireframe I used:



Anyway, I'll have a look at what I can do tomorrow, as it's getting kind of late and I want to sleep.

posting this because you seem to have the same problem:



before even thinking on pixeling something, you gotta think "man, how do I want to draw her? What pose?" This is what will determine your sprite's quality. There needs to be a degree of planning before putting pixels in the .png sheet.

This being said, I also suggest you to work like me: do a sketch, copy; refine sketch, copy; outline over sketch, copy etc. This process might be tedious, but it serves both as backup method and to see how well your pixels are developing. Drawing her naked first also helps a lot with ambiguous clothing. In Kiki's case, since her dress is completely purple, it's hard to know where the legs start. Drawing a naked body first helps proper cloth placement and its inteactions on the body. Same would be for Marisa, as her puffy shoulders tend to make shoulders weird if you don't sketch first, and the legs, covered by a dress. Pay attention to clothes that change the body silhouette too much.

See Sparkmouse's topic to see my criticism, as they are more complete there. I'll try editing your sprite when I have the time, too. Continue your good work .o/

EDIT: Also I second Lexou's C+C, don't feel intimidated though, because starting over not always is a sign of 'completely wrong'. Aditionally towhat has been said, the puffy shoulders are banded .o/

I did take a few pointers from that idea already, and drew it up in stages from that (starting with a stick figure, then building a naked figure on top, then building clothes on top of that, etc. while refining at each stage), see my previous post for one of the stages. However, I can see from both of your crits that I perhaps didn't put enough thought in at each stage, and this has propagated through into the final piece, so it may be worth me starting again with a little more thought into the pose etc.

along with the pose problems there's this anatomy problem : for women, the width of the hips is most of the time equal to or bigger than the shoulder width

for the pose, you need to think about it
now for instance i get the feeling that you wanted to make her seem shy
in that case her arms should always be very close to her body (in yours the elbows aren't near the body)
legs would either be completely straight or the stereotypical position you can see below
finally she's leaning forwards too much atm (did you try flipping your sprite horizontally to see these kinds of mistakes ? it works great)

I've never been very good at female anatomy - I should use this as a chance to get better at it!

The pose I actually wanted was her to be standing holding a cup of tea, as though she's casually engaging in conversation. I was not intending for shyness to enter the sprite at any point (it seems really weird to me in this case, as it doesn't fit Marisa's personality at all). I recognise that this is perhaps not the most animated pose, however, so I may try something a little more dynamic.

I also did try flipping the sprite, and didn't notice a problem with it. I may revert to my old method of drawing a ray from the centre of gravity to the ground, as I think that highlights balance issues more clearly, at least to me.

for me, the balance isn't a glaring problem, it looks fine if you change the pose of the feet.

now, poses and anatomy aside, I'll talk about clusters and colors



the colors are ok in most of the case, but the dark yellow in the hair melts with her skin (this is frequent when pixelling blonde people). The genesis-y non-white also kinda lowers contrast too, so I suggest using pure white, or at least a lighter tone, for eyes/highlights/clothing.

the light purple on her hat are scribbled, leaving jaggies and some stray pixels, and doesn't show depth. the dress is really banded, with no representation of volume. Those tiny lines in her apron and skirt doesn't really represent those skirt curves either. It is a complicated shape, but imagine it simplified, like a wireframe model: a skirt is roughly a cone shape, so shade using that as model, adding more details as you go.

a last tip: her face needs to pop out. at the moment, it kinda mixes with everything imo. it needs to pop out, it's the most expressive part of the body, aside from posing. Always give the face an extra effort, with eyes, nose, mouth, eyebrows etc. because if you draw a godly body and make a shitty face, your drawing will be shit.

I've tried spriting Marisa a few times, and I always have trouble with the bow on her hat. I'll give it some extra attention the next time around. I definitely agree about the skin. Her face is one of the parts I was least happy with. I'll probably go for a paler shade next time around, to contrast with the hair a little more. Thanks for the tips on the dress - clothing like that has always been a bit of a bane of mine, but I think I can work with it if I put a little more effort in.

I'll also give the face a little more love and attention, to make sure I get it absolutely right. I always seem to draw faces with a really odd shape, and then get them a little better on the second or third attempt. I'll see what I can do about that, as well as the rest of the issues.

Also, I apologise for the lack of actual work I've done to this - it's a pretty hectic time for me right now, as I'm coming up to my second year exams, but I'll get to this at some point.

it's ok, it's not like i'm enjoying free time right now anyway: just have the willpower to get better and actually do things that progress will come out naturally ^v^

Well, I've drawn up the basis for a slightly more interesting pose. I'm sticking with the cup of tea idea, but I think this is a little more dynamic. It's just in the rough sketch stage at the moment, and I'm going to neaten it up a bit before drawing out the sprite, but I thought I'd post it here as I don't have time to finish it now.

ok so here, the leg to our right should be downwards more, no one would naturally hold their leg horizontally like that
otherwise the broom is at a wrong perspective, the circle thing should be more oval
and she's not sitting on hte broom, she's pretty much falling atm

so here's an edit


the issue here is gonna be getting the leg position to be understandable despite the dress

Well, I tried again. Unfortunately, I started before I saw Lexou's comments, since I found some time, so it still has sticky out legs. I think the legs look a bit too short for some reason, but I don't really know why... Anyway, I gave it another shot:



I'm really not too fond of the legs... any pointers there?

Because of the dress thingy-ma-jiggy it doesn't look like she's crossing her legs any more. I wouldn't know where to start fixing this, just thought I'd point it out.

the crossed legs effect can only be done with shading now, as the silhouette will remain the same. though i like this attempt a lot better.