The VG Resource

To be honest, the shading on this one doesn't quite make sense. Where is the lightsource even placed?

A lot of the sprite suggests suggests it's at the bottom left, but there are some parts (like the bottom right of her hair) that are even borderline pillowshaded.

Her head is strange as it seems she has no neck or chin, and the outline for her sleeves are much too light. Speaking of those sleeves, they really stand out because they are the only part f the sprite with colored outlines. You either use colored outlines, you don't, or you use sel-out, but I suggest you don't just color them arbitrarily.

The space between her legs on her dress is much too dark, and it's not really conveying what you intend it to. I'd suggest looking into folds on cloth and such to improve this, or looking up some references.

Sorry if this post is all over the place, I'm typing from my mobile.

Ok, let's see how this is:



I appreciate the critique, but I was a bit lost on some of it I'll admit. Like for example, the whole multiple light source thing I don't see. I feel that the light source is top left, and I wasn't sure how many place really had it coming from the bottom at all. I did notice that the face could be read as if it was coming from bottom though (I think this happened because I exaggerated the shadow from her bangs too much). Yet I kept most of the rest unchanged, because unless I'm not seeing something right, I think it's fairly consistently coming from the top left.

The near pillow shaded part was me again exagerating shadows I think. I was going for the effect of the hair there on the right being more towards the light source, with the darker stuff on the left being the shadow cast by her body, and the darker shade on the right being where her hair curves away from the light source. Clearly it didn't look that way, and I figured it would be best just to make her hair just not flow out like that.

Fixed up the shape of the chin and neck so hopefully those are more noticeable. I touched up on the outlines. Everything actually had colored outlines, they just were a bit too dark I guess. I lightened them up, and worked on shading the outlines better too so some were highlighted. Darkened the sleeve outlines of course too.

I was using a reference for the dress for the legs, so I'm not really sure what to do with them otherwise. I added a little bit near her foot as far as a highlight to make it look more like cloth. I was trying a lot of things with the rest though, and none of it was coming out. I mean with the wide stance, the dress would fall between her knees more and create that darker area, yes?

So yeah, I tried my best, but I guess I'm a bit lost still, unless the few chances I did make have made it better.

Oh, and Koh, don't worry, I had planned to add more frames of course. It was just a general idea of what it was going to end up being. Once I get the base down, then I'll work on adding extra frames.

Ah, sorry, I didn't mean to confuse you even further. Here's an edit to illustrate better.


As you mentioned previously, the face was one of the places where the lightsource seemed to come mostly from the bottom left. Another one is the hair, and the leftmost elbow. In my edit, I corrected these, and made them more adequate for the established lightsource. I tweaked your palette, which I think had too little contrast.
I tweaked the hat a bit, as well as defined its border with the hair better. I did some minor tweaks to the hair to make it seem more hair-like (The lighting is probably negligible though.) I thought the face needed some major reworking, so I redid that. I also gave it some more expression, since the latest revision still has her with a rather blank expression. I made the hands (and I think the arms? I can't recall) bigger, because they were much too tiny. To be honest, I had trouble finding references for this particular pose in a long dress, so I'm not all that satisfied with how the dress came out, but I think it's a little more cloth-like now, in any case.

Hope this helps somehow.

I made an edit, focussing more on the head and arms. If you look carefully, the alignment of her head is off. I changed the proportions, because the arms were too short in comparison to the torso. I don't really understand the pose, but I guess it's akin to somebody holding their blade at eye level? Anyway, it felt quite cramped, so the arms had to be redone.
Generally, you're packing in a lot of detail at that size, and some of it is lost in the process and therefore which you can do without - I'm thinking of the shading on the face and sleeves especially. The face is a bit squashed because of the nose, and the eyes lack expression.
I tried to address these issues, I hope it's helpful!

Wow guys, thanks a lot. Both were a fantastic help! Though, it was at points frustrating to apply what you were showing, without directly stealing what you did! =P

You both did a great job with Ray, and were a huge help. Hopefully now it's ready for animation.



Oh, and to explain the pose, Ray isn't naturally the fighting type. She isn't so sure about being in battle and fighting things, luckily for her though, she's gifted with both white and black magic powers.

This also marks only the second time I've started to use a new program (Graphics Gale). I really miss MS Paint, so many little intricacies have been lost. I'm still getting used to it, but hopefully the new tools I have access too will keep on improving my sprites!

Well, I've got the animation now.

The famed mimic Vargas joins the team! A mysterious man with the ability to copy the moves of foes and allies! Here, he's performing his basic sword attack...

Or rather, the basic frames I'm planning. Going to need some inbetweens, and you know... details. Yet it's the basic plan so far.