Work in progress so far.

I was experimenting with lightsources I've not attempted before. So the shadings probably screwy.

since the TV screen is blue, the highlights should tend to blue. Aside from that, it looks pretty nice.

The top of the chair, the arc, has banding.


If you wanted to push "making sense," the chair's edging would have a cyan-to-black palette rather than white-to-black.

Welp, new pallete and I've adjusted the top arc of the chair. Also started on some tiles to make the room a little less bland. Any tips on how to fill a background like this?
Newest one on the right.

To be honest though, my last step for this piece is to remove that chair, as the final piece is the background without the chair sprite. Also the blue screens are also placeholders, since I intend to have them with various changing images later. Should I still keep the overall pallete blue if I do that?
But hey, if I can get extra practice and improve the chair sprite while I'm at it, I might as well.

the correct would be to change the hhighlight hue whenever the screen changes. It won't look fine if you don't do that.

Well. Now there's carpeting, and an attempt at stone, since I'm now trying to suggest this is underground.
There's something horribly wrong with the stone, I just can't figure out if its the shading, the pallete, something I haven't thought of, or a combination of the lot of potential issues with it.

As for the highlight hue... Should I use the predominate color of what's on the screens or is there some other rule? I mean say he's watching something with a lot of black. Do I go with the next most common color? Or do I mix colors, or what?

I believe this is more or less finished. I'm not quite happy with the rocks though, so I may continue to tweak them.

That looks so much like a Mega Man X boss fight room.

Well... I did use a few MMX backgrounds as a reference.

Continuing with my backgrounding. (also a few sprites (supposed to be in a hybrid MMZ-Metal slug ish style) well for scaling purposes, feel free to critique anything)

the sprites aren't readable enough at this size. Clean them up, remove some details.

(02-27-2012, 06:35 PM)Gors Wrote: the sprites aren't readable enough at this size. Clean them up, remove some details.

Well okay, I'll take a quick crack at that.


I hope this is what you meant. I'm not entirely sure how to make glasses look right in a simple clear way at this scale. And the mecha-eyepatch-eye on the small girl is required for her design so I cleaned that as much as I could, but I'm not sure how much more readible I can make it.

I might need a few tips on how to further clean these up if more is needed.

there are some issues going on with the anatomy of the first one(the head is way bigger than it should be) and the middle one (the way he holds his hands on his pockets its completely unnatural)

are you sure these are not edits? those mistakes usually appear when you dont know understand how does a particular desing works.

(02-28-2012, 07:55 AM)Meta Wrote: there are some issues going on with the anatomy of the first one(the head is way bigger than it should be) and the middle one (the way he holds his hands on his pockets its completely unnatural)

are you sure these are not edits? those mistakes usually appear when you dont know understand how does a particular desing works.

They're scratchwork. Unless making an edit of one's own scratchwork counts as an edit. In which case the 2nd and 3rd may be edits then.

I'm going to respectfully ask you clarify what you mean by the first one having too big a head. She's a child with rather large hair. Her head IS going to look a little big for her frame, therefore her head is going to roughly adult size, and her body smaller.

The middle one's arm problem on the other hand: I've always had issues with certain arm positions. And references have yet to help clarify this :/

it seems that in order to be able to mantain the same exact face you gave all your sprites you simply forced it on a smaller character, wich ultimately results in something with a small character with a small body using a medium head form a medium character. wich is the reason i though they do look like edits(asuming you simply pasted a head over a smaller body).

as much as you'd hate the idea, the face features are not going to be the key element of that character. its readbility is going to be determined by its clothing. aslso, it seems like the hair is simply painted over a ball.

if you lack a proper reference for the second one, i'd sugets posing in front of a mirror or a camera and test by yourself how it should work. that way, you'd get a better idea when a pose feels natural.

(02-29-2012, 01:39 AM)Meta Wrote: it seems that in order to be able to mantain the same exact face you gave all your sprites you simply forced it on a smaller character, wich ultimately results in something with a small character with a small body using a medium head form a medium character. wich is the reason i though they do look like edits(asuming you simply pasted a head over a smaller body).

as much as you'd hate the idea, the face features are not going to be the key element of that character. its readbility is going to be determined by its clothing. aslso, it seems like the hair is simply painted over a ball.

if you lack a proper reference for the second one, i'd sugets posing in front of a mirror or a camera and test by yourself how it should work. that way, you'd get a better idea when a pose feels natural.

Actually, I intended each face to be different, with the small girls face being rounder, the woman's face being more angled and the hardboiled detective-type man's being more squarish. Looking at them again, I think I may have been too subtle with my pixel changes between the faces. I've have to work on making it more clear.

Anyways, some how I got the impression you wanted me to try something more like A, with a smaller, simpler head.
I didn't like the result. So I just thickened the body more.

As for the other one... I usually pose myself for any unfamiliar pose. I lurk this forum enought to have seen that tip before and try it out from time to time. Sometimes I can get a sibling to pose for me. It hasn't helped much other than positioning. Elbow at waist, hand near hip. I just mess up the proportions when it comes to applying them to the exaggerated sprite. Also perspective. In short, I just need more experience.