Hello there! ^^ I'm not usually one to post threads with my work (I'm more of a lurker, tbh) but here I am!

Now I'm sure that by reading the thread title and looking at my post count, you're all going "Ugh... It's another newbie posting up some sprite splices/recolours..." But don't worry, it's all custom ^^

Anyway, to the sprite...



Archive

Now, I've been working on it for a couple of days in my spare time but I've encountered a few problems as you can probably tell. Most evidently, the eyes. I can't seem to get anything about them right, I'm much better at Pokemon eyes >.< Any suggestions would be much appreciated.

I'm also having a few problems with the jaw-line. I feel as if the edge-colour I'm using is too light. I only planned on using 3 shades of each colour (Gotta have a limit, right?) and the current edge-colour fits very well with the hands so I'm not too fond of making it darker.

Then there's Ash's pants. They look too plain and plastic. I tried putting an array of horizontal dashes of varying lengths and shapes in a slightly different colour over the top to make it look similar to real-life jeans with their patterned effect, but it just looked horrible.

There's also Pikachu's right foot. Is it just me or does it look choppy? It feels choppy to me.

Any other comments and such that you have for this piece, please don't be afraid to tell me. I'd like to make this as good as possible.

P.S. Before you say anything, yes the belt is undone. I've seen an array of images with the belt being different colours. I plan on watching the Anime to find out what the actual colour is.

you have some jaggies and your colour choice needs a bit more contrast (the trousers need a darker colour in general)
and ash is missing his neck,
but the pikachu I love increase the contrast between the base colour and the shading and it'd be damn near perfect.

Would you mind if I asked if this is traced? Kind of looks like it but I might be wrong.

The lack of contrast is a problem, and I really think it could do with more layers of shading, if that makes any sense.

(Ditto what Bombshell said about Ash's neck, as well.)

You don't really need to put images of this size in spoiler tags. You just add the requirement of clicking it but don't gain and significant saved space.


The contrast needs to be increased and his legs are really straight. The knee appears to be too low, too. I think the black outline but coloured inlines look weird. You could also try working with variable outline wides instead of having pure 1px lines everywhere.

First of all, thanks to everyone who commented.

(01-16-2013, 11:27 AM)Bombshell93 Wrote: you have some jaggies and your colour choice needs a bit more contrast (the trousers need a darker colour in general)
and ash is missing his neck,
but the pikachu I love increase the contrast between the base colour and the shading and it'd be damn near perfect.

Hmmm... the jaggies being things like the edges of Ash's jacket, the collar of his shirt, and of course most of his pants? I'll try to AA the first two a little bit, and maybe increase the thickness of my outline for the pants. I'll increase the difference between the colours of Pikachu himself, Ash's Skin tone, Ash's Jacket colour, the Dark Green of Ash's Gloves, and the Red of Ash's Hat.

As for Ash's neck, I had tried a couple of things to put it in there, but he just kept looking like a giraffe :/ I'll give it another go though ^^

As for the Pikachu, thanks. It's probably my favourite part of this image too ^^

(01-16-2013, 11:43 AM)ShadeDBZ Wrote: Would you mind if I asked if this is traced? Kind of looks like it but I might be wrong.

Haha, yeah it's from a pretty crap sketch I did as a kid, only found it the other night and though "Hmmm... this has potential." It was only a black and white outline and was poorly done. All that was really taken was the shape of everything; How Ash is standing, etc.

(01-16-2013, 11:58 AM)Emma Wrote: The lack of contrast is a problem, and I really think it could do with more layers of shading, if that makes any sense.

(Ditto what Bombshell said about Ash's neck, as well.)

Yeah, I plan of fixing the contrast. As for layers of shading, do you mean adding another tone of whatever colour perhaps between the current two?

(01-16-2013, 12:22 PM)Previous Wrote: You don't really need to put images of this size in spoiler tags. You just add the requirement of clicking it but don't gain and significant saved space.


The contrast needs to be increased and his legs are really straight. The knee appears to be too low, too. I think the black outline but coloured inlines look weird. You could also try working with variable outline wides instead of having pure 1px lines everywhere.

Ahh, sorry about that, just usually used to anything over 200 pixels high having to be put in spoilers. I'll edit them out.

Yeah I plan on fixing the contrast in a few areas (I said it at the top if you haven't already read it ). And yeah, his legs are really straight, I couldn't really find a way around it without looking like his legs were made of spaghetti. I'll try to use a different outline width like you said to perhaps add some depth to it. The knee shouldn't be too hard to fix, I'll shift it upwards a little.

The coloured inlines are just something that I've picked up, an absolute hate for using complete black on anywhere but the outline of an image. I'll change it though if it's too much of a distraction.

As for the variable outline width, any other places you think need that, other than his already mentioned legs?

You know, making the outline not pure black works, too.

Thicker outlines usually work well at the shaded ends.

Updated.



Better or worse?

the colour in the shirt and the belt and the addition of a neck have made a massive difference,
I like the new contrast but you could maybe push it a little more with the skin tone and the trousers.
the jaggies are still present, I advice you shift the leg so it can conform to a pretty pixel art line:

take note to the lines at the bottom for what I mean by pretty line.
you may need to change the length of the leg while making this transition to stop it from looking warped.

Thanks, I'll increase the contrast on the Skin and Trousers then. I'll give that straight-line-leg a try ^^ I just didn't want it to look like he was falling over. Oh and the inside of his right leg also. Thanks for the help by the way ^^

Edit: How's this?

Still a few jaggy lines.

the top of the arm doesn't read as jaggies (the bottom does though, the sleeve behind pikachus head and the fingers dont read as jaggies they seem more like curves int he form (I'm assuming as intended) the shoe under pikachu not so much but the shoe away from pikachu does look jaggy.

Okay, I fixed the Shoe, Right Sleeve and Hat jaggies as well as Pikachu's stomach shadowing. I also made the underside of Ash's arm a little less jagged without taking too much of the form away from it. I left the topside of his arm alone though because as you said, the shape was intended but I changed a few colours around on the Hands and Left Sleeve behind Pikachu to make them look a little curvier and less like jaggies.

Also made his eyes a little thicker.