Faeldspr's Top-Down Sprites

[Jamuk]

I was doing Velociraptor because it was going to be the smallest dino in the game, and I thought it would be best to work upwards in size. I suppose the main features would be the body, legs, arms, narrow head, sickle-shaped claw and head/tail feathers.
Attempted to do a Mystery Dungeon 2 style sprite:

I couldn't quite do the feathers on the side sprite so I left them out for the moment. I'm not very pleased with the eye either.
@Hoeloe: You say I need more contrast. Do you mean lightening my light shade and darkening my dark shade, sort of thing?

[Hoeloe]

That is exactly what I mean, though in this case, it's more the latter. It's very hard to see any shading at all because your colours are so similar.

[Jamuk]

That is exactly what I mean, though in this case, it's more the latter. It's very hard to see any shading at all because your colours are so similar.

I see what you mean, I've improved it now.

Photobucket seems to have messed the colours up, but you should still be able to see it clearly.
In my opinion, this is the best of the sprites so far and I think that it's done. Also before anyone mentions it looking like a chicken, Velociraptor was only just bigger than one and pretty much resembled one. The other directions (north and east/west) are going to be harder. Still haven't quite figured out how to do them yet.

[Hoeloe]

While the contrast is better, it's still very hard to read. Concentrate less on small details like the claws, and more on making the basic body shape visible.

[Jamuk]

While the contrast is better, it's still very hard to read. Concentrate less on small details like the claws, and more on making the basic body shape visible.

I hope this has sorted it out a bit, I've tried to use shading to convey the shape of the body better.

When I mentioned in an earlier post about things becoming clearer in animation, I meant that some pieces of lineart which may look awkward or not make sense in a standalone sprite, may fall into context when the sprite is fully animated. e.g. If there was a sprite who's head sort-of melted into the body, then when the head moved it would probably be easier to tell which bit was the head. I wasn't trying to use that as an excuse but it was just one of my musings. Anyways, I made a mock-up of a potential running GIF. The tail's movement isn't smooth, and the legs haven't been sorted out yet, but it should give a rough idea of the movement of the whole thing. I'm having a bit of difficulty with some transparency on it ATM, so the link to view it is here: http://s1061.photobucket.com/albums/t478...=VRRun.gif

[Hoeloe]

That does look quite a bit better. The head still isn't very well formed, though, since you appear to have given the raptor a beak, and even if you are to use the "feathered dinosaurs" idea, raptors did not have beaks, as can be clearly seen from their bone structure.

[Jamuk]

That does look quite a bit better. The head still isn't very well formed, though, since you appear to have given the raptor a beak, and even if you are to use the "feathered dinosaurs" idea, raptors did not have beaks, as can be clearly seen from their bone structure.

Point taken, although many of the reference pictures on Google Images portray Velociraptor as having some sort of unfeathered snout, which looks somewhat similar to beaks seen on modern day birds. Anyway, I've changed the snout to be grey:

I personally think this looks less like a beak, however a mugshot on the HUD would clear up any confusion.

[Hoeloe]

Personally, I think the main reason you're having such trouble with the readability is your attitude to it. You've now come up with two reasons as to how it will be cleared up externally from the sprite itself, with animation and a mugshot. Sorry if this sounds a little harsh, but the sprite itself needs to be readable WITHOUT the benefit of animation or a mugshot, otherwise it's clearly flawed.

Anyway, the new colour is better (since it is no longer the same colour as the claws), but the shape is the main problem. The raptor snouts you see tend to be long and slim, but not pointed. It's the point that makes it look like a beak more than the colour.

[Jamuk]

Personally, I think the main reason you're having such trouble with the readability is your attitude to it. You've now come up with two reasons as to how it will be cleared up externally from the sprite itself, with animation and a mugshot. Sorry if this sounds a little harsh, but the sprite itself needs to be readable WITHOUT the benefit of animation or a mugshot, otherwise it's clearly flawed.

Anyway, the new colour is better (since it is no longer the same colour as the claws), but the shape is the main problem. The raptor snouts you see tend to be long and slim, but not pointed. It's the point that makes it look like a beak more than the colour.

Sorry, I didn't realise I was being stupid with the readability. Thanks for the heads up.

There's old vs. new of the snouts. I'll try and fix the readability tomorrow. Also, I know it's no excuse, but games do sometimes use undetailed sprites and fix the readability of these. e.g. Advance Wars, units on the map, compared with the units in battles and Pokémon, overworld Pokémon compared with the battle ones.
The undetailed ones look horrible though so I'll definitely try to avoid this sort of thing.

[Hoeloe]

Ah, I see why you struggle to grasp this now.

Readability =/= detail. In fact, often they are polar opposites. Detail is to do with the amount of small things you can see in a sprite. Readability is to do with how easily you can tell what is going on in a sprite. With sprites, readability is often higher priority than detail, especially for small sprites. In general, the smaller your sprite is, the more detail you have to forsake to keep your readability. Take a look at some sprites that have smaller and larger versions. Pokemon is a good example. Notice, as you already have, how the overworld sprites have much less detail. This is on purpose, because, to properly portray the character, they can't fit every little thing onto the sprite, otherwise it will look cluttered, things will blend into each other, and it will look a mess. Instead, they focus on the few key attributes of the character that allow you to recognise it, and see what is going on. That is what you need to try and achieve. I'll edit a Pokemon sprite to show you what I mean.

EDIT: Here. Here's a sprite from FR/LG. On the left is the original sprite. On the right is my edit. All I did was attempt to add in the detail found in the larger sprite. Notice that it is very difficult to tell what is going on in my edit. This is because there is too much detail, and it's become extremely crowded and difficult to discern. If you take a closer look at the original sprite, you'll see he has no mouth, no tufts of hair, no collar, no straps from his pack, no wristbands, no red-and-white shoes, etc. These are the things I added to my sprite. If you take those away, you don't lose the essence of the character - they aren't really important. Instead, they've taken the key elements of the character: Red shirt, blue jeans, and his hat, and used those. This allows for a far more readable sprite, but not a more detailed one. Mine is more detailed, but worse as a result.

[Jamuk]

Yes, I see exactly what you mean. I'll tidy up any unnecessary pixels then. Of course, everything on my sprite makes perfect sense to me, which is why I need a second opinion on it. Which details would you say could do with removing, apart from the arms and the slightly screwed-up shading (unintentional alliteration there)?

[Hoeloe]

Mostly the stripes and claws. The largest claw need only be one pixel at that size, yet yours is 3, and the stripes serve only to confuse the shading.

The sprite you currently have is a completely top-down one, by the way. If you were to attempt something at more of an angle, you'd be concentrating more on shaping the front of the raptor, not the top.

[Jamuk]

I didn't intentionally add stripes, in fact I tried to avoid them, so that definitely needs fixing. Every time I try something at a different angle, it just ends up wrong. I can sort-of visualise it in my head, I just can't quite communicate it with the pixels. It's something I personally struggle with, and don't quite know how to improve.

[Hoeloe]

Try drawing it by hand first. Very similar techniques are applied. There are various different way to draw pixel art, and you need to find the one you are most comfortable with. Personally, I tend to draw a rough wireframe skeleton of what I want to draw, then flesh it out with rough blocks of colour to determine limb thickness and such, and then start detailing with outlines and shading, as well as neatening the shape. It's a long process, but it seems to work.

[Jamuk]

Try drawing it by hand first. Very similar techniques are applied. There are various different way to draw pixel art, and you need to find the one you are most comfortable with. Personally, I tend to draw a rough wireframe skeleton of what I want to draw, then flesh it out with rough blocks of colour to determine limb thickness and such, and then start detailing with outlines and shading, as well as neatening the shape. It's a long process, but it seems to work.

Maybe it's because I'm working on a fairly small scale that I'm having trouble making it from a Zelda perspective (mind you I don't really want to go much bigger than this otherwise bigger things will be absolutely huge.) I've had another go at doing it in this style though so here, I'm really not happy with this but I thought I may as well post:

I tried drawing but that failed as well.
Is there a way I can do it mostly top-down but change it so the east/west and north sprites look slighly different? That way I could keep what I was happy with (the right-hand one), but make it slightly more realistic by not quite being absolute top-down.