Ladyknight Lilia Fairchild

[AutumnSpire]

Hello tSR, it's been a very long time since I post anything here, but I want to get as many comments on this as possible, and thought I could get some good criticism here.


The character is Lilia Fairchild/Lilia Knight, a ladyknight for a fighter I am helping with. I am aware this sprite probably has too many colors for a fighter, so it's possible I'll make a simpler version soon with a smaller amount of colors.
This is the first time I sprite swords and armor (not to mention, I've never been too hot with folds), so experimenting was partly the reason why I have that amount of colors. With that said, I welcome all constructive criticism and will do what I can to improve this piece.

[Hoeloe]

Some parts of her anatomy are pretty messed up. Her arms are incredibly thin, for one, and her face is quite small. Aside from that, I think it might benefit from a boost in contrast, and lowering the colour count would probably help, too.

[BobbyLala]

the rendering looks pretty nice but the posture needs work

the way she's leaning back seems really awkward and imbalanced
her head is way too far to the right considering where her shoulders are
the feet don't seem like they're grounded
her right foot doesn't seem aligned with the right shin which it roughly should be
the perspective of the belt buckle is confusing, you've drawn it on flat but where it is it should follow the form of the waist
+ what hoeloe said

hope this helps
this could look real nice though!

[AutumnSpire]

Thank you for your helpful advice; here is an update to the sprite.



I've changed her face, moved her head, removed ten colors off the palette, rearranged her belt, made her arms thicker and patched up a few other things.

I haven't tackled a few things just yet, particularly the points regarding her foot position, but I wanted to get some opinions on the current fixes first.

[Hoeloe]

They aren't drastic enough. It's still suffering from all the same problems. What may help is drawing out a reference of her pose over the top of the sprite, ignoring all the excess such as armour and hair, and just focussing on her bone and muscle structure. That way it may be easier to see these issues.

[Gors]

this might 'hurt' you but scrap it and start from scratch, this time paying attention to anatomy.

You have enough experience to make big sprites, but try drawing the human bodu completely naked first, then 'wear' it with armors and fabric.

[Koopaul]

Naw I think you can still save this sprite.

What I usually do is cut out the limbs from the body. Then fix each one seperately until they look right. Of course I always have a reference handy so I know how the build works.

[Davy Jones]

this might 'hurt' you but scrap it and start from scratch, this time paying attention to anatomy.

You have enough experience to make big sprites, but try drawing the human bodu completely naked first, then 'wear' it with armors and fabric.

This + spriting separate pieces like the sword, limbs, parts of the armor, head, etc.

With this method you can easily piece the sprite together from its parts without redoing the whole thing if single portions are messed up.

[AutumnSpire]

@Gors: I guess I could consider that harsh, but I also understand that you are saying this from an objective point of view.
That said, I did start like that, in a sense, as you can see here: http://img4.imageshack.us/img4/7109/riria.png , just, I didn't post it until it was 'finished'.
I suppose it was reckless of me to wait until it was fully colored to ask for feedback, but I can do nothing but work with the issue at hand.

Thank you for your suggestions, I'll attempt to be more wary of the anatomy on the next revision, and will take all your advice into consideration.

It might be a little while until I make another update (I've been neglecting a couple of things in favor of finishing this), but I'll try to do so as soon as I can.

[Cobalt Blue]

armor plates arent as thin as cloth. they do have a mass and a volume. you basically painted them over her body

[AutumnSpire]

Bump--Two months, has it really been this long?

In any case, after some pondering I decided I would take Gors' advice and start over, even if it pained me. I was taking a closer look at some fighting game sprites and felt like Lilia's pose was not dynamic enough and noticed some of the issues in the anatomy that had been previously pointed out.

As such, I present this rough sketch:

The lineart clean-up was done shoddily; I'm sorry for that. Still, since anatomy was a considerable problem in the previous version, I wanted to get some opinions on it before I moved on any further.

[Cobalt Blue]

that green haired girl's pose is so odd and forced i cant understand what is she suposed to be doing standing in such way.

is like every section of her body is not connected to the rest of his body.

[StarSock64]

Hm...
I think the weight looks kind of unbalanced. The whole thing seems slanted to the right. You might notice it more if you flip the image over.
The center of the body doesn't really seem to match up properly, but some light guidelines might help you figure that out.
It'd probably be of help in the future if you shape out the back of the head, and the arms seem kind of weird. The way they're bent and the distribution of forearm compared to upper arm, I think...?

If you want to be dynamic, I think it's important how you angle the shoulders. Right now they look kind of blobby.
There's other things that I'm not really sure how to articulate, but maybe someone else can talk more about it.

oh, another thing I should've mentioned, I'm not sure if you had any steps before this, but I think it's a lot easier to be dynamic if you lay out simpler figure drawings first. As in, laying out the basic forms and thinking about the angles and whatnot rather than worrying about filling in the details of the flesh. I'd post examples, but I don't have any that are so easy to access on the computer I'm on.

[Speed-X]

I just have a tip for the shading: on your old one before you decided to start over, the cloth legging-things really had quite a bit of broken sel-outing. You really may want to avoid that for next time. Also, remember to try not to use many colors! Optimize your palette; it's good practice. And a good habit! Also remember for next time to increase the contrast in her hair especially. Otherwise, you have the hue-shifting down for the hair pretty well.

I agree with StarSock: it looks unbalanced. If you're going for something like you did in the original one, her back should be farther to the right rather than her legs. Which, in all honesty, despite its flaws I really like the original pose; it shows just how hefty her sword is.

Keep this up!

[BobbyLala]

it looks imbalanced yes
her right leg is protruding too far from the hip
the breasts are too far to our right
her right upper arm is way too long and her left forearm is also too long
the lineart for her right foot is really curved, if she's grounded, it should be straighter methinks
and the face looks silly

you're well capable of making this super duper though so keep at it!