DeathByJaguar's Pixelart

[deathbyjaguar]

So, might as well introduce myself. I'm DeathByJaguar, and I'm working on a sprite project right now for a Phoenix Wright parody I'll be making soon. I'm barely starting work on the game, and this is my first post, so once I fit the requesting criteria and the sprite project criteria, I'll ask for help with sprites for the game, but for now, I'm just hoping for feedback.

As for the game itself, it's called Felix White: Game Attorney, and it's basically a Phoenix Wright parody in which the cases are all videogame-based murders (I'll explain more about that once I have sprites for the cases). Again, I'm barely starting work on the project, so I don't have much to show, but I'll post the work I have done as I complete the sprites and stuff.

I may also post other random sprite stuff I do here, but this thread will most likely be composed of my work on Felix White.

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Here's the first thing I've done, and it's a basic "Objection!" sprite for Felix, on which the rest of his sprite sheet will be based. Definitely hoping for a bit of feedback, hopefully constructive criticism. I'm trying to emulate the Phoenix Wright art style with character sprites, if that contributes to how you want to post feedback.

[SmithyGCN]

There's something about his design I really don't like...
If you ignore that comment, you should try harder to get the hair and beard in style as it just feels like you just smashed to styled together.

[deathbyjaguar]

Hmm, I think I see what you're saying. I feel like the upturned folds of the jacket might have something to do with it. As I was making the sprite, it seemed that this seemed more like an antagonist than a protagonist, but I'm still a bit iffy about that.

As for the hair, I see why the top hair design looks a bit off. I was going for a design as unique as Phoenix Wright's, and I'd like that to be the final design; however, I could settle for completely changing the hair. As for the beard, could you elaborate more on why the beard looks off? If there's a problem, I'd really like to know exactly what you mean by a "smashed style".

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It's still a work in progress, but this is the basic design for a witness in the first case: Roll from the Mega Man series.

There's something that I find kind of off about this sprite, but I think a comparison to some actual art is the reason. I feel like the basic structure of the face is what's wrong, but I'm not sure what's off about it. Really open to some advice here.

[Virt]

The first thing I have to say about the first sprite is that the Ace Attorney style really focuses on Anti-Aliasing.
(taken from the sprite dictionary on the site)
Your lines aren't anti-aliased so it makes it look out of style.

Also, they usually have one outline color throughout the whole sprite.

One last thing: if you're trying to convey the art style of the first game accurately, you're going to need to use a lot less colors. They only have 16 colors, and your sprite has well over 25.

[deathbyjaguar]

Wow, probably should have done more research. I guess I'll do the antialiasing thing, and then I'll remove some stuff to make it 16 colors.

By the way, it's just 16 colors per sprite, right?

[Virt]

16 colors per sprite, excluding transparency.

It's a different case for backgrounds and other elements that go with the backgrounds, but the character sprites are all 16 colors.

[deathbyjaguar]

Okay, that's good to know, then. Thanks.

[deathbyjaguar]

Okay, so I looked at some Phoenix Wright sprites, and although it appears so, the edges of the sprites don't contain antialiased edges. There is a very clear pixelated border on the sprites, but edges have very slight color variation (not as much as the wide variation I ended up using, though). I'm in the process of getting Felix down to 16 colors, and then I'll get to work on the main prosecutor of the game (still debating the name, thinking about using "Moises Edwards", but I'm not completely decided yet). Once I have a pretty good sprite for every character, I'll get to work on the actual frames of animation for the characters.


In other news, I have the evidence for the first case pictured here. They are (row by row, left to right): an autopsy report, a Shadow Blade (based on Mega Man 3), an empty box for Metal Blades, a dented Metal Blade (based on Mega Man 2), and a replacement arm for Mega Man.



I'm not trying too hard to get these to look Phoenix Wright-esque, and I plan on giving these pieces of evidence my own personal look instead, unless I get help sometime in the future (once I meet the requesting criteria). I do like the look of the Metal Blade, though, as it does look like it is in the PW style.

This screen itself is obviously a Work In Progress, but I plan on using this screen as a "side-screen" to go alongside the main game screen to view the Court Record, perform investigation, etc; and I'm trying to get it to look less like a "collage" of sorts. The main game screen will be twice the width and height of the DS screen, so most of the game will, in the end, have pixels being 2x2 px in actual size (making the main screen 512x384 px actual size), so I'm trying to find a way to make the evidence grid squares larger than they are now while not having to have only two pieces of evidence on the screen at a time and still maintaining a thin side-screen size. Any suggestions on how to do so are appreciated.

EDIT: Forgot to mention, that finger on the Mega Man arm is supposed to be dented, it plays a part in the case. It's not a spriting error.

[Virt]

I wasn't talking about anti-aliasing on the outside of the sprites. I was talking about anti-aliasing on the inside of the sprites.

[deathbyjaguar]

Ah, okay. I'll do my best.

EDIT: Wait, was the 16-color per sprite limit only for the GBA version, or did it apply to the DS version as well? I'm curious, because Ema Skye's sprite looks like it contains more than 16 colors.

[deathbyjaguar]

Okay, here's the completed sprite for Roll (with exactly 16 colors). Took some time (mostly just narrowing it down to 16 colors), but this is the finished sprite. I wish I could find a way to do the arms without having to do two solid colors, but that seems like it's impossible with the color limit. Nevertheless, I think it came out well, especially the hair. Any suggestions on improving this sprite?

Note: I know there's usually an entire character outline with one color, but I like the way this looks and think that the outline color might interfere with that. I'm willing to sacrifice the accuracy to the source material for visual appeal, so that's why there's no outline.

[x0_000]

Your palette has a lot of room for improvement. The biggest fix you can do is getting more constrast in your shades. The yellows of the hair are too close, e.g. the darkest shade isn't very dark compared to the lightest shade, so you end up with little depth in the shading. The other thing that can improve the palette is using hue shifting, that is making the shades move closer to a different color as you get darker. A common color to shift yellow to, as an example, is orange. Here's a quick edit to show how to apply it. (Left: adding more contrast, Right: adding hue shifting towards orange.)


To save colors, you can share shades between colors that are next to each other on the hue spectrum. In this case, the hair's yellow and the skin tone fall in a relatively close band (orange-yellow), so you can try using the same color for some of the shades for both.

[MotorRoach]

Aside from what's been said by x0_000, I also personally think you should make her eye pupils stay a bit more centered, as each eye currently looks like it's looking slightly to a different side from each other.

[deathbyjaguar]

Okay, followed your advice, and now she looks significantly better:



I did a combination of altering the contrast and doing the hue-shift, and now there's more depth in the palette, as far as the hair goes.
I've tried combining colors with this sprite before, and it hasn't worked out, but I haven't tried it with the new palette yet, so I probably will.
I moved the pupils toward the center of the sprite, and it looks way better. So thanks for that.

I'll work on combining colors in the palette, and I'll get back to work on Felix soon enough. Thanks for all the feedback!

[Zapchu25]

Her head is pretty big compared to her body. She kinda looks like a lollipop with the stick body she has. Hr boobs are also pretty big, roll never really has been that curvy. Try to go for a little more faithful of a design.

Here, I had a little extra time today so I made a quick Roll sprite. This should show you how the process should work.

Roll Spriting Process