Link Beat Em Up?

[Mabelma]

Sure will Tyvon. Let me fix it again. Anyways I fixed a big of his anatomy before reading that so let me just post it for now. Hopefully I'm getting somewhere with this.

[mozzy]

Heres some crit:
1. First of all, never sprite on a white backrgound, or one too dark like yours because it messes up your concept of color. Stick with light blues and grays.
2. Its generally a good idea to avoid using pure black anywhere in your sprite because its extremely bold and hard looking when added to anything.
3. Trying to do something anatomically correct makes things boring, but at least use real world logic when creating a sprite based on a human. Look at links ears. We see one on the right side of his head, which doesn't go above his hat at all, but on the other side, you can see his left ear, which makes no sense. His head is way too angular and his eyes should be spaced out more.
4. Unlike most here, I use a different method of making sprites, I do blocking, which to me feels more efficient because you get a sense of volume where as when drawing lines you tend to over compensate and exaggerate things to make up for the lack of space. Heres a (very poor) example of how blocking could have been done. Also take notes on how his body is shaped. Your legs were drawn way too small, especially in comparison to each other.


(PS, this is meant to help you, don't use what I made)

5. As for your palette, try to avoid using real colors as you see them such as sticking to yellow/gold for the hair. Instead, try using oranges to shade and yellows to highlight. Same goes for his tunic, use darker blues and sea greens.

6. With a beat-em-up, the point is to kick enemy ass and to do that, the player has to always be ready to fight. With your pose, it doesn't look like he can jump into combat. Have his sword up and his shield ready to block. Since its a side view, we shouldn't be able to see the inside of his shield.

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Sure will Tyvon. Let me fix it again. Anyways I fixed a big of his anatomy before reading that so let me just post it for now. Hopefully I'm getting somewhere with this.

No not really. It looks exactly the same.

[Mabelma]

Woow Mozzy, thanks for all that. It's greatly appreciated I'll use blocking for the rest of the mock-up but for now, here's an update to the sprites's anatomy and pose using Tyvon's pose as a reference. Hopefully I'm going on a better direction. I'm not feeling very good with his hands or his shield but I just can't get them to look right. I think I'm seeing improvement in this one. Hope you like. Just noticed that the sword isn't really centered on the handle so I gotta fix that soon.

[Vipershark]

his shirt is much too long
it makes him look fat

[Mabelma]

Oh, that's both the shirt and the skirt thing he uses. I still need to ads the belts and the skirt's partidure.

[Vipershark]

the "skirt" is his shirt, it's just longer than a normal shirt

even so, it's still much too long. It doesn't cover up that much of his legs.

[Mabelma]

Oh, I didn't know that but know that you say it I realize I need to fix it, thanks for telling me.

[Cobalt Blue]

put a belt on it, problem solved.

[Alpha Six]

Add the belt and then change it around so it actually looks like a tunic.

[Mabelma]

Will do, thanks for all the help so far.

[tsr moderation staff]

i think i sort of get what you were going for, kind of a triangle body with the exaggerated proportions and stuff. sort of a little like this ?

anyway, if so, then you want to exaggerate the pose more and make everything a bit more dynamic. if not, then just listen to everybody else and tell me how dumb i am

[Mabelma]

Actually yeah, I was going exactly for something like that but pixels don't work like pencils do and I messed everything up.

[Medevenx]

I would actually prefer to see a fat Link.

[Mabelma]

Added the oh so evasive belt. That should clear any questions with his shirt/tunic. Hope you like I'm an actually improving with him.

[Cobalt Blue]

the lines still look like crap, so good luck with the shading.