Robit sprat

[Alexsani]

Instead of some more revamped pokemans, I thought I would try out this little guy who's been bouncing around in my head for a while. I envision the background having a bit of the Metal Slug color scheme, but not so much the style. I am thinking about attempting that, but sounds like a job for a later date.

For now, here is our protagonist: a little robot man with 9 shades+bg+black=11

maybe that is too many, but I liked the option to define the limbs better.

here he is:

Any help is very much appreciated, feel free to rip this to shreds.

[Chris2Balls [:B]]

it's great that you're doing this!
i do think that you should work on a coloured canvas, like green, pink, blue or something. the aa doesn't work in your piece, keep practicing it but for now i think this is better off without. i can see you've tried to create texture: give this more contrast and avoid banding, then you'll be able to start working on texture! you need to work on creating a more consistent shading through a specific light source, then work on how it reacts on the different parts of the robot and between them and his volume.
keep it up!

[Alexsani]

considering how many times I have seen you be a dick (not unreasonably, though), I appreciate that.

Light sources aren't nearly as much of a problem for me as just getting the proper shading gradient, I am not sure of what proportions of each color to use (run into the same problem when doing larger art too), I was always more of a sketching kind of guy, just linework.

update:

[StarSock64]

Chris, a dick? Of all the members I wouldn't have expected him to be the one someone would call that ahaha

I noticed you didn't change your colors, but the contrast is a really big problem so increase it. A lot. You also need to get rid of all the anti-aliasing on the outside, which isn't doing anything for your piece at all except making it worse. If anywhere needs anti-aliasing it's the -inside-, since the head is a little jagged. I don't like how the eyes are outlined in hard black while the outline of the head is lighter

I'd seriously fix these problems before trying to keep messing around with how the actual shades should be placed.

[Alexsani]

I really am never sure whether any of these are actually improvements... it all feels like the same weird shading/colors.



Edit: and pretty much immediately realized that the shading was pure crap.

[StarSock64]

You shouldn't use the darkest shade to shade large areas, use it to AA instead. Gradient shading by just throwing the lightest color on the left and going from there doesn't make the texture or lighting look right. I'd like to expand but I don't know a lot about metallic shading so maybe someone else can help with that. The colored parts of the outline seem really random. Either go through with it for the whole sprite and do it more purposefully or just take it out. It really feels like AA is a make-or-break part of your sprite so if you don't know how you really need to learn

[Alexsani]

? edit: slightly better:

[StarSock64]

You shouldn't use the darkest shade to shade large areas, use it to AA (aaaaactually I would do this for just about anything but if you incorporate the proper metal shading it's probably different so pay attention to grooveman instead!!) instead. Gradient shading by just throwing the lightest color on the left and going from there doesn't make the texture or lighting look right. I'd like to expand but I don't know a lot about metallic shading so maybe someone else can help with that. The colored parts of the outline seem really random. Either go through with it for the whole sprite (aka the body) and do it more purposefully or just take it out. It really feels like AA is a make-or-break part of your sprite so if you don't know how you really need to learn

EDIT: It might help to take off all the details on the face (eyes/mouth), shade it, and put them back on later.

[Alexsani]

soooo... definitely going to call it a night on this, what do you think?
edit: I lied I merged 2 of the colors, but the palette is still relatively large, which doesn't necessarily bother me.

[GrooveMan.exe]

I'm going to be conceited; and post something I made.
http://groovemanexe.deviantart.com/#/d2zqjbz
Look at the helmet. See how because the metal parts are different sizes and curvatures, the highlight shapes are different? Note how stark the contrast is between the lightest shade and darkest shade.

1) Change your pallete first. Ditch that pure black; make the darkest shade even darker, and the lightest shade even lighter.
2) Go on TSR and have a look through the sprites (high-bit games like DS and PSX will have clearer examples). Look at how they shade metal, and deal with lightsources.
3) Using only the darkest shade and lightest shade, look at each section of metal plating at a time. Use the lightest shade in accordance to how it should catch the light. Rinse and repeat with every section.
4) Use the intermediate tones to flesh out the light and shadow; using them to anti-alias if need be. You shouldn't need more than 5 shades.

Edit: Also the lineart for those arms/hands are really lumpy/noodly. I would suggest redoing them.

[Alexsani]

The arms are meant to be noodly, so I may refine that, but keep in mind that was partly on purpose, I tend to like to have black outlines in there somewhere, so I may stubbornly refuse that, the lightest shade is near white, but the hands are unintentionally shitty. I will go ahead and look at some other sprites for ref, we'll see what comes out of that. (metal may not have been the best choice for me here)

[Alexsani]

Alright, I lied, here is the sprite again, mostly minor tweaks, but I really like the arms/hands now, and I feel pretty good about it now, so either it is a lot better than what I started with, or I just lowered my standards a lot.

[Cobalt Blue]

metal is fine, as long as you avoid a chrome-ish look wich is nothing but a complete nightmare, specially on such a small sprite.

my bit of advice would be to actually simplifly the shading. and simplyfy the desing(specially on the arms) and fix the linework. you're just trying to cram too much info and details on such a small space to a point it totally kills its readbility. if you can get people to deduce that the arms are segmented by just giving a subtle highlight on the first part of it, then you dont really need to add a highligth and define the rest of it.



also, dont AA on the outside. its pointless. and the reason why its pointless its because a clean outline is actually a smooth outline. if you actually want to outer AA, give your character a proper background where he would need to fit into an enviroment. otherwise dont do it. as i said, proper linework and a proper choice of colors can provide a much more refined look that blindly throwing bits of pixels randomly expecting them to fit and make sense.

[protip: you dont have to AA anything in most cases. AA isnt part of the shading process nor its mandatory that your stuff has to be AA'ed. in fact AA'ing something its purely an aesthetical choice that ultimately comes from your own taste and/or experience knowing what fits best for a piece. in other words, don't AA everything, just AA what really needs to be AA'ed.]

[Alexsani]

Ookkkaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay...

So I basically went back to the drawing board on the shading, now there are 10 (most of them are new) colors , including bg, the shading is simpler, and I tried using a variety of high contrast, saturated colors, and it read fine, no jaggies. I may make the palette slightly less saturated, I'll have to see him in the environment, but is this a good improvement?

edit: and apparently that wasn't enough, so I decreased the palette by 2 colors and changed the saturation to something I like better.

ohplease ohplease ohplease

[Chris2Balls [:B]]

considering how many times I have seen you be a dick (not unreasonably, though), I appreciate that.

Light sources aren't nearly as much of a problem for me as just getting the proper shading gradient, I am not sure of what proportions of each color to use (run into the same problem when doing larger art too), I was always more of a sketching kind of guy, just linework.

update:

i agree i am a bit of a dick sometimes, i admit it :p
i'm sorry but if you knew were your lightsource was and how it spreads on a volume's surface you wouldn't be asking me about "proper shading gradient". and i'm an extremely sketchy guy btw, so don't use that excuse for not doing something properly or whatever.
i also forgot to mention that your outlines are quite jagged and you need to rework its shape, all of it. your aa on the outside only emphasises the jaggedness of your piece, so don't do it for now.
i'd like to do an edit but i really don't have time right now but i've helped.