TSG's Sprites

[TheShyGuy]

Hey wasup everyone. Here are some sprites i made a few days ago. They're not based on anything, and not mario related. Not sure if this is the right term, but the way i made them were in an "abstract" way. I drew a few lines and just let the sprites form themselves. Ofc, in the end, they don't seem all too random and look more natural. I'm trying to get better at spriting so that when i start making original games, i would also have enough experience in spriting to also make my own art.

I wanted to get some C+C before i made anymore, so here they are:




old

Spoiler

I decided to also upload the WIP sprites to show a little bit of how they formed. As you can see, im having a bit of trouble shading. So lets have it, gimmie some C+C =p

[Previous]

The legs of the "frog" look weird and his pose looks unstable, I don't think he could sit/stand like that. Also, his butt is poking out quite far.
I'd suggest not to use pure black for the lines, but a dark color matching the fill. That way, the sprite will look more like one piece. For example, your leg bulbs don't really seem to be connected to each other and the body. Breaking the inner lines might help, too.
Then there's cast shadow to take care of - the arms would cast shadow on the back and legs, for example.

For the "kangaroo", the white part of the belyl and the rest of the body should be shaded accordingly. Now, you have completely different shading on the white part. If you have several color fields on the same surface, they should be shaded the same way and not as independent parts.
I'd say the feet could use some heels.

[TheShyGuy]

Heres an update of them.



I fixed the 'frogs' butt and shading a bit. Broke(? not sure what that actually means)the lines on the bulbs on the legs. Fixed up some shadowing too. Although, i still cant seem to get the brown characters back/side shading right. Im still working on it though.

How do they look so far?

edit:

that was some good advice on the shading independent of color areas. Makes it feel and look better. Another update:



I think the shading is getting there for both of em. Happy about the progress so far.

[Previous]

I think your outlines arte still too dark. Also, feel frree to use your outline color not solely for the outline, you can make larger clusters with it, too. Furthermore, use the colors you have given yourself. You have a dark shade of green you only use on the butt, but could use on the hand, too. Make parts which are further away darker to emphasize the distance - this goes especially for the far hand which now could as well a bulb on his belly. Use more shading to visualize the volume of the object in order to make it look less flat (like the frog's belly). Be careful with inner lines, the line separating the white part of the kangaroos belly really does separate it.

I'm not too god at explainig things so I illustrated a few thoughts.



I made the frog's legs shiny as the colors somehow invited me to do so.

[Gors]

also beware of the banding. shading is not following the outline with a darker color, it needs to give volume.

[TheShyGuy]

I didnt touch the lines yet. Ill try it after i get the shading down.

Previous: thats the look I was looking for the bulb legs! In my first attempt , i thought i overdid it so i toned it down a bit. I also added another shade to make the arm stick out a little bit more as well as the skin part of the leg.

As you can see on the other character, i added a little bit more detail to the tail. I also liked how you did the shading on its back ....sooo..yeh -.- Sorry if its "frowned" on to base my shading on how yours was.

[Previous]

Sorry if its "frowned" on to base my shading on how yours was.

Haha, no, it's alright. If you don't just copy it, but recreate it yourself, then that's exactly what such an edit was meant for.

I have to agree that the top version of the bulb legs are overdone

[TheShyGuy]

Attempted the selout on the first two characters, didnt get to it for the third guy. For the selout, i really only used the colors that are already there, except on the belly fur.(Just realized i forgot about the outline for the brown character...) I wanted to get some thoughts on the new guy and his nice colorful colors, ignore his eyes because theyre kind of like "placeholders" for now.


Edit: just realized a perspective issue on the new guys front leg. Ill fix it on the next update to them.

[Previous]

The purple could use more contrast and the tip of the tail needs some highlights. The wire on its head looks to thin for that thing on there and I'd get rid of the 'dent' close to the head.
Kangaroo's belly outline appears too bright.

[Gors]

all your three works are too blobby and doesn't look interesting. It looks like you mashed a bunch of play-doh together. I suggest looking up animal anatomy in general to see how muscles are laid over the skeleton, and help you make a more convincing creature.

[TheShyGuy]

Now that is some good stuff, Gors. I actually had trouble thinking about, anatomy-wise, how the brown creatures legs should look. So I googled searched some feline/canine anatomies at the time and basically used them. Tbh i thought these sprites ended up looking great. Im actually quite happy that you pointed out that its not convincing and criticized the anatomy other than the other side of spriting(lineart, shadows, AA, etc). Looking at them now, they do look a bit uninteresting. Ill try to add some personality to them the next time i work on them.

[Zapchu25]

I agree with Gors. The readability of the sprites is kinda confusing. It took me a while to figure out what the purple one was actually supposed to be. Some of the outlines are unnecessary. An example would be the cheek. You could probably do with less defining of it as a feature, and lightening it up a bit, some "selout" if you will.

[TheShyGuy]

To be fair, the characters aren't supposed to "be" anything. But besides that, the characters not being very believable might also have to do with that. I didnt get to the selout on the purple character yet because I wanted to get some thoughts on it before i continued. I'm a bit busy atm, so I'll get to them when i got the time.

[Speed-X]

The darkest brown in the mammalian-like creature could use a lot more contrast from the shade of brown before it. Badly.

Also, I don't know if this will help to a drastic extent, but try this when you get the time: instead of starting with the outlines, start by blocking in the
main shape and sculpt it out. This tutorial page goes through this in detail:
http://finalbossblues.com/form-and-light/
I also highly encourage anyone else to go through all of this guy's tutorial if they haven't read it already.

While starting with the outline may just be your thing...you never know! Try something new. You may be surprised.