My spriting needs help

[golbez22]

Okay, so I have been developing a game (which you can find over in the game Development section) and I have been the sole artist on the game...I am alright with it, but I definitely suck compared to the more polished artists I see on here everyday. I am going to use this thread to post what I'm working on for your C+C and maybe even help...I want to be able to make these sprites the best that I can, because the game has been a dream of mine for a long time and I don't want it to be just mediocre so I'm not afraid to ask for help when I know I need it.
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This is what I'm currently working on...it's not very good I know. I have been basing it's movements similar to that of Link in A Link to the Past...though I just cannot seem to make it feel as natural... Tell me what you can thanks again

[Omnikariz]

You might want to take a look at tSR's Spriting Dictionary if you haven't already, they've got a ton of stuff that'll help you.

[Quotient]

Define your lineart. Take a look at that spriting dictionary, find jagged lines, then look at your sprite. It's got that everywhere. Also, the shading here is pillow shading, which always ends up making the sprite look worse. I'd perfect my base sprite before going on to make extra poses if I were you.

[Omnikariz]

Your sprite has way too many colours, I counted eleven. Some of which appear once or twice on the sprite, and could have easily been replaced with a colour already in use.

This is a revamp of one of the sprites you posted, the only difference being that there is only four colours, instead of eleven. Doing this cleans up the sprite a lot. Again, there is a ton of pillow shading all over the sprite, try adding a glare on his head, since the character is bald, and find a new light source.

And, if we do these simple steps with your sprite...

There we go! The sprite's light source is shown by the "sun" in the top. The glare gives the viewer a clear idea of where the light source is coming from, and the shading further improves the sprite.

[golbez22]

the thing I find hard is getting the basic movement across...I add detail like sellouting to the built models individually since this is a filler and the actual character is customized by the player...so for me the movement is the concern at the moment

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Omnikariz your edit does do wonders for my sprite...I just fear I don't have the skill yet, I will attempt to emulate this into my model, and in a few days post my batch, though you did spark an idea that will turn into a pain but ...what do you think of this...the light source changing with the time of day...has there been any games to do this?

Edit: the one thing I don't like is the new has no defined separation between body and head

[golbez22]

Here's my first attempt at a fix feedback please...I added one darker shade to the palette, and because of joke had to pull back the original unisex nipple color

[Omnikariz]

Already looking much better! The only other things I can think of right now is some of jagged lines, the worst of it is on the head, and your background colour. The high saturated hot pink colour is really hard on the eyes, go for something more along the lines of a very unsaturated green.
(As seen in the picture below.)

I didn't do much with the sprite this time, I just rounded out the head a bit, these make a world of a difference though.

[golbez22]

the reason for the magenta is it is the transparent color for my game engine, though yeah the slight rounding is better, I'll incorporate that in the morning

[Vipershark]

Are these Minish Cap edits...?

[golbez22]

Are these Minish Cap edits...?

No, but thank you for noticing I studied Minish Cap and Link to the past for proportion and general influence, though they used body angles to an advantage in their animation which does not fit the style of what I'm trying to do. And yeah the animations try to mimic, but I'm also deviating, not going for a replicate character It is just one of my influences

[golbez22]

[Omnikariz]

The shading on the head isn't very readable at a 1x scale, try making it more like this

[golbez22]

The shading on the head isn't very readable at a 1x scale, try making it more like this

I think that's too much considering the light source...maybe in between

[Quotient]

The movements concering the arms and legs are too slight. Create another walking frame, but make the movements a step up from the first frame. Then, animate it like this:
[idle][walk 1][walk 2][walk 1][idle]
As that's probably how you'd want to animate it with two walk frames.
As for that sword-swinging animation(that's what it seems to be), it's very unnatural for anyone to put their right arm AND right leg forward at any point. When you walk, you put out your right arm and your left leg, then vice versa. The sword swinging animation has the character thrusting with his left arm(our right) and stepping forward with his left leg(our right).

[golbez22]

it's very unnatural for anyone to put their right arm AND right leg forward at any point. When you walk, you put out your right arm and your left leg, then vice versa. The sword swinging animation has the character thrusting with his left arm(our right) and stepping forward with his left leg(our right).

Well when I tried it the other way it looked worse, this way is like a full body locomotion...any example you can give, because he looks like he'll fall the other way