Kelvin Shadewing's Pixels

[Kelvin]

Working on the pengrunt's attack animation. BTW, which looks better? The dark blue I used for Delak or the light blue I used for Megaman?

[Kelvin]

Gift art for a friend.

[Tygrin]

Working on the pengrunt's attack animation. BTW, which looks better? The dark blue I used for Delak or the light blue I used for Megaman?

If I had to choose I prefer the lighter color one, I like those shades a bit more. (personally)

[Kelvin]

Yeah, that's what I ended up going with.


Working on another commission now! The client already OK'd this to be animated, but I'm wondering if you guys see anything we missed.

[Kelvin]

Here's an update on Brallion's commission. He's given me a lot of feedback regarding the animation, and this is what it came out to be now. I'm waiting for another word from him, but I'd like to know if you guys see anything I missed.

[TheShyGuy]

It would help if you separated the animation into segments, if just for feedback purposes. Could you also post the individual frames? It would make it easier for me so I don't have to look at it in gimp myself, which I don't feel like doing atm.

-The tail flick seems too fast.
-The leg thing is odd since you just lift his leg. There should be more weight shifting going on. You're forgetting to move the hips.
-For the hat tip, you stopped the rest of the body's movement and the ear looks like it dislocates or something.

[Kelvin]

Here's the strip. I haven't changed it yet. To be honest, I'm not sure I'm gonna keep the hoof scuffing, anyway, since horses normally scuff their fore hooves, not hind hooves, and the hat and tail anims were all he wanted, anyway. I'd still like to see if I can get it to look right, though. So, I should have him lean farther back?

[Joxon]

A good idea is that you post both a strip and gif? It makes it so we don't have to put it in to anything to see the one or the other. Just a suggestion.

[TheShyGuy]

Yeah, maybe try to go for a more centaur-ish look? Also, the details are barely noticeable. For example, the abs aren't visible at all. I also feel like you can make him larger in the space provided. It seems like you have "narrow vision", if you get what I'm saying. Also, you could increase the contrast, in general.

Edit:
I was thinking something that looks more like this.

But, it's a significant difference between yours so I apologize if it's not what you're going for...The hat's cut off because I was lazy.

[Kelvin]

Sorry I didn't see your post before Brallion accepted the sprite. ^^; You're right, I should have removed the abs; they really aren't very clear at this size, but I had to leave him thin because that was the character's body type.

Moving on, I've been working on my pony base some more. Here's the flying pegasus sprite.

[Kelvin]

Just a few things I did as requests. More to come.

[Xander]

Your sprites look great! I really like your minified style.

[E-Man]

While your sprite work is impeccable, what bothers me is that they are quite small. It makes adding detail tricky and might make certain areas look busy. Also, don't be afraid to add more hue shifting and contrast to these sprites. As for my last piece of advice, I would recommend making their poses less stiff.

Does this help?

[Kelvin]

The size is something I chose so it could fit in feasibly with most 16-bit era sprites, like Super Mario World, Super Metroid, Castlevania, etc., partly for nostalgia, and partly so I could make a bunch of sprites in my own style and put them into my SSB clone that I'll probably never get around to making anyway. But, yeah, they fit in well enough with most characters found on the SNES back then, as well as the tilesets used, too, so I made up a scale to fit, and most characters I draw are done to that scale. I know it's tricky to work with, but I like it because it's not too tricky; I feel like I can get better at it.

The problem I have with hue shifting is I find it gives everything a sort of sunset look. I've tried using it, but it makes some colors just look wrong to me, so trying to find the right balance with that is gonna take some time. Like, I used to use it for Midi's jacket, but then people thought it was orange when it was supposed to be red. I dunno, maybe my problem was using the middle shade as the base hue; I'll see how it looks if I make the lightest shade the base hue and have the darker ones shift down, but I'm a little concerned that it'll make things look too cold.

As for the stiff poses, this is a problem I've had for a long time. The only times I've made a pose not look stiff was when I copied them from someone else. Like, Midi's running cycle I made by looking at how Klonoa's limbs moved when he ran, and his punching and climbing frames used Megaman X's poses. You can tell which ones I didn't use a ref for, since those are the ones that look really stiff and unnatural. This problem isn't just in my spriting; my traditional drawings have the same problem, and even more so, since I have trouble conveying depth in those.

I'll try to improve on those points. Thanks for the heads-up.

[TheShyGuy]

I am only halfway through this right now, but it's great animation advice.  It's not a tutorial, but more about concepts to think about when animating.  Maybe it'll help you create less stiff poses?



One thing he says that I really liked is the idea of animating to create a "feeling" and how an animation is an overall composition of movements working together, not just individual details.