Jappio's RPG Sprites

[Thor]

As for the step, I was actually basing it off a move in this video, at just about the 55 second mark:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7FypvnDZ...freload=10

Is it still wrong to use that as the source? I mean, the move looks natural and fine the way he does it, but maybe I'm wrong?

No actually, that video properly illustrates what you were going for! It's perfectly fine to go with that if you'd like, my critique is simply suggestions that you may choose whether or not to follow~

As for the leg bit, just to clarify a little as to what I meant:

This is how I'm visualizing the positioning. Grey colouring on the limbs signifies being on the right side of her body. I slightly exaggerated the foot positioning by making them further apart than they are in your sprite to give a clearer representation of what I meant.
Your pose actually works with the frame when she thrusts her spear forward, as her body is turned away from the viewer and her left leg comes forward. However (as I see it), your pose doesn't work well with where its feet are positioned; it could work with different positioning of her leg, as shown in the bottom pose (I'm sorry if it looks awkward; this is a very quick and very crude sketch, so it doesn't illustrate foreshortening well, nor does it display the actual frame of the character  ).

I hope this helps in some way!

[Jappio]

So I got the face, added the tail (that took far too long to get it to the point its at) and worked with some of the timing and leg positions. Still plenty of things to add, her flappy bits and shield primarily.

Thanks again Thor, your help was great. I'm glad that my character Raizou worships a god as cool as you.

[TheShyGuy]

It's an attack, not a demonstration, like the video, so the speed should be increased.

[Kelvin]

Part of her clothing disappears after the first frame. Is this an oversight, or is that just being saved for later?

[Jappio]

"Still plenty of things to add, her flappy bits and shield primarily."

So yeah, that's being saved for later, I was just very vague about it.

[Kelvin]

*facepalm* I totally didn't read that.

[Jappio]

No problem Midi. I'm sorry if my pointing it out came out as overly snarky, it wasn't my intent.



Well I got to some of the bits of critique. Faster, some work on hands, adding in the extra details, and some upped contrast. If this is good, then I have a form of battle animation for all the characters (alternate animations, like idles, or other kind of attacks, would be next then). Of course also tinkering with previous ones too.

[Thor]

That's a definite improvement! Her hair bothers me though; when you move like that, your hair wont be perfectly static, even if its gelled. It'll move to some extent, however small. That being said, her bangs and ponytail don't feel right staying  almost exactly how they were just moments before the thrust.

If anything, her ponytail both before and after the thrust should display some concept of gravity... it won't stay perfectly horizontal by any means. As a dude with a fairly long ponytail I can verify that, in fact, hair does not defy gravity and tends to sharply curve down wards!

I also made an edit of her standing frame to help illustrate some points. You can use this as a reference ~
If I did something wrong with this, somebody please correct me by all means \o/

The first thing I did was change the palette! The brightest purple and the light grey were extremely close to being the same, so I just replaced the grey with the purple. Once I did that, I cut out the vibrant blue colour, which stuck out just a little too much with the purple. There were two dark blues, one being a little more saturated than the other, so I got rid of the saturated one. Next I brightened the dark purple slightly and changed the red to a sort of hot pink to fit just a little better with the piece. My changes effectively cut the colour count from 14 to 11 and (imo) make the piece look just a bit better.

After I got the palette done, I went ahead and changed her hair so the ponytail hung down. I also pushed her ears up a little bit and gave her bangs a liiiittle bit of volume so it no longer looked like a wisp stuck to her head! After that, I pushed up her face and reshaded it, stretching out her mouth by a pixel to help convey her determined and confident expression. Finally, I thinned out her neck, adjusted her jaw, and reshaded it. In doing these things, I fixed her hair's problem with gravity as well as its shape, helped convey her emotion more, and fixed up some of her anatomy. You could probably make her neck even thinner, if you would want to!

Next I pushed the shading on her chest back just a little bit, adjusted the shading on her arm, shaded her shield, and adjusted the positioning of her legs and the shape of her boots. Adjusting the boots and legs helped balance her stance a bit, as in the original, she seemed to be leaning too far forward for what would be supported by her legs. I changed the shape of her boots a bit because, frankly, the sharpness at the top of them bothered me, particularly on her left leg~

Finally, I made her tail a bit more 'floofy,' gave the rims of her shoulder and hip guards some highlights, and mostly redid the AA. The small amount of dithering on the tail is there to help convey the fact hair/fur doesn't cleanly reflect light without adding a middle colour and adjusting the palette again. Her tail, like her hair, is not a wisp (but is in fact hair with volume and uneven lengths!! Remember, hair often isn't a perfect shape. It's quite literally over 100000 completely different strands that fall a certain way and react to gravity and movement in general), and shouldn't be conveyed as such.

I hope this helps! You're doing great, keep it up~ 

[Jappio]

Again Thor, I greatly appreciate all you've done to help me out. There is no doubt that your suggestions and version of her are better than mine. =)



I did my best to update mine with your suggestions. I am a bit worried though that I maybe did things too closely to yours. It was hard in a lot of cases to improve it like you did, but in a way that was different. I'm honestly still very new to getting this level of quality critique, and I would like to know if I perhaps went too far and mimicked your alterations too much. If so, I'll happily go back to what I originally had and attempt a more original version.

[Thor]

Again Thor, I greatly appreciate all you've done to help me out. There is no doubt that your suggestions and version of her are better than mine. =)



I did my best to update mine with your suggestions. I am a bit worried though that I maybe did things too closely to yours. It was hard in a lot of cases to improve it like you did, but in a way that was different. I'm honestly still very new to getting this level of quality critique, and I would like to know if I perhaps went too far and mimicked your alterations too much. If so, I'll happily go back to what I originally had and attempt a more original version.

While your version does look similar to the edit I made, there are some fairly distinctive differences (the shape/shading on the tail, the spear, the hair, etc) so I wouldn't really be too worried about it!

Don't be afraid to mess around with details, either! This would certainly help you distance yourself from my edit even more. Perhaps you could change the shape of her shield, or add a ribbon or something to her spear? The sprite is ultimately in your hands, so don't be afraid to mess around with stuff. Good and bad additions to a sprite help you grow as a spriter, and experimenting is the best way to see if something works or not \o/

On a final note, maybe keep this version of the sprite but also go back to the original and make another edit? That way you can be more selective about what bits of my critique you apply while also deciding where to go with it on your own. Then, once you're done, step back a second and compare the new and old versions, taking notes of what you changed. Were they good or bad changes? Give yourself at least one solid reason why or why not each change was good, then post the new version for more critique. It's great to accept critique and apply it, but it's even better to see what you can identify on your own and have critique to apply on top of that!

[Jappio]

Well, I went in and tried different stuff, but none of it was as good as that. I just have a hard time seeing something done as well as you've done it, and then coming up with a way to do it differently. I tried a few things, but each time I could say your method did it better. I'm glad mine looks different enough. I was starting to feel guilty.



I'm keeping the basic undetailed spear because, for the most part, I'm not detailing most of the weapons yet. This is because we are unsure if weapons are going to look different based on what is equipped, or if we'll just stick with the weapon looking the same regardless of which variant it is.

[Jappio]

Got idles going for half the cast.