Sage's/Forte's Sprites and things

[SageHarpuiaJDJ]

We now interrupt this comic discussion for a wip for AoV: JUS edition:


Okay, The foot on our right stays still, that I know. I don't know how to make it so that it moves with the rest of the body, so can I get away with that?

[Virtuaboy123]

Again having the dark outline consistent makes the sprite much more readable.
As for the pose it look good and hands I say one hand on the hip. I added highlights to the hair and fixed the neck position.

As for the animation, got nothing I'm not an animator. But again I think the neck could use some work on it.

[SageHarpuiaJDJ]

Actually, There's a reason why the hair doesn't have a black outline. That's the way the style works. It's weird, I know. Afaik, hair, some weapons, and motion blurs don't have a black outline.

I really have a hard time with necks. So I'll look at your refs a bit more.

I was actually gonna shade the hair, but thanks for giving me an Idea on how to shade it.

Really appreciate the suggestions.

[MotorRoach]

Honestly, I don't think you should focus on how the style should work if the result is awkward. You should pretty much aim for what looks better for the sprite and that stays consistent with the rest of the sprite. The hair... just looks really dull without an outline.

[SageHarpuiaJDJ]

I see what you're saying. When I posted the sprite I didn't shade the hair, and the colors were rather dull as well. I managed to finish the sprite, and I shaded the hair and everything. I made the hair a different color as well.



I want to be consistent with the style, but making the sprite look better is more important, so I'll start adding a black outline all around if I have to.

[SageHarpuiaJDJ]

Wip Light kick.

[SageHarpuiaJDJ]

Some updates.

[SageHarpuiaJDJ]

have an edit:


It's this lovely lass in Shouen Fighting All-Stars style:


And Gif of her creation:


I'm considering making a tutorial out of this process since it's not really my process. Should I?

[StarSock64]

If you hadn't put that reference there, I would have never guessed that was Nui. You seemed to have missed a lot of important features

First of all, that gigantic bow of hers. It's pretty striking and distributes the colors more evenly. On that note, the hair color looks way too orange.

Next, her dress needs a lot of fixing. The way her skirt flares out is really important to her design (it's a big part of her silhouette). Instead, the sprite has a generic pink dress. I know nailing that kind of thing in a small sprite is difficult and you might need to make some compromises, but that doesn't mean you can just skip it.

It would have been good to try to work her eyepatch in since that's a huge feature, but it probably can't be helped. Her head still needs work though.

I think her skull might be too tall. Nui has prominent eyes. Making the skull taller makes the eyes proportionally smaller, so it doesn't look like her.

With anime characters like this, I think it'd be best to avoid portraying a protruding nose, since the style tends to downplay the nose a lot. The nose and forehead have become too prominent, changing the feeling of the character entirely.

I'd pay more attention to how her bangs look. You have them looking straight, but they are very much swept.

Also the hair is copy+pasted and ignores perspective. Doing that throws off any illusion of where things are in space. It's like when kids draw feet going in opposite directions in a front view. It wouldn't make sense! It might be fine to leave the left tail behind her body like that for readability's sake, but I would change the one on the right. Maybe make the left one connect to a more sensible spot on her head rather than arbitrarily putting it on the edge, but if you add the bow, it will probably fix that problem anyway.

[SageHarpuiaJDJ]

I wasn't really at my best during the time I made that, huh?

I also forgot the arm warmer things too. With the head I wanted the match the style, but I see where you getting at. It was bothering me when I had it looking normal, so I changed it slightly.

I knew that the hair colors weren't really up to par, but I kept them anyways since I liked how they came out. I'll try again though.

The bangs may be an issue, but I'll see what I can do.

I never really knew that about the skull. I can change it.

I want to make the eyepatch, but it'll be in another sprite of her since iirc, this style only shows one side of the head and one eye per side.

I reeeeeally tried not to miss that detail on the dress. I guess I can make it more noticeable.

Laziness is my weak point. I'll try and fix the perspective on the one on the right.

Also, I'll see what I can do about the bow. I didn't leave it out on purpose. It just slipped my mind like the arm warmer things did.


It's always refreshing to get some good critique and suggestions. Thanks again.

[SageHarpuiaJDJ]

New

old

[SageHarpuiaJDJ]

Small update. Gave her longer bangs. The only thing that's bothering me is her damn eyes. I know that how the style works, but those adorable big eyes can't be made in it. ;~;

[StarSock64]

Your new version looks a lot better. I'm happy to see someone who's positive about learning, so I made an edit to demonstrate more stuff



(one on the right)

This isn't supposed to be 100% so some things might be a little screwy. Like, I made the whole right half too busy (yours has negative space there, so it's easier on the eyes)

Anyways I think it'd be helpful if I tried to go as far in-depth about what I did as I can, so...I'm going to do that. Please forgive my habit of writing an overwhelmingly huge amount.

I've heard a lot of artists say, "draw what you see, not what you think you see!" It took me a really long time to understand what that meant, but basically, there are a lot of types of observations that you have to train yourself to notice through practice. I think hearing me describe some of my thought process when I made this edit might help guide you in the right direction.

Don't worry about absorbing it all at once, but slowly try to add more things to your considerations. These types of observation are important for pretty much all areas of art, from drawing objects to drawing your own characters consistently.

I used the "pick color" tool to take colors from her hair on the official art. I didn't USE those colors in my sprite, but I did it to get a general gist of what kind of hues and such were in her hair, since they're pretty unorthodox. Then I just took stabs at it until I was satisfied.

As a note, I think that colored outlines should usually be quite dark, or else a lot of detail gets blurry and lost (the bow is hard to see properly) or the parts with those outlines don't feel like part of the whole.

When I was in the middle of writing this post, I compared my earlier version (on the left) to yours, and that made me realize that my hair colors were causing a lot of readability issues with the skin. My re-attempt is on the right. There are still some issues with the arms, so my next step would probably be to mess with the wrist bands because the pink and orange next to each other are confusing, but i'm still not completely sure how i'd go about fixing it.

I exaggerated the curves on her tail...drill...things a bit like the art did it. They're probably her most obnoxious feature, so it's important to try to get accurate with them. Exaggerating curves can be a great way to generate interest in a piece, and Nui's design uses that concept.

I re-proportioned her head. The eyes still aren't exactly Nui, but the face is taller now (which made the forehead proportionally a bit smaller), so the eyes are at least given a bit more prominence.

Uhm...the skirt is difficult to figure out and I don't feel like doing it so I just did whatever, hehe. In the artwork the skirt forms really strong curves that are kind of like a super flared out ^ shape, so it'd be ideal to replicate that. Mine is kind of a ^ shape without the "super flared out" part. My curves along the sides look rather convex, where the art says they should be concave, and I didn't really manage to put ruffles in the top two tiers...Getting these details can be hard! The bottom tier of the skirt lends the most to the silhouette, though, so i tried hardest on that.

Anyway, whew, that's all I have to say for now. I hope that wasn't too overbearing, ahah

[SageHarpuiaJDJ]

Of course not. ^^

I like long reads like this. It really helps learning how other artists go about things, so I don't mind you going in depth. Your post was very informative and the results are really good. Thanks!

I know that they'll be a time where there won't be others that have the time to edit someone's work, that's why I like to read long in depth posts like yours. You really do people a big favor by explaining like you did. Again, thanks!

[SageHarpuiaJDJ]

Tried to fix this. Improved the areas that was mentioned before and added a dark gray line to indicated the chest area.


Also I need help finishing these. I suck with arms.