E-Man returns to pixels

[E-Man]

Hey guys!

Ever since we had that forum reset, I was wanting to get my sprite topic back on track. Now that I learned a few new tricks about palettes, I should be able to create one that actually works.

By the way, if you're interested in my old sprite topic, you could fine it right through here.
http://www.vg-resource.com/thread-23952.html

   

Not only did I include most the progress I have up to this point, but also I placed my newest palette experiments below the red line. What do you think? If you're happy with the static pose and the color I've chosen, I'll just move onto creating the animation then.

Also…

   

I'm not expecting to post this on the site, but I made this just for kicks because one of the default trainer names was Max. Even though it's fun to an extent to emulate a different style, its really hard considering how many rules I have to follow.

[E-Man]

I know it's a little too soon for a double post, but I just realized something off about my Goomba this morning.

   

See, the shade of the stalk had bad contrast and I didn't like how the shade of the teeth was, so I adjusted those aspects. It's a quick fix, but does it work?

By the way, I resumed working on my human sprites again. Since it's very late where I live, I only stated on the outline. I'll add shading later, but are the proportions right?

   

[Kelvin]

It looks kinda gangly and bow-legged. I think you should draw the whole body at once to work out the posture and proportions, then make parts based on the prototype sprite.

[E-Man]

I was talking about the changes you suggested with SmithyGCN. He gave me a lot of advice on how to make the human base look good, so these are the fruits of my labor.

   

Any comments?

[Kelvin]

Given the posture hasn't changed, I'm guessing it was on purpose?

[E-Man]

You mean the bow-legged thing? Well, I did that originally because I wanted to have the character stand in a shifted weight sort of way instead of have the character stand straight like a robot. Smithy gave me suggestions on how to make it work without having the leg look like it's broken, but what do you think?

[Koh]

It seems to be fine to me so far. Perhaps when you add the hair and shading, I'll be able to see what your vision is.

[E-Man]

Alright then! Since Smithy thinks my Goomba is good to go, I started with the first bits of animation for it. By the way, you think I should use the selout version of it?

   

   

I did what I can to make sure that there is absolutely no sliding or pendulum-like swinging for the feet of my Goomba. I would have added a bit of head rotation in there, but Shy Guy mentioned that the sudden rotate of the head bothers him. What do you think? Also, you think I should add some follow through for the eyebrows?

   

Here is the idle pose. Any comments?


Anyway, before I start editing my human base into a specific character, I deiced to add shading to the female character.

   

Also, I even began work on creating the male variation of the human. Does anything need work?

[SmithyGCN]

It looks okay, but the walking animation for the goomba has my inner animation nerd thinking. The heel leads the foot and toes, meaning the heel of the foot should contact the ground first then the rest of the foot follows. Catch my drift?

If you notice how you walk in real life, the heel does actually do the most action (not counting the leg which leads the heel) and contacts first.

Also, for your goomba idle, you may want to squash the light colored body when it contacts the ground when the feet spread apart. This'll give it more realistic motion.

[Kelvin]

It looks like the knee is bent backwards. If the other leg were bent too, then it would be consistent and appear plausible, given the perspective, and the backwards knee illusion should clear up. I actually like that he has a slouch, though, makes him a bit more believable when he has a common flaw seen in many real people (I slouch a bit myself).

[TheShyGuy]

Your humans can still use some work. The head looks like it's too much to the left instead of slouching in front of the character. There isn't a significant difference between the male and female.

Don't try to draw every detailed human curve that you think you can possibly fit. Pixel art's more about approximation than trying to be exact. Think of volume instead of lines or 2D shapes. In general, the humans do not come across as being in 3D space. This is due to the shading and the pose itself. So it comes off as flat and 2D. I can't quite explain how you might go about "drawing in 3D...?"...hmm try thinking of the object as a 3D object, along with its poses. Don't think of poses as "left or right", think of them with the mindset of actual space. Once you understand this, you'll realize how much more space you actually have than you previously perceived. I'd say practice understanding how you mind works and try to 'spill' out your thoughts on paper...........sounds funy heh. It helps to be experimental and when something works, write it down to remember. Doing so allows you to see how clear you may or may not actually understand something.



My edit can use some work but it helps show a few things. The main changes being an easily readable pose and weight distribution, and a more feminine head, body and a more personalized pose. I don't expect you to use the edit, but you can. I only skimmed the thread so I'm unsure if she is even what you were going for =/

[E-Man]

I appreciate your help, Shy Guy, but I do have to admit that all your suggestions make my head spin. I'm a bit at a loss at what you mean by all this and it's hard for me to wrap my head around the concepts you suggested.

As much as I would like to use the same kind of cool pose you used, I'm actually starting off with a simple, somewhat uninteresting pose for a reason. Basically, I want to get the base sprite down first and then edit it into all the poses later. Besides, it's what I'm doing with my Goomba. Also, I know that the boy and the girl look almost identical, but I was aiming for average young teen bodies to use as the base. No big muscles, breasts, or anything like that. I want to save the more drastic changes when I work on other human characters, which is why the torso doesn't look spectacular.

With that said, I made some edits to my female human. I took care of the head and the legs as best as I could, but I don't know what to do about the arms. By the way, could my old head be used for the boy base head, provided that I edit it to make it not lean to the left?

   

Before I head out, here's some more edits to my Goomba based on what Smithy said. I didn't have time to animate them, though…

   

You think I should use the selout version of the Goomba I created a bit ago? That way, the eyebrows don't appear to blend with the outline and I think it'll look much better.


EDIT: Now that I look at the shading of my human, I'm starting to think that the color I used has bad contrast. You think I should resolve that by making it darker?

[E-Man]

So, I had a Skype chat with Midi today. The two of us talked a bit about my sprites and said what I needed to do to fix the bow-legged problem.

   

He said that I needed to have the "valley" behind her left knee to point in the same direction as the back. My first attempt at correcting it (you'll see it between the second attempt and the original leg) was not only a little fat, but also I felt wasn't facing the viewer enough. Then, I made a leg that draws more inspiration from Shy Guy's edit that I think works better. While I was at it, I made the right leg bend more, added more contrast to the shading, and redid the right arm twice based on what Midi implied (the first attempt was too fat).


Also, I asked Midi what he thought of the selout of my Goomba. He mentioned that I might have too much contrast for it, which makes it look like a flash of light went off in front of it and otherwise makes selout not work so well. What do you think?

[Kelvin]

Ooh, looks better. I see you smoothed the outlines and fixed some of the slopes, so that looks better, too.

[E-Man]

Smithy and I talked about sprites again. Regarding selout, not even he knew how to make it more noticeable. If you have any ideas to make the selout work on my Goomba, please tell me.

Also, he gave me several pointers on how to improve several of the animations of my Goomba, so here are the results.

   

   

   

   
(Note: He never gave me feedback on the latest version.)


Anyway, before I head out, I tried creating the male base again.

   

My idea of male proportions is not that many curves and a little more bulky. That was what I was attempting to do here, and since drawing females accurately is really tough, that's why I started with the female base first.

By the way, which variation of the male do you like? Also, since it was bugging me, I altered the bottom portion of the left leg of the female base. Is that a smart move, or should I just leave it alone?