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  #1  
Old 09-11-2012, 11:40 AM
Zerith Zerith is offline
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Z

Just trying to improve myself and trying to break fundamental bad habits. I'm a Jarhead, so I'm going to need to be held by the hand in order to learn.
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Old 09-11-2012, 11:40 AM
NicoX NicoX is offline
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That looks pretty neat. Good job.
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Old 09-11-2012, 01:10 PM
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Oh no I didn't!

Quote:
Originally Posted by Dusty @ Graalians
Well like I said it's not quite text-book pillowshading(though some of it is) but just a lot of banding. I'm not very familiar with banding but I can tell that something is off and I'm gonna chalk it up to that. Banding is very similar to pillowshading in that you let your lineart define your shading. For example on almost every instance of muscle you've drawing you have your shadows outline the lineart of the muscles.

An example of pillowshading on one of your pieces would be the shading on the minotaur's head when it's facing up:


The shading nearly follows the outline of the head perfectly. Now this can either be poor shading or simply poor lightsource choice. If you choose a lightsource that's directly in front of the sprite even if your shading is correct it's going to look boring and "wrong" like it does here. For lightsources I typically choose top-left, or if I'm feeling lazy and want to copy/paste horizontally I pick above the sprite.

I'd also say your method of shading doesn't help, where everything gradually goes from dark to light. That tends to exaggerate the banding/pillowshading issues tenfold. It might be better to have the midtones be much less prominent(especially on metals where contrast is sorely needed, this shading methods make metals look more like dull plastic). Other things you can do to help is break black outlines within brighter areas of color.

One more thing, while I love a lot of the lineart, especially things like the dragon's head and such, the muscles tend to be sorely lacking. Most of the muscles are very square/straight and really kill any sort of organic feeling. However I'm kind of pulling straws at the advice I can give and if you really want to improve I may suggest grabbing some books from your local library that focuses on drawing anatomy/volume/lighting/shading as all of these things translate to pixel art. You'd be amazed at how well your pixel art will improve after studying traditionally for a while. You may even want to head over to pixelation(wayofthepixel.net) and post your stuff. There are a lot of people over there that will completely draw over and explain a lot of the anatomy/volume knowledge of the changes they make.

Try to also avoid "bad lines" or lines that don't step with a ratio. For example a diagonal line is a 1:1 step, for every step up or down, you also move to the left or right. Isometric lines have a 2:1 step, or for every step up, you draw two pixels to the left or right. This is to avoid a lot of trouble later on(they're VERY difficult to AA, and without AA can look pretty bad). You can read about it a little more here: http://www.spriteland.com/tutorials/...s-tutorial.htm or http://www.pixeljoint.com/forum/foru....asp?TID=11299

Now, these pieces are fairly large so they're not the easiest things in the world to edit, but I tried my best to do a bit of an edit and to explain some things I did:





I personally love your concepts, but the shading can be done so much better.
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Old 09-11-2012, 01:49 PM
Zerith Zerith is offline
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I understand that! I'm just unsure of how to shape my shades independent of the lineart. It just boggles me. I guess I lack enough experience in defining inner contours of things. At the same time, the shading isn't necessarily incorrect, is it?
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Old 09-11-2012, 03:37 PM
Elk Elk is offline
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When making sprites, you don't think of countours... you think of a volume and body, something of consistence, the outline comes when you put it into reality
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Old 09-11-2012, 03:42 PM
Crono Crono is offline
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When making sprites, you don't think of countours... you think of a volume and body, something of consistence, the outline comes when you put it into reality
like this?

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Old 09-11-2012, 04:11 PM
maximus_asinus maximus_asinus is offline
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@Crono

10/10 for free handing those lines instead of using the straight line tool (novice approach).
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Old 09-11-2012, 04:38 PM
Crono Crono is offline
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@Z, it would be nice if you started with a simpler and smaller character imo. Something like a generic RPG guy or something. That big monster seems difficult to improve, and the guy himself looks kind of...awkward.

Quote:
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@Crono

10/10 for free handing those lines instead of using the straight line tool (novice approach).
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Old 09-11-2012, 04:39 PM
fowlplay4 fowlplay4 is offline
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like this?
No.

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Old 09-11-2012, 05:07 PM
NicoX NicoX is offline
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http://opengameart.org/content/les-f...xel-art-course

Maybe that will help you a bit
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  #11  
Old 09-11-2012, 06:57 PM
Cloven Cloven is offline
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The trick is to half-ass your work, never finish it, and insert not-so-witty captions like so:
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Old 09-11-2012, 07:24 PM
FaLLChiLD FaLLChiLD is offline
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Old 09-12-2012, 10:49 PM
Zerith Zerith is offline
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Alright, heres another. Bear with me here, thanks. I understand the harsh black outline. I will fix it up once I practice AA more.
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Old 09-13-2012, 09:11 AM
Kiwi27 Kiwi27 is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Zerith View Post
Alright, heres another. Bear with me here, thanks. I understand the harsh black outline. I will fix it up once I practice AA more.
That's beautiful. Except for the cape. It's way too linear with the shading -- fabric doesn't whip round in perfect shapes, it bends and curves far more. Not that I could do any better though :P
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Old 09-22-2012, 09:38 PM
Zerith Zerith is offline
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Straight from the default Microsoft Paint and nothing else, I present to you my fun creation, purely original concept, my own gundam! the Z Storm.
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