The Resource WIP Thread 3

It's very good. A few things that would make it better: The big hole in the roof makes the super dark holes in the front look out of place. Perhaps a fade from a dark grey at the top to black at the bottom will counteract that a bit. I don't think the white foundation at the base is working for you. By sticking out at the sides like that it looks like it's trying to be an outline and failing, plus it doesn't feel nearly substantial enough. The roof overhang isn't significant enough, it needs to at least stick out far enough so that the bottom corner of that roof angle is the one touching the sides, not the top one.

Thank you @Sharm ! Nice critique as usual, but I don't really understand the roof overhang part.

It needs to stick out from the wall more is all.

Just testing some gfx, I haven't compiled a grass tile yet as you can see the grass blades were pretty random in game should be a bit more controlled. I had a tree set around so just used it for a test.

Instead of working your way towards typical default pixel art grass, why not try for something that looks more like the anime's backgrounds? I did a google search for "Dragon Ball Z anime background scenery" and got some really great references.

You mean something like this?
Yes, I will be adding light spots, but also need to work on dirt tiles at the moment. As of right now only thing done is a collection of grass blades and likely will go with a 64x64 large tile but the blades will be 16x16 or even 8x8 so I can place them as close as possible around the dirt paths.

That is one way to do it, yes (always a fan of Jetrel's work). You could also the a plain grass with single tiles with lines of grass tufts randomly placed as decoration, or forgo pixel art and do a watercolor wash of different greens, or something else that I'm not thinking of. I just think that you should draw more inspiration from the source than from existing pixel art. I think it would look really fresh and unique and help support the idea that you're in the DBZ world instead of feeling like the DBZ characters were dropped into Final Fantasy or something.

An update on my Zootopia sprites; I finished Judy's walking animation but I'm not quite sure about the side-view again. I always seem to have trouble with the side view, but maybe it's just me. I followed @Sharm 's advice and kept her mouthless.


Oh, and I also made Uniformed Judy as a bonus, since Nick got his original outfit so why shouldn't she? I didn't just make this the default one since I thought it was a bit too detailed for such a small sprite.

I just make it for fun, idk if i gonna make a whole project of it.

EDIT: I made some revision on the cellar.

Hello, I'm making my own battlers, just wanted to share this. It's obviously just a base for a part of the idle animation, so it's not yet finished. The first one is what I made before reading some posts and tips in this thread and saw it had pretty bad staircase shading in some places so tried to fix it (thanks, @Sharm, even though the critique was not for me, it helped me see some errors). I hope I'm going in the right direction with this.

@RocketKnight It's really interesting. I assume it flies? Otherwise the arm mass vs leg mass makes no sense. You should use the same light source that the character does (above), get rid of all that pillow shading, and maybe color some of those black outlines.

@misakoc That's good to hear! I hope I can continue to be helpful.

I think both of your images have strengths the other doesn't. The left's bolder outline will help it stand out on more complex backgrounds so the image doesn't get lost as she moves. The crisper details will also help with that and it would be much faster to draw. The second solves a lot of the problems of the first, toning down things that were too harsh and removing the stair stepping problems, but I think you've gone too far the other way. I think it has too many colors now (if you're going for that many, why do pixel art at all? Play to the strengths of the medium), and some elements are over blended. This is especially obvious in the outside edges underwear, where the antialiasing is so strong it looks like paint instead of clothes.

How easily and quickly you can make something shouldn't be understated. Animated battlers have a LOT of poses, and many elements aren't on screen for very long. It isn't an area where spending a lot of time being picky about pixel placement is going to do you a lot of good. Animation is also something that works best if you get it all mocked up and moving before detailing. If you spend a lot of time on one frame before it's complete you'll end up doubling your workload or more from redraws.

She's a cute kid. I especially love the freckles. Someone that heavily freckled wouldn't have them only across the face, put a few in other places that get a lot of sun, like the tops of the shoulders, the forearms, and maybe the top of the knees.

Yeah it flies and now i'd remove the pillow shading.

Alex just got a face and pixel lift. Introducing Alex 2.0

It looks as though both versions are finished and were drawn by different people, which leads me to think that these weren't drawn by you. If so, what is it you're wanting to accomplish by posting them here for WIP critique?

Yep they are both finished, however since they are completely different styles, I was wondering on what style people thought looked best.
Tbh though, I might have posted in the wrong thread, I was directed here from the game and map screenshots because that was strictly for what it said in the title, and this was the sight for feedback on logo's,sprites,faces,etc.

Ah! You didn't ask so we had no idea that's what you wanted. To me, both styles are interesting and engaging, but I think they also portray very different characters. #1 reminds me of Ni no Kuni. A soulful kid, not particularly strong physically, who feels in way over his head but is going to step up and do it anyway because it's needed. #2 reminds me of Commander Keen, a kid who jumps at the call to adventure and is up for the challenge. The styles also say different things about the type of game. #1 promises the kind of unreal dreamy oddness that you find in fairytales, where strange and wondrous things happen but aren't explained. #2 gives the impression of something more straightforward, a fantasy where you can understand everything if you want and meet challenges head on. #1 would be slightly better for a more personal story, or a mystery, #2 would be better for a save the world sort of thing. So it depends on what you want your story to be.

I'm trying making a entire tileset for a secret project (engine MV), that's what i finish until now (i started yesterday)

Nevermind~

@RocketKnight Nice! You've been doing lots of edits for your other project so you have a good idea of how much work is involved for this, so I can just be excited about seeing a brand new original tileset come together instead of worried about you getting burned out.

You're having troubles with light sources again. On the dome you've got at least five light sources, one for each post and two on the top, but none of those light sources are interacting with each other. It's also going to look odd if you put it together with any tile or character lit by a single lightsource. It would be much easier to pick one light source and stick with it for the entire project, doing multiple is difficult, especially if you're not solid on how to do one. The brazier could use more shading, especially on the bars. Everything is colored independently of a light, making it look flat, uniform, and boring. Doing it that way also makes it much easier to accidentally fall into bad pixeling habits, like keeping your highlights right next to the outline pixel for pixel. Since you've been having light source troubles fairly consistently, it will probably take less time and get you better results if you take a step away from your tileset for a bit and do a study specifically of lighting. Any tutorial on lighting will help, it doesn't need to be a pixel art tutorial and would probably work better if it wasn't related to pixels at all. If you don't fix the underlying problem the effect of it in your end results will come up over and over and that would get annoying and time consuming to keep having to fix instead of doing it right the first time.

You've got quite the mismatch of coloring styles between the two pieces. The dome has strong contrast and strong hue shifting, making the whole thing look shiny and in bright light. The very purple shadows could either be a style choice or an indication of lots of yellow light, depending on how it shows up in context. On the other hand the brazier has low contrast any hue shift in the ramps is minimal and not purposeful. It looks like a straight ramp visually. This type of coloring is better for cloudy dull days, where there's no direct light at all and it's supposed to look depressing and uninteresting. Most of the time a straight ramp is to be avoided.

You've also got a mismatch in perspective, the dome is seen from higher above than the brazier, but most people don't notice or care about that sort of thing, and I've seen that level of mismatch in AAA games all the time, so I guess it's not a big deal. If you'd like to fix it, round out the brazier's shape vertically a bit more. You should at least tweak it so that it matches itself. I'm guessing the flat bottom is to get it to fit inside the tile or something, but it's not working.

The architecture on the dome is nice and strong, and it's fun to see such a large architectural element that's meant to be tile based. It makes me really excited to see your first mockup. You've also done some fun things with the shading on the dome, I like the little shadow details that give it some texture. I look forward to more!

@Sharm i got your point, but the dome isnt a dome is just a balcony. About the other things i'll try fix them, thank. Your analyze really means a lot for me