The Resource WIP Thread 3

So, I'm trying to make mostly from scratch sprite for the first time ever (past spriting attempts were frankenspriting. I think it's turning out okay-ish so far for a first try?

@Troublesome Knight
This is a very good effort! I think, the helm could use some more shading especially at the bottom part on the sideview and back sprites. And the red shoulder parts as well.

I have nothing new to show yet, but I want to make kitchen counters and am wondering, if they should be really exactly 1 tile size as in the default rtp.
The counters are supposed for my MVSprite+ size (or the Dark Fantasy free dlc for MV).



The right one is the default size. The sprite stands where it would stand ingame. Which one feels most natural?

@Candacis I would say the first one feels most natural to me (about waist high it seems).

I have 4 base templates for Goblin battlers to share :


what do you guys think? Do the poses work?

@Candacis The second option looks better to me, but the first doesn't look bad. The last one is too tall.

@Finnuval Good stuff. I especially like the variety in the same theme and the dynamic posing. I think a more obvious light source would be better, it would back up the posing.

Well, right now I went with the 3rd original option, because it looks better when the sprite walks/stands behind it.

I've made some busts for the main characters of my game, and while I think (and hope) that the female looks alright, I feel like the male is a little... derpy?

Original size and 3x size are both attached.

Yeah, he's a little derpy. I think part of the problem is the narrowness of the face. Maybe if you make it wider by a pixel or two, and/or move the right eye (our left) away from the nose a little. Girl's cute.

Got a little frustraited with pixel art, so decided to give painted style a try, going off one of Celiana's Tree tuts. Not very satisfied with it, its kinda shoddy and you can kinda tell I didint take my time with it :< . But this one is at least better than my first try X3 ... I guess my studies into color theory and lighting with pixel art, translated well into painted style. Anyway, would love any feedback or advice. Much thanks in advance!

Hello there, I'm not quite the pixel-artist, so this is pretty much my greatest work on this area so far. These are some designs I'm planning to stick to for my project on MV. (They are upscaled x2 for sample purposes, except the walk cycle). Some observations would be neat as I'm not really known of pixels, either in color or designs. Also if you can tell which are male or female. Thanks for your time in advance :kaopride:

I've finally gotten past my procrastination and kinda finished the side view of my male base sprite.
Any super obvious flaws?

@PixelHeart I think you should probably stop using dodge/burn for a while, until you get used to not depending on it. It's a really common crutch for beginners in digital painting, just like adding more colors or dithering is a common crutch for new pixel artists. It's not that it's a bad tool, it's just that it's really easy to overuse and hides the flaws instead of confronting them. In either digital painting or pixel art, detailing should be last, try defining the shadows and highlights before defining the leaves, I think you'll have an easier time. The other big thing that I think would help is to use clusters of leaves grouped together, especially in those highlights. Having the highlighted leaves scattered around like that makes them look inorganic, like ice cream sprinkles instead of leaves.

@MrKiwi They seem to all be female? Three of the designs are fairly androgynous so I can't be sure, and only one of them doesn't have wide hips. I dunno, it's tricky. I think it's okay to depend on context for some things. I think the designs are working out, it's fairly easy to tell them apart, and it's easy to tell what they're wearing, and readability is probably the most important thing when making sprites. The front walk cycle isn't working out. The out/in of the legs isn't my favorite way to do things, but on this base it seems extra exaggerated. I think the main culprit is that the upper legs don't move at all and the large splayed feet that only show up in the standing pose. If you keep the splayed feet for standing pose, I think you should keep it any time the foot is supposed to be on the ground, if not the entire animation, it'll help reduce the skating look. Focus a bit more on lifting and lowering the foot, and changing the highlights and shadows of the leg to give a better feel for the up and down of the legs.

@Elissiaro I think the arms are slightly too long at the wrist, but I'm not seeing any real problems. The side view arms, maybe? It's not exactly wrong, but they're placed too far back to match the more relaxed shoulders in the front animation. The lack of torso rotation seems a bit strange to me, but messing with that would make creating clothing way more difficult for very little effect, so I think keeping it as is might be the better choice. I think the feet should be longer, especially since right now they're smaller than the hands, but that might be personal preference. Overall, it's a really nice base, I like it.

May be stating the obvious here (and not directed at anyone in particular), but.... learn basic shapes, apply it in your art work, its helps alot. Take this barrel for example (I know its not perfect...some probs with color and shading I need to fix looking at it now, but I finally got a result I feel mostly good about), I spent hours last night trying to get the shape right, trying to get the curved lines representing the space between the boards to look curved, but not jaggy-y. When I started, I was drawing it like its a deformed oval, because going off of reffernces I was using it looked really ball like.... but I realized a barrel is better represented as a cylinder. Becuase of the shading I dont even have to curve the lines (spaces) between the planks. I dont really consider myself much of a teacher, but I hope this helps someone in some way.

I would also appreciate any feed back you might have on this piece :) . Thank you very much in advance!

@Sharm - Thank you very much for your feedback! I promise I didint use the dodge/burn tool for this, but I can see how it may look so.... it still looks pretty bad though :( . Ive sort of abandoned that experiment with the tree though, and moved back into pixel art.

Im trying to avoid those amateur habits, although with this piece of the barrel, although I realize I used dithering in some places.... I was trying to give it texture, like wood grain. but without adding another color :( . Would you have any advice on that?

EDIT (added new version with cleaned up dithering)

So I have an idea of making dessert interior/exterior tileset and start with this.. but I have no idea what should I do next. This is cotton candy trees. FYI, I heavily take reference from RMXP RTP trees and it looks weird for me.. now

@PixelHeart Actually, dithering is fine when used sparingly to create texture, so your reasoning is sound. I don't think it quite worked on your barrel due to the harsh differences in some parts of the color ramp and the orphan pixels it created, but I'm not a fan of dithering anyway so I'm biased. I personally prefer the method you used on the second barrel, where the blending uses the actual texture of the object instead of a checkerboard pattern. I think it's a better looking result. Nicely done.

In my experience working with very few colors is a hard thing to learn, because in able to pull it off you have to be really careful with your shading placement and color selection. I think it's the shadow placement that's the hardest. If you don't understand the structure of the thing being shaded, it won't work out, but it's easy to fake correct shadows when you blend it out, which is why I think adding more colors can be a crutch. Breaking an object down into the most basic shapes can be helpful here, as well as looking at references, or breaking it down into planes. By that I mean something similar to a low poly 3D object, where the object is made up of a series of flat surfaces. I like to think of it that way because then it's easier for me to figure out where the shadows go even if the light source moves.

@rekkatsu I think it might help to start out by figuring out a simplified form of the larger shapes with the correct shading before moving on to the smaller clusters. Try breaking down the canopy into large spheres and shading them with your existing colors. You can also try leaving out the brightest and darkest shades until you're adding in detail.

Was trying to make a broken version of my barrel... I think I did mostly ok, but the inside looks really flat to me, and dosent really look like it conforms to the roundness its supposed to...Im not sure what I could do to make it not so. :( ... Can some one give me a little feedback on what I could do?
EDIT: (Added new version of broken barrel)

The first one looks flat because at this angle you should be able to see the bottom of the barrel. Putting the bottom into shadow like the second attempt is a good way to deal with it. I like the irregular shape of the top a bit better on the first one though. You might want to look at a cup for shading reference, the light source on the back doesn't match the front, and although you have ambient occlusion down just fine, you seem to have forgotten the cast shadow.

Get ready to see the worst best map you ever seen!
Of course is just a prototype, but at least is usable for now! Ok, maybe is useful for now....

I made a chest for my game! Though it is still a WIP, I would love some feedback.
Also any tips for: "lighting, shadows and shading", would be much appreciated!

I think the top should be much brighter, It looks interesting though. Like something from another world, like a cthulu chest or something, haha. Maybe opening it summons cthulu. The lock also looks like it doesn't have a top, and I think it should be under or above where the lid is.

@Zquence I've moved your post to the Resource WIP thread.