The Resource WIP thread 2

[hian]

Been a while since I posted anything on this forum.


Art from my primary project (impressionism/watercolor styled game - realize it's not for everyone, but hey. Also screw imgur for turning my pngs into lower quality jpgs)

 

[ultipoter]

Hello! I decided that I'd want to make sideview battlers for my rmmv game in my own style. The mv generator style isn't bad, but I want the poses and everything to show personality. :> Here's a test sprite I made. It's probably not exactly the style I'm going for in the end, but it was a nice practice on spriting from scratch in general. I'm still pretty new to spriting (I've mostly done edits) so I'd love to get some critique.


//EDIT: I tried to remove some of the jagged look and ease on the darker outlines, and I threw in a version with background too (just screencapped a map)

 

[2DGameStudios]

Coming from some one who can only do title screen I think that sprites looks pretter nice.

 

[Wavelength]

Nice use of color and tone, and very good job on the pose.


The legs (and to a lesser extent the entire outline) look literally jagged, even in the smaller picture.  If that's the size of the sprite, you're probably better off getting rid of the anti-aliasing.  I suppose it's possible it would look better in-game when it's not an all-white background, but at this size I really think the attempted AA is doing you a disservice.


The weapon looks more like a flat gray trapezoid than a real blade, and could probably use a few thin lines in different colors/shades.


It feels weird to me that the sprite doesn't have a mouth - or if that bump at the lower-left corner of her face is supposed to be a pouty mouth, it's too hard to make out.


None of this is to take away from the fact that the sprite is good-looking overall and you obviously have some talent.

 

[ultipoter]

@2DGameStudios


Thank you!


@Wavelength


Gosh, thank you for the critique. I noticed something being off with the legs too but I just didn't realise what it was, it really is jagged. I'll have to work my way around that, maybe just try without antialiasing altogether. <: And I was attempting to make more of a sword sheath there but I really should have given it more texture. Next sprite should probably be bigger because I just couldn't find a way to fit a mouth there that looked at least decent. Thank you! <:

 

[mlogan]

I'm merging this with the WIP topic.

 

[Shiroi Akuma]

I'm working on Nina in three quarter view. Wanted to receive some critique, before I apply final coloring. I think I need to make her collar wider, from her clothing and the 3 blue arrows pattern needs repositing. 

 

[Bradok]

So I was just wanting feedback on this grass tile, it's one of the earlier ones I made for a BYOND game way back when. It's intended for a deep-forest floor type setting, but I think it ended up just being used for general grass of his game map. Give me your hardest criticism, I can take it. Personally, I hate spriting grass and even after all these years of iconing I haven't mastered it yet. Any tips to improve my style are welcome, thanks.

 

[noctiluca]

It looks okay on its own but compared to the front-view picture I can tell that the distance between her eyes is a smidge too wide in the 3/4 view, and something about her left eye is off too-- i think it could be compressed a bit because it's a bit flat.


I have begun the long, arduous process of upscaling my tile graphics D: Some things are simple enough, but trees are a huge pain.

And also continued working on making houses.

The houses might actually be easier to complete than the trees because they are mostly blocks with repeating textures :l

 

[Rozel]

It tiles very well! I like it, though it might be a bit too noisy for my taste. I would also use softer colors, but that's just a matter of personal preference.

 

[mlogan]

I'm merging this with the WIP topic.

 

[Bradok]

It tiles very well! I like it, though it might be a bit too noisy for my taste. I would also use softer colors, but that's just a matter of personal preference.

Well right now I'm going in and trying to sprite just a plain grass that would be used in, for instance, a village setter. I'm doing the various palette tests, trying to find the right fit, but like I said I hate doing grass. It's by far the most tedious and repetitive of all the sprites I have worked on. I could just go in an recolor that icon, but I think starting from scratch is always a good idea when you aren't sure about things.


To be honest I don't think people really pay that much attention to grass unless it's hand-drawn or parallax, so I may just end up using stock grass for my project!

 

[Bradok]

So I went back and looked at the trees I made for my little test game that featured my friends and myself. It was a real silly type of game that lasted for about two hours maybe, and the graphics and story reflected that. Anyway, I looked at all the tiles and objects I made for that game and tried my best to duplicate and improve on what I did back then. Granted it's been maybe a year since I've even tried to sprite until a day or two ago, but even after putting forth my best effort I can still see some obvious errors with it. I worked on this for a little less than and hour but still, it feels....wrong? The trunk especially made me cringe a bit, but honestly I have no idea how to go about shading it correctly. The sprite I made for my previous game were very -retro- since I was inspired by Earthbound and lacked even this much definition.


So, give me your tips/advice/criticism. I can take it!

 
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[Celianna]

@Bradok trees are very fun to make, you shouldn't overthink them! They're organic and can afford to look like a mistake.


I did a quick example using your colour palette to show an organic tree:


View attachment 40053


I added some rough foliage as well, to show you where the light hits and which parts are the brightest, and which the darkest. Leaves are easy to draw, since you don't need to draw them all individually! Use these clumps of light to draw some more leaf shapes, think of it like drawing the tree with weird stitches. These 'stitches' should be a darker colour so that it gives the tree some depth.


Here I'll show you my progress. First I draw the general shape of the foliage, add and remove when I feel like something's off. Then I draw in the highlights and shadow parts (like in the above example I showed you, these have the highlights blocked out), then I draw the leaves according to the lightsources. At the end I adjust colour and polish it up by adding even more detail, and tada; leaves!


View attachment 40054


Trunks are easy, just think of yourself as drawing Medusa's hair haha.

 

[Bradok]

@Celianna


Thanks, you are a big help. It takes time to polish up spriting skills but I intend to keep at it during my down time until I'm happy with my work. I'm going to go in and see if I can make something a tad more organic based on your advice. Thanks again!

 

[Celianna]

@Celianna


Thanks, you are a big help. It takes time to polish up spriting skills but I intend to keep at it during my down time until I'm happy with my work. I'm going to go in and see if I can make something a tad more organic based on your advice. Thanks again!

Oh one more tip; if you have a big wide trunk (like what you drew before), then you must have a lot of leaves to accompany it! Thinner trunk is less leaves.


Good luck with your next attempt! There are no mistakes in drawing trees

 

[noctiluca]

Another thing I always do when making trees is draw the trunk and the branches first (like a dead/winter tree), and then add the leaves around the branches to give the tree a more realistic shape. That way you also have a leafless tree variation for your maps as well.


Looking at real photos of trees can help a ton too, especially if you have a certain look in mind.


Worked a little more on my dogwoods. I realized that I have WAY too many tiles I need to finish so I ended up starting over and doing the brush/stamp method instead >.< Doesn't look as nicely hand-crafted, but with some more tweaking it should look okay.

It'll be fun to see it changing seasonally next to all the other kinds of trees (including several that don't change at all, yay less work for me)

 

[PrincessPixel]

While you guys are on the topic of trees, could I get some advice on mine too? There's been lots of really good examples for more realistic trees, but do you have any for something a bit more "cartoonish"?
I've been making Gameboy-graphics esque stuff, and the trees just don't feel right to me yet...

I'm not really used to 2D art, so I don't have an eye for what's wrong with it... But I can tell something is definitely off. Here's an example of the tree in game.

Any advice you could give would be greatly appreciated!

 

[noctiluca]

It looks kind of like a jellyfish, to be honest. I love how jellyfish look, but they don't resemble trees all that much.


Even with cartoony trees, basic principles still apply, like trees having trunks and branches. Aside from a few very unusual tree species, the branches branch out so the leaves should spread considerably farther than the trunk. I think the biggest problem with your tree is that the bunches of leaves look like they are narrower than the trunk. It also looks unusually smooth like one solid blob rather than a bushy mass of leaves. I think for cartoony tree leaves the secret is to model the leaves after clouds and then work from there.

 

[Bradok]

@PrincessPixel


I really like how they look, in all honesty. It reminds me of Earthbound for some odd reason and with me that's always a good thing.


On a side note, I was messing around with some chair edits after deciding that just having stools to sit on isn't very realistic. I took the basic square stool from RTP and used it's color scheme the extend up a back for the chair. Still need to do the other three directions, but tell me what you think so far.

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