The Resource WIP Thread 3

[Marquise*]

Awwwwwww! XD That made sense! I love PyxelEdit too! Never made a layer that way yet!

 

[Rukiri]

Here they are shaded, now to work on idles, Windows updated last night and thank god I had screencaps of them...

 

[Nutty171]

@Sharm More roundness like this?

The shading feels so wrong for this one, but I can't figure out just why.
(I haven't shaded the leaves on the bottom yet)

EDIT: I think I may have finished it...?

 

[Sharm]

Yes, like that. The shading looks wrong because you don't have a good handle on where the shadows would be. Interlock your fingers and use them as a reference.

 

[Rukiri]

Roshi wip.

 

[FleshToDust]

 

[Rukiri]

@FleshToDust Not bad, tail should be longer, but looks pretty decent to me for an outline.

 

[FleshToDust]

@Rukiri I tested it in game and it's a bit small for an enemy 240x140 so I'll end up redoing it twice as big. I'll be able to make the tail longer. Thanks for the feedback. I didn't think anything of the tail but now looking at it I recall running out of room for a longer tail. I'm thinking something 50% longer, maybe 30%

Edit:
I'm recalling tile shadows being on the right so I should make the shadows on his right and his stomach rather than the top left I think.

Edit2:
Reading back on this thread and the other 2 I'm hearing the term flat pixels.

@Sharm If im reading your previous posts right, flat pixels are putting different shades throughout the image to give it a 3d look. Is that right?

 

[starlight dream]

I like the art style. It would fit well into an rpg. And for a first sprite it shows nice drawing abilities.

Position of the shadow is important, especially if other beings appear side by side. Their shadows must follow the same light source, or it'd look strange.
Right now it looks like the light is positioned very low, about neck level in front of the wolf, lighting his front body and his belly, plus the inside of his legs.

To soften the change of colour from his fur to the shadow, pick a few in-between greys, and place them along the shadow line, as a transition. You can do that on a few other parts, like where the leg switches from white to grey.

Also keep in mind that if the shadow's colour is much darker than the fur, it gives the impression of a bright light hitting the object in a dark environment. If it's not dark outside but bright midday, the shadow shouldn't be too dark. You can try some lighter colours for the shadow part to test which one you prefer.

But your style has a likeable look, I'd feel bad to kill that poor thing. *wolf-cry*.

 

[FleshToDust]

@starlight dream
Thanks for the tips. I didn't think to use multiple colors for the shadow and that it would look like the animal is in a dark area with a flashlight. It will take some practice.

 

[starlight dream]

It looks REALLY good in the game!!! and the longer tail improves it. Better shadow positions too. ^.^b

With practice some things will come instinctively. But it's always good to seek advice or another set of eyes. I often get blindsided with my own art and miss things.

 

[FleshToDust]

@starlight dream Thanks. I got most of the games mechanics down so I'll be doing art for the next little while and then battle animations.
Plenty of time to practice my shadows.

 

[Sharm]

@FleshToDust I don't know what you mean by flat pixels. I can't even make a guess. I have a few suggestions though. First off you need to work on your form and shading before adding in details. Take your wolf and hide all the details like the outline and mouth and eyes and stuff (maybe paste it onto a new later or something). Can you tell what it is without those lines? See if you can use just the large blocks of color, the basic color, shades and highlights, to get it to look more like a wolf. Use lots of references. You don't need a lot of colors either, just the ones you already have are enough if you've got your shadows placed well. After you get this looking right that's when you can worry about the details like outlines and eyes and texture. The second thing you need to do is get really comfortable with zooming in. Your outline has a lot of jagged edges, extra bits, and strange zigzags where it should be a smooth curve. The only way to get these looking right is to go in and fix them one pixel at a time. It'll take a lot of time at first but you'll get faster with practice. Fixing those up will help get rid of the rough quality of the pixel art and make it look more intentional.

 

[starlight dream]

Take your wolf and hide all the details like the outline and mouth and eyes and stuff (maybe paste it onto a new later or something). Can you tell what it is without those lines?

I like that technique, never thought of doing that, but I'll try it too. Sounds so simple but it's a smart way to start the image.

 

[FleshToDust]

Alright, I've removed the detail, adjusted the proportions, tried to curve the jagged edges and used multiple colors for the shadow transitions.

Is this the proper way of doing shadows? How many pixels in between the shadow and the color should the transition colors use? I averaged around 3-5 pixels.

Also do you guys think the animal looks like a wolf? To me it looks like a fox but I think that's because I lowered his back and his head which makes him look smaller.

 

[Sharm]

Are you trying for pixel art or raster art? Because those goals are very different.

 

[FleshToDust]

@Sharm can you explain both? Because I'm drawing with a mouse and pixels. I know there is a program for vector drawing but I'm just using Gimp. Can you explain how the art style would differ and what you mean by the goals being different?

I'm new to this so my knowledge is limited.

Edit:
After googling raster it looks like raster and vector are different. I was thinking pixel vs vector but it's raster vs vector. So where does pixel fit in? Are there 3 styles? Also the program I was referring to when mentioning vector graphics is called Inkscape.

 

[Sharm]

Pixel art is where each pixel and color is chosen purposefully. You would mostly use the pencil tool and all anti-aliasing (blended edges) would be done by hand. The sprite art for MV and some of the store packs like POP! Horror and Pixel Myth are pixel art.

Rasterized art is pretty much anything done on the computer but isn't pixel art, vector, or 3D rendered. Most of MV's artwork and most of the art packs are raster and your main tool in GIMP would be the paintbrush.

 

[FleshToDust]

@Sharm Ah I tried the painbrush but it's not precise. I use the pencil so I can click each pixel individually. The reason my wolf has/had jagged edge was because I didn't know how to make good lines with the pixels. I don't think I could make anything with a painbrush, at least not without a tablet. I'd imagine it would be pretty hard to do with a mouse.

Since tiles are pixel by pixel, that would be the style i'd stick with.

 

[Sharm]

Ah, okay. I adore pixel art but it isn't for everyone. Since you're worried about exact positioning it sounds like a good fit. I think before we really workshop this piece you should familiarize yourself with the medium a bit. Here is one of the best tutorials for pixel art in general. Here is a gallery specifically for pixel art pieces. Here's a series of videos that show the process of making some really great pixel art so you can get a visual idea of what I want you to do in this roughing it out stage. I can link to more if you want but this is a great start.

The reason why I was asking is because in your first version it looked like you were going for pixel art, but the newest version the shadows looked like they were made with a brush tool instead of pixels and you were getting a style clash. I also think that the contrast might be too low but that depends a lot on how much is going to be in shadow.

It looks like once again you got caught up in the details and aren't able to see it as a whole. The anti-aliasing shouldn't be a consideration at this point. Right now is for general shape and general shadow and general volume. Don't be afraid to experiment and try different things to see what works and what doesn't. That's the joy of this stage, you're doing things fast and loose enough that it's no big loss if it doesn't work. Plus, it's a computer image, you can save a new copy before messing with things and not lose anything.

I think the reason why this wolf looks more like a fox now to you is that because you narrowed the chest his body is now long and thin in comparison. I'm not sure what you need to tweak, I haven't done any studying of a wolf form, but I think they are a bit more barrel chested than what you have right now. When you look at the reference images try to get an idea of what basic shapes things could be broken down into an the proportion of those parts. That will be an extra help to you if you can't find an image that matches your exact pose and give you a better idea of how to form the shadows.