C&C on girl sprite

[The Ivy]

A familiar face, for those who have played Spooks.  I guess this can only mean one thing... ;D 

This game is going to be in 640 x 400, hopefully so I can showcase some decent graphics this time around.





I'm trying to come up with a style with a decent level of detail that won't take me forever to animate. 

Any advice is appreciated, although I'm looking for ideas on how to make the face fit in more with the rest of the sprite (The face has a black outline, while everywhere else I just used dark colours). 

Cheers!

~The Ivy~

[dsg_charly]

Well, looks very good.

Now the crits  .

- Her eyes make her like a "cat". Maybe a little less make-up.
- Her left arm seems weird, maybe drawing the ankle (the opposite of the ankle of course).
- Her right hand is too small, even if the fist is closed.
- Maybe moving her legs from 1 pixel to the left.

Hope it helps.

[Mr Flibble]

The contrast of the white in the hair is too great, the hair on her shoulders looks like feathers.
So much so that I thought she was a native american at first glance.

Unless, of course, that was intended?

[big brother]

Your shades are too close in value, especially if simplicity is your goal. At a higher res, you could lose the buffer shade in every region and not be able to tell the difference.

Drop the black outline around the jaw and the ear. If you don't use black consistently, it'll just look weird.

Try to resist AAing on the 45 degree pixel lines; it makes them look unecessarily blurry.

I think the pose itself is very static. Visualize your sprite as a series of curves connecting basic geometric shapes.

Good start.

[seaduck]

A Spooks sequel, oh boy! Go Ivy!!  

The sprite is gorgeous, really.

It does look a bit flat, though. It is partly due to - as BigBrother said - the shading, which is very subtle (and in some places missing) and strong outlining. I tried to make the outlines less prominent, but didn't change the shading, as to respect your style.

What bugged me the most was the shading on the skirt, the shape of the skirt, and her right armpit, arm and hand, so I tried to change these.


      Before                 After

This game is going to be in 640 x 400, hopefully so I can showcase some decent graphics this time around.

What's that got to do with anything? I love 320x200, I think it was just fine for Spooks.

BTW: Your sprite uses 234 colours?! You should really get a paint program that handles palettes well, it will save you a lot of work (and colours!) You really don't need more than, say 20-30 colors for this sprite. (BigBro would instantly repaint it with 8 colours and it would look the same)

[ManicMatt]

Her feet strike me as being rather large?

I can't remember how big her feet were in Spooks however.

(EDIT: Oh, she didn't have any feet!)

[The Ivy]

Cool, thank you all for the advice.  Here's the changed version:





I've gotten rid of the ridiculous numbers of shades and given her a more relaxed stance.  I also toned down the sheen on her hair, and got rid of the black outline around her face.  Although the eyes and feet are rather large, I like the style and it'll be consistent with the rest of the characters in the game. 

Seaduck, thanks so much for the edit, I nabbed a few of your ideas.  The "shading" on the skirt is actually just a design, so hopefully that's clearer in this version.  I'm hesitant to add shadows from the right or left just because it makes it hard to deal with light sources.

How's she looking now?

[Evil]

Mine and then yours:




Didn't realize the shading was a pattern until now. Lengthend the legs, moved the head, changed the feet and some shading. The arm on the hip is way long too, so I shortend that up.

[Drawken]

Here are a few changes I made:
-cleaned up the outline and lighting of the hair.
-made it longer in the back to reflect the hair over her shoulder.
-made the hair outline pure black and the inside color a dark brown.
-moved the head to the left one pixel.
-brought down the ear 1 pixel.
-made minor changes to the eyes and nose.
-the crotch, in normal human anatomy, is generally in the very middle of the height, yet in cartoons, from what I've seen, it can also be in the center between the shoulders and feet. I made it like the cartoon proportion.
-I tried to make the zigzags pattern match each other.
-As far as the legs go, you can give or take anything you think might or might not be helpful.
------
The Coloring:
I made a few variations of the coloring which I found pleasing.
I think the second to the last looks best.
The last also looks Ok, but looks a bit like a Christmas outfit.
-I personally find the zigzag and stripes combo a bit odd.
-As pointed out by big brother, you could easily have a 22 color sprite since some of the colors are so similar.

[SergioCornaga]

Hmmm.



I think I prefer the original better... but on second thoughts, that might just be because she seems to have tanned. A lot.

[Khris]

I really like the color scheme, I only did some very tirering pixel-pushing.

[dsg_charly]

Cool, thank you all for the advice.  Here's the changed version:





I've gotten rid of the ridiculous numbers of shades and given her a more relaxed stance.  I also toned down the sheen on her hair, and got rid of the black outline around her face.  Although the eyes and feet are rather large, I like the style and it'll be consistent with the rest of the characters in the game. 

Seaduck, thanks so much for the edit, I nabbed a few of your ideas.  The "shading" on the skirt is actually just a design, so hopefully that's clearer in this version.  I'm hesitant to add shadows from the right or left just because it makes it hard to deal with light sources.

How's she looking now?

To me looks nice apart of the skirt shadowing (but perhaps it's not shadows).

[Krysis]

I like her. The legs look like donuts though, I'd suggest
Evil or KhrisMUCs' edits. I havn't played Spooks (Seems like a great game.) yet but I allways pictured Mortia (Sorry for the random spelling) as a gothic/victorian girl - like Alice in Wonderland or that girl from Beetlejuice (But with red hair). Then again that may be a bit clishe. Maybe I should play it before I give an opinion. 
Right now she looks Hawaian/Indian. Maybe you should try and reduce the colour divercity to give her more "consistent" look.

[skw]

I felt doing a small face paintover:



Changed the shape in overall, shading (two additional colors for reflections), AA and some details. It`s not the greatest edit (quickie), but you may find it helpful, I hope.

It`s a very promising style, The Ivy. Keep it up! I like the sprite very much!

[Khris]

My original paintover had 49, I've reduced the color count quite a bit, to 14 (including background).

2x

But! The leftmost two colors on the second row are identical, so the color count should be 13. However, I can't figure out for the sake of my own life where the 14th color keeps hiding. Please help, I've torn my hair out over this for about half an hour now.
I doesn't really matter if it's 13 or 14, but I just HAVE to know

[ProgZmax]

It shows up as 13 colors for me.  Also, skurwy's face edit looks great!  I'd go with something more like that and give her a slightly more curvy waist and smaller feet.

[dsg_charly]

To my mind Evil paintover is the best.

Only the right arm and hand look weird.

[The Ivy]

Wow, some great edits there, thanks for the advice.  I didn't end up changing much, mostly in the interests of time and simplicity, but I've got some cool ideas for the other characters now.  Besides, Daylily isn't going to be the player character in this game.   

I tweaked the skirt and the arm, and made created a more saturated version:





I almost like the "unsaturated" version better, but I noticed that on some screens it made her look really bland.

@Evil: I tried to shorten the arm a bit, good call there.

@Drawken: Wow, some interesting colour and proportion ideas there.  I think the high waist suggests more of a preteen than a little girl, though, so I kept mine the way it was. 

@Sergio: Yeah, she's a lot more tan in this version (but hey, she's been out in the sun ).  I also decided to make her a brunette, since the main character will have black hair.  Hopefully these colours are less blinding than the original .

@KhrisMUC: Interesting edit, but I think it makes her look older than she is (I'm thinking 8 or 9, plus or minus 500 years).  Also, I'm not such a fan of the big hair look .  I like the pose though, so I'll keep in mind if I'm designing any slightly older female characters.

@Krysis: Yeah, I did try to make her look slightly tribal in this version.  If you happen to play Spooks, it would help explain her current colouring.

@Skurwy: Awesome edit!  She looks so brooding and mysterious, it's fantastic.  I'm also glad you like this "style," it'll be fun to design all the characters along these lines.  I like what you did with the part in the hair, I'll probably add that at some point.  As for the two extra face shades, I'm not adding them at this point since the rest of her only has 3 colours of shading at most. 

@ProgZ: Sorry, the big feet are here to stay .  I think it makes her look more childish, which is why I didn't do anything to the waist either.  Thanks for the input though.

@dsg_charly: Word.

Cool, I think those are all the changes I'm going to make for now.  Now, for the other characters... :) 

[Dr. Scary]

Just some last minute food for thought...

Saturated colors, but with the unsaturated skin. Also did something with her eyes. I felt they were a bit "vacant".

[skullkid22]

It's really good, but I think you should add in the necklace from the original game. Also, could you give a little info on the game, please?