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[Manuel Magalhães]

So I'm making a game, but to do it nicely I need to learn to draw humans properly.
My problems are:
-Skin Coloring
-Perspective
-Anatomy
(ITT EVERYTHING)
So please help me knowing what I'm doing wrong and give me suggestions to improve.
I did this hand the other day.

[Manuel Magalhães]

Changed the thread's name, since I've got another problem now.


(alt version)

Main reference:


These two sprites were made using NES restrictions. (actually they are four sprites, each one is 8x16, but to have more pixel space I "cheated" and worked on 16x16. It's possible to do on a real NES, though)

I'm torn between two things:

-I don't know how I can make them better looking. I used the main charater from "Little Samson" and the above card as reference, but it doesn't look as good. Any form/color tips?

-Not so worrying for now, but I'm undecided if the character (and most of the game) looks better if I did it black and white like the card above or in color. I like the Simcity-like effect to make color look "stronger" when contrasted with black and white, but the amount of shades are kinda limited. Should I go for it?

[Kramlack]

As a heads up, since you didn't mention it. It also uses 1 colour more than sprites can use. This will still work on NES because of the sprite layering trick, but just thought I'd give you a heads up, in case you thought sprites could have 4 colours, not 3.

Moving on though to actual criticisms, readability is definitely an issue. It's hard to make heads or tails of what it is. The contrast of colours between the hair and the face isn't helping either. I mean, it IS readable, but barely. I feel like having different monitor settings might make it easier/worse too. I'm too caught up in things right now to do an edit, but if you remind me later, I'd be happy to try and help you out.

[Manuel Magalhães]

Alright, thanks.

As a heads up, since you didn't mention it. It also uses 1 colour more than sprites can use. This will still work on NES because of the sprite layering trick, but just thought I'd give you a heads up, in case you thought sprites could have 4 colours, not 3.

I thought that sprites could have three colors + one permanent alpha (which I would choose white), but I stand corrected then.

Moving on though to actual criticisms, readability is definitely an issue. It's hard to make heads or tails of what it is. The contrast of colours between the hair and the face isn't helping either. I mean, it IS readable, but barely. I feel like having different monitor settings might make it easier/worse too. I'm too caught up in things right now to do an edit, but if you remind me later, I'd be happy to try and help you out.

I see. I'll try to explore other color combinations to see if they fit well. The character has an hat on his head like the guy in the card, not hair, so that's another thing I need to improve on. :p

[Kramlack]

Tiles are three colours + one permanent colour that has to go across all palettes, which is what I think you're thinking of, meanwhile sprites are three colours + transparency.

Also yeah, I thought it might be a hat since you said it was the character there, but the way it went down to the ground led me to believe it was hair instead. You said you're using Little Samson as a reference and that's a really good place to start. I'd also recommend any Capcom games (they all had fairly good readability and made use of the extra sprites trick). Things like Chip n' Dale, Darkwing Duck, Duck Tales, Megaman and Sweet Home are all really nice references for readability.

[Manuel Magalhães]

Yeah, I mixed the two limitations, thanks for clarifying. These links are useful for referencing, too.
Did a retry today:


I went to from 8x16 to 8x8 (I used 9 8x8 sprites for it), since I wanted to use some elements from the Mega Man sprite as base, like the shoulders and the face structure. I think I'm complying with the three color requirement this time.
I wanted to make the iris white, but then I would have four colors. :/ Would it be possible to use the layering trick there? (if I were making the game for a real NES, that is)

[Kramlack]

Yeah, that would be a good place to use it. Megaman's eyes and skin were the separate sprite that used this trick;


EDIT: I'd like to add that learning how to maxamize sprite placement (see: Megaman's head) is also a good technique to learn. For that I'd recommend checking out RandomTalkingBush's Mega Man 10 rips.

[Manuel Magalhães]

Alright, thanks.
So this is how it got:

(idle animation)

If there's anything more I can improve on it, please say it.
I'll do more assents for the game tomorrow, probably I'll go for tiles now.

[Kevin]

I did a small edit to point out some things I thought might be useful, the most signigicant being the position of the shoulders relative to the head. As it stands the head is a bit too low (or the shoulders too high) giving a sort of 'hunchback' impression. I raised the head one pixel and increased the slope of the shoulders leading (hopefully) to a more relaxed looking pose.

I noticed that the shoes lack the black outline of the rest of the sprite which led me to remove it from a couple of other places (namely the brim of his hat and the hem of the shirt). When working at such low resolution and with such a limited palette, one pixel is a lot of real estate and sometimes it's best to drop outlines altogether as a means of varying line weight. I'm not as familiar with the NES limitations as Kram, and my changes may have violated them, so take them for whatever they're worth.

Oh, the changes to the face are totally personal preference. Your current sprite has a very Mega Man vibe, and for whatever reason I've never liked the way his eyes look.

[Angelbait]

(idle animation)

Lol, I waited so long to see the animation that I nearly missed the blinking!  Maybe throw a little lookabout in there to give him a tad more character?

And crazy, I didn't even know about that alpha trick you bro's are talking about

[Manuel Magalhães]

@Kevin Really nice edit. The shoulders and the outline are much better now, it looks more natural. I like the   too.
I'm not fully familiar with the limitations yet, but I think the sprite could be run in a NES.

The non-bluish squares are zones that have more than three colors + transparency. In those zones the sprite layering trick can be used.  
Also, don't you mind if I use your edit on the final game with credit? I think the sprite is great as it is now.

@Angelbait That's an excellent idea. I could do the blinking slower while making the character turn his head around.

[Kramlack]

I did an edit of Kevin's edit. The pose felt a bit weird, like it needed to be more stiff ("more stiff", never thought I'd say that), so I made the arms more normal angled. I ended up using 3 palettes for this, which is plain awful for NES restrictions, but since you're not building it on the actual hardware, people who aren't me probably won't give a shit one way or the other. Here's the breakdown;


Also E Y E L A S H E S !

[Manuel Magalhães]

@Kramlack That looks pretty nice, I dig the color choice (he looks less pale). Eyelashes are cool too.

---
Anyway wanted to update this just to say that due to priorities and because I can't think anything about it, I've cancelled the game. I wanted to thank everybody for helping me on getting better on this, and I feel that I'm improving even if I'm far from where I want to be, which will take practice and persistence. Even if I don't re-activate/do a game with a similar theme, I'll take the criticism in count the next time I do a game with NES limitation (or any system with color limitations, for that matter).

So, sorry if I disappointed anyone for not going forward with this, and thanks for all the fish.

[Manuel Magalhães]

Did some logo work today:

Version 1, revision 1:


Version 2, revision 1:


I posted this on the "Art" thread, but I didn't want to clutter it too much with revisions so I decided to post it in here.

Here's the original post with some indications about the two versions:
http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=3993.msg814418#msg814418