Character Sprite Test!!! (10/7/2012)So A crucial part of any game that is character intensive is developing a good look/style, something that you can reproduce, and something that you can build an efficient production pipeline to crank out in some reasonable timeframe.
Also its important to have some rough vague idea of the types of character you might want to draw. I started off last week sketching up some various character concepts to get a feel for potential character designs/styles and proportions. I came up with something as follows
I was feeling confident about the result and the possibilities. Ive always had a soft spot for kawaii chibi caricature representations of characters (and im sure as an artist im not alone and probably in some good company). Proportions are tricky though. this was a good test to see if i could pull it off across multiple character types. i am feeling confident i can move forward with this.
Another point of consideration that i learned with the very first character on the left (and a point of concern i was already aware of). Any time you are working on a character that needs to be size reduced, certain details can really be lost in the process. its important to be conscious of relative proportions so that the things you want to accentuate dont get lost. also t he overall character proportions can seemingly change in the process as well. My original sketch was too tall and narrow. I had to squash it about 80% of original height and use that as a new basis for my relative proportions for future sketches.
I was ready to try out my first sprite render. I am wanting to do this to establish a final look to a sprite, as well as establish some sort of workflow for future animation frames.
What better than to start off with a potential main character concept? Ill spare going into too much detail about him right now (its a devlog not a project pitch). but basically i am looking to create a normal looking, relatable, white collar type guy who has had a bit of a rough day. so the first thing i needed to do was come up with a sketch that had similar proportions to the concept sketches i produced earlier.
I sketch everything in photoshop. its not a very natural feeling but it beats pencil scans, but it isnt crucial to keep it super clean at this point. ive found out that its quite hard/impossible (at least for someone with a lacking in pencil/sketching abilities) to make this first sketch clean enough to work with directly. In the future ive identified that ill need to be animating at this basic level first and foremost for form/motion/fluidity. keeping it rough, generic, editable.
I am happy with the general proportions (save a few fixes that need to be made in the neck/collar area i realized after the fact). So from here i need to make a cleaner lineart version of the character. so i set the sketch at low opacity, create a new layer overtop and using a hard brush (no transfer/opacity setting on brush strokes) i am looking to hit some of the more important character linework.
I had originally tried illustrating some of the folds with the lineart but discovered it was rather overpowering. So i stuck to illustrating the main outlining/segmenting portions with the line art here. Im going to rely on shading to bring out some more of the detail in the cloth folds so that there isnt too much contrast inside the sprite. In pixel art, its generally a bad practice to use black to separate pieces inside a sprite, and i suppose im just carrying over a similar principle to this higher res spritework.
I have some options here. how i ultimately go about 'shading' will determine how flexible character customization will be for development. However right now im more interested in just proving out and concepting a full color rendition of the sprite so im just going to hand paint my values. So i first start off with blocking in general color in regions. its a good way to 'test' the character palette out to see if the colors mesh.
theres not much need to explain further processes, its more of an art step. im just adding shadow to block in some form and cloth folding.
I generally like to hit highlights last. who knows if its right or wrong, i just find it easier to gauge contrast that way. The end product is that we have a 'finished' sprite concept that looks like this.
Some general notes:
Working big is crucial. the sprites in-game probably will not look this big. but the current size is just about half of the canvas size of the source PSD.
Which, by the way, the PSD currently is organized not too dissimilar form a silk screen. each 'area' has its own layer, and each 'shade' within a shape has its own layer masked to the general layer shape. This way i can easily change/adjust hues or values as needed. Painting all on one layer ive found to be a big no-no through previous experience. ive often wanted to go back and touch or edit a color and found that doing so was impossible and there was too much re-painting involved. layer separation helps solve some of those issues.
Next i get to dive into the wonderful(ly scary) world of character animation. in order to get rolling on gameplay prototyping ill likely have to keep it simple and crude. but i also sort of want to do an animation test as well to see if the process will be manageable. Also i have to decide what programs i might want to use to facilitate animation an development
Longer post than anyone will bother reading for sure.
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