next »

[petertos]

Hi, 

I left the image on other sub forum here on tigsource but seems it wasn't the appropiate one. So I'm leaving here the main art of my latest game. I think it might be a little childlish, but I don't really know. I wanted to give it a kind of manga style, since everyone is familiar with this style so nobody would say 'what the hell is this?'.

Whatdya think?

[crazyheckman]

Your shading seems off compared to the style.  For one, the blended shading feels like it doesn't compliment the cartoony style well.  For two, you might want to try screwing with the hue slider when making highlights and shadows.

Point one, I would fix that by moving over to a harder cel-shaded kind of thing.  This fits with the manga style that you're going for, so assuming you're using photoshop, lock the transparency of a layer and pick a big thick brush and get the edges. That would depend on your light source, which in this case appears to be the emerald in the center, radiating outward.  You want a nice hard break between the midtone and the shadow.

Point two is you should consider that light and shadow aren't just white and black.  They're usually yellow and blue.  So when shading things don't just jack the brightness up or down a few points, on top of that you have to jack the hue towards blue for shadows and towards yellow for highlights.  Not a lot, just 3-4 points and you'll be gold.

If I can say, your composition feels a bit off to me, but this could be because that's only one image.  Weird composition isn't bad, you just have to make sure the rest of your artwork fits with that style.  In a manga you very very rarely see things like those bangs, where it's a hard line across with a few breaks.

[petertos]

Thanks a lot, man.

I take the shadow and light color (blue and yellow) suggestion. I'm going to try something out. Although this image has been published I want to make more like it, so I'll be applying all suggestions to the next ones and I'll show you here.

Any other suggestion?

[petertos]

Here's another main artwork I'm considering to promote with the game:



Here's the finished game, just in case you need it (below in my signature)

Whatdya think?

[SundownKid]

First thing I noticed is that it's creepy how they have no teeth - fangs are not supposed to be part of your face. The proportions are also off, e.g. the second character has no neck, and the eyes are not shaped like actual eyes (no eyelids either). Even if it is supposed to be 'chibi', I feel like it has proportion problems in the underlying sketch rather than the coloring that can be remedied by looking at more tutorials.

[petertos]

It was intended to be chibi but other people have told me the same; I think I won't release it, i'll try a different thing. Thanks! 

[petertos]

I'm posting a WIP that is not going to see the light but please tell me what style do you prefer. In case you prefer this one I'll make another drawing, better drawn, with a better outfit... And later you can tell me what you think about the game (it's currently working).

[letsap]

That style is much more appealing than what you were going for before. It's got better technical fundamentals (even if the noodle hair needs some work) and has a more interesting pose. The gem-like overlay needs work in either case, the lines on each face being way too thick to match either style, and the shading not quite making sense (it feels like a couple faces should be darker).

While her face and hands and hair need work in this other style, I'd recommend pursuing it for two reasons:

1 - It looks better.

2 - It'll teach you fundamental skills better. This is especially important, because while "manga and anime" style might be attractive for its sake of simplicity it still requires a strong understanding of basic fundamentals in order to be pulled off properly, as well as at least a few sight based studies to understand the style so please avoid it like the plague for now.

The things I'd work most on would be hair and face and hands. Draw just those things over and over until they're comfortable, then work on doing some wire doll drawings for proportion's sake.

And keep trying new stuff, hop to.