Crazy attempts sprite art

[Crazy]

So yeah, hello.

I stumbled on Wesnoth about a year or two ago and i thought it'd be fun to contribute, art-wise. I didn't at that point, i never even created a forum user.

But i recently found a touch of free time on my hands and i've not drawn in ages so i thought i'd see if i could contribute now. But there's not much to do with portraits (those appear to be either done or in the hands of artists with much more skill than i) and i've never done anything with sprites in my life, ever. But sprite art seems to be in high demand so i thought i'd give it a whirl and see if maybe i can be a useful member of the community with some practice.

In other words, the point of this thread would be for people to tell me why my sprite art looks terrible so i'd get better at it.

Here's some nonsense character from scratch.

Nonsense-1.png (4.13 KiB) Viewed 3238 times

[Midnight_Carnival]

the point of this thread would be for people to tell me why my sprite art looks terrible so i'd get better at it.

well I'm sorry to disapoint you then, but you failed to make a terrible looking sprite.

I can't say much based on the small sample of your work I've seen so far, but in terms of skill you seem to be ok.

If I had the time to make a UMC with no canonical Wesnoth-looking units I would not hesitate to ask you to contribute. You may get a lot of people who appear to criticise you heavilly, they are (probalby) not commenting on how well you draw, but on your style. Your proportions and the style of shading you use do not go with mainline Wesnoth units. Your sprite still looks good. If you want to draw sprites that look like everybody else's (only presumably better), go for it. If you want to make your own style units that people may or may not want to use... well for whatever it counts you have my blessings. I suggest you practice both, make units which could be considered for mainline or mainline style campaigns, and draw units that look like the one you made, only more of them.

-stay crazy. It is for fun.

[Crazy]

[...]but on your style. Your proportions and the style of shading you use do not go with mainline Wesnoth units. [...] If you want to draw sprites that look like everybody else's (only presumably better), go for it.

Aye, but there's the rub. I'd like to do mainline-like units, but i can't. And sprite art is so small i have serious trouble analyzing it - i'm unable to see what i'm doing wrong, only that the result is off.

I see your point about the small sample of work, but that's about all the sprite art i've ever done. I'll be sure to make a few more at some point of time that is not now.

And thanks for the compliments.

[artisticdude]

I'm going with your statement that you are aiming to create mainline-standard sprites (with all the proportions and stylistic quirks pertaining thereto. ).

From my analysis of your sprite, it looks like you created it with a soft-edged brush, correct? However, mainline sprites are created using pixel art, which relies on hard-edged tools like the pencil tool in photoshop. This allows for a much more exact and precise control over the outcome of such a small and detailed work of art as a sprite, where the changing of a single pixel could radically change the perception of the image.

[Crazy]

Hard-edged tools, you say? Fascinating, good chap, fascinating.

So i took a mainline unit and drew something else next to it to get an idea for the proportions it is a huskarl of some sort or another i guess.

Nonsense-2.png (1.98 KiB) Viewed 3143 times

I'm having problems with making objects stand out - one might barely notice the man is indeed carrying an axe. Which is kind of stupid - apparently he can afford a full mail hauberk but not a sword - but the sword was just completely invisible.

Also, chainmail on a sprite appears to not be a good idea at all.

[pauxlo]

One idea: Switch the weapon and shield sides - then the axe/sword will be visible against the background on this pose.

[Crazy]

That works.

Nonsense-3.png (2.25 KiB) Viewed 3127 times

[zookeeper]

Don't forget to check out some of these tutorials. It seems not all the links work anymore (or lead where they should), but there should still be some useful stuff to be found there.

[johndh]

I'm not a sprite artist in any sense of the word, so I can provide no critique of my own. What I can provide, however, is a link!: http://wiki.wesnoth.org/Create_Art#Sprite_Art

Darn, Zookeeper beat me to it. (It's a different link, though.)

[Crazy]

Myes, thanks for the links, i've checked them already. So far, tutorials haven't helped me at all, practice seems more often the key.

[SFault]

Tune down the shining. The unit is disturbinlgy brighter than core units.

Also you might want to enlarge the weapon a bit. Makes it look less natural, but easier to distinguish in the game.

Nevertheless: Wonderful.

[Reepurr]

Analyse, Analyse, Analyse.
Look at mainline units and try to recreate them. Take their poses and attemptedly recreate them, heck, even take the outlines and practice shading on the flat bits you get. Also, you might want to steal the palettes from mainline units, because palette making is really hard...

By the way, you're already pretty good with your pixel pushing! Certainly better than I started out.

[Zerovirus]

Shininess in and of itself isn't bad. Heck, I used to have an avatar so high on the luminosity scale it stood out from all my sprites. The platinum knight, or something. It's when luminosity is used in a bad way or in a way that doesn't maintain cohesion of value throughout the piece that it needs to be cut down.

You've already entered the pixelpushers' arena with a good artistic background, as one can see from your earlier posting in artcontribs and the sprites you've posted. Keep up the good work!