Gallery of One's Failures

[Alternatic]

Hi guys,

So it is finally here. I started a topic. And the reason is very simple. I need YOU to teach me how to make better images for Wesnoth. I tried really hard. I did. But my sprites are just not as good as I would like them to be. So here's the thing: I made a sprite and recorded every step. Now should you please tell me what am I doing wrong? No more talking here's the stuff:

Spoiler:

(The creature is supposed to be imp.)

complete.png (3.61 KiB) Viewed 7173 times

1. That is just the pallete I used. (It is the final one, i changed it few times.)

2. The base frame. I used Zero's and edited it a bit so it is smaller.

3. Here i just made a sketch for the clothing.

4. And here comes the problem. The shading. I did it just the clothing here.

5. Lowered the contrast and edited it a little bit.

6. This is when it gets worse. I started shading the body with blocks of lighter and darker colour.

7. Here I pretty much finished the body-shading with even lighter and even darker colours.

8. Lolz. The face. That is probably the worst part an is definitely a WIP.

9. Yep, this is the final product. I just added claws here.

Soooo, That's it. In my opinion it is really bad. However it will be easy to animate.

OK, thanks for your time. Now bury me in you critisism!

[Blarumyrran]

• Use outlines; Wesnoth sprites use outlines. I mostly use pure black for outlines, some others use slightly brighter colors
• Your contrast is too low, esp on the skin
• The claws on the left & right hand shouldn't be symmetrical towards the viewer, they should be symmetrical towards the SE direction. The sprite base-frame should be looking SE, which is also the direction implied by your feet, but your claws make it appear to look directly south.
• You say that the face is the worst part but the face of an "imp" can really look like anything... it'd benefit from SOME features though (I'd go with nose, horns, ears) to be interesting
• The shading on the clothings make them look very round, which doesn't make much sense there
• When in doubt, put a belt on the sprite. A belt defines the position of hips and the vertical center of the sprite & so it is a huge help with making the shape of the guy instantly readable.

imp2.png

imp2b.png

[Alternatic]

Many thanks for you effort, i really appreciate what you did and I will use everything you wrote.

So according to what you wrote I made a new image. Here it is:

Hmmmm...

10.png (2.18 KiB) Viewed 7173 times

(I'm not entirely sure it is much better then the one before.)

(-) I did the outlines. They look a little odd at the place where the hand touches the body.
(-) I raised the contrast. The first one has higher contrast then the second one.
(-) I completely removed the claws. They were there just because it looked plain to me.
(-) By imp i mean something like THIS. I made the head bigger and rounder. i think that's an improvement. But i still looks weird...
(-) I remade the clothing and used a belt. I think it looks even worse now.(However the belt looks fine)


I think the main problem isn't the base frame but the shading. Would someone be able to shade this base frame, please?


Thanks for replies!

[Blarumyrran]

(I'm not entirely sure it is much better then the one before.)

A wesnoth unit looks like & any other wesnoth unit sprite, at least of a humanoid, has to loosely fit with that style before you can talk about any other sense of "betterness"; clearly the old sprite doesn't fit with that style enough & the new sprite fits a lot better

I think the main problem isn't the base frame but the shading. Would someone be able to shade this base frame, please?

"Base frame" as it's used in wesnoth at least, means the animation base frame - the image of the unit standing still, like "wolf.png" as opposed to "wolf-attack.png" and "wolf-defend-1.png"; the entire image is the base frame

why are there outlines in the middle of arms & legs? Also his right shoulder could be brighter

[Crow_T]

From my experience, you may want to try to frankenstein a sprite or two first to get over the major learning curve, doing smaller changes at first can ease you into the style of wesnoth. Dipping into the colors of a premade unit will give you a sense of what works well.

[Sleepwalker]

Put features on the head and in general learn human anatomy if you don't know it. If you want to make the head similar to the reference pic you need to look at the forms of it. Right now it is kind of like a balloon with eyes and mouth painted on.

Can you draw/paint a reasonably realistic person? If you can do that then you can adapt those skills to pixel art. I mean, the more general art theory you learn (along with keeping up practicing) then anything you make will be "better".

Using your palette I made an edit with more proper shading for your form of the unit and then a rather cartoonish version, mostly just to try adapt the exaggerated head shape of the reference.

[Alternatic]

Thanks a lot for every reply. It really helps a lot.

@blarumyrran
-You are of course right about how it fits better the wenothian style.
-By base frame a meant base block(the shape filled with one colour).

@Crow_T
-I tried frankenspriting many times before. It just doesn't feel like my work.

@Sleepwalker
-The image of imp I posted here was just to show what I meant by imp. The goal of my work isn't this particular picture of imp.
-I would say I can draw a pretty realistic picture of a human by hand. However it is a lot different from pixel art.
-Huge thanks for the picture. Thats exactly what I needed to be sure how to properly shade a humanoid. As written above the second picture of yours isn't what I need but thanks for your time.


Well, now I'm probably done with the imp and I'll now try a human.

And a question. How do you know where to place dark and where not to put an outline?

Thanks guys!

[Alternatic]

Hello everyone,

After a week of vacation a progress was made. I did a human warrior sort of thing.

warrior.png (2.76 KiB) Viewed 7171 times

(I used zero's edited palette and classic TC)
I don't know. There is something wrong about my drawings. Can anyone see what it is?



And some questions:
-How do you know where to use outlines?
-Do you first draw the body and than the armor over it, or otherwise?
-How do you choose which palette to use?


Thanks!

[Alternatic]

Hi people.

Sorry for triple post but I don't know a different way to get your attention. So everyone, please, all comments are very welcome and please write whatever comes to your mind. I really appreciate it!


And here is the improvement on my warrior:

progress.png (3.89 KiB) Viewed 6966 times

Criticism time!!!


EDIT: little tweak of the warrior's shield.

[GunChleoc]

You are definitely making progress

I have never done any spriting myself, but I think it might look better if the outline wasn't pure black.

[artisticdude]

Definitely an improvement!

The primary problem I see with the warrior is that he's facing the viewer directly, whereas most Wesnoth units face more to the lower right direction. The warrior also suffers from 'flyswatting', which is where the unit looks very flat due to its pose. Some foreshortening would help fix that problem. The light on the warrior also appears to be emanating from our upper left, whereas the consistent mainline standard is to have the light coming from the upper right (I'm assuming you want to keep this unit as close to mainline style as possible). You've also pillowed-shaded the swordblade. Finally, beware of banding, especially on the belt there.

In case you haven't already, I'd reccommend checking out the pages in the Sprite Art section of the art wiki. Additionally, I'd take a look at the External Sprite Art tutorials, which aren't Wesnoth specific, but provide a lot of good information on common pixel art techniques and missteps, including banding and pillow shading. In particular, if you're going to look at any of these tutorials, I'd recommend starting with The Pixel Art Tutorial by Cure, a very talented pixel artist over at pixeljoint.com.

[Zerovirus]

Quick revision to tighten up the blocking, get rid of the flyswattedness at least a /little/, and work in a few lines as well.

[Alternatic]

Hey there guys!


@GunChleoc
-Thanks! You should try something, it is not that difficult.

@artisticdude
-Man, you helped me a lot! I learned so much new stuff from the tutorials. I really appreciate it.

@Zerovirus
-Well I will try. See below if it is better.


After some reading, browsing and learning stuff I made something new.

To be honest, I'm very proud of this one, however it is by far not comparable with the mainline. WIP:
-The chestplate has probably too high contrast
-I like the helmet a lot, but it is missing something
-The shoes and the legs are weird
-It is missing outline

Yep, there he goes:

warrior.png (1.83 KiB) Viewed 6925 times

NoW CoMMent anD CritiQUE PleASe !!!

[Flameslash]

It looks pretty good. It's clear what's going on and looks fairly realistic, with the obvious sprite art wrong proportions thing. The chestplate in paticular is impressive, and the helmet is shaded really well and noticeably. The shield, however, could do with being a bit bigger tough, as it doesn't stand out much, and the blank outline around it looks too hard to my untrained eye. I don't see anything wrong with the contrast on the chestplate, but I agree the helmet could do with something more - maybe a crest or plume?

[lmelior]

I'm not a very good artist, but in general I think the main issue is that you're still missing contrast. When zoomed in it looks better, but looking at your sprite at normal size I have to squint to see helmet details. The darkest colors on your color palettes should be much darker, for one, and then the other colors should probably be adjusted accordingly. It's too bright.

Specific critique:

1) The sword positioning seems unnatural when the rest of his posture is so relaxed. I would say you could just let the guy relax the sword to make it look better, but sprites in BfW are generally more dynamic. In that case, I would suggest raising the shield, hunching his shoulders forward, and bending his knees a little, etc.

2) You should differentiate between skin tone and armor covering, because right now they use the same palette. The helmet cross and whatever is covering his groin look like good places for team coloring. That would definitely help with the contrast, too.

3) On a related note, I'm having a little trouble seeing how his legs are armored and positioned. Is that armor plates on top of leather, or thigh and calf armor with exposed knees? They're shaded the same way, so his left leg seems to have a longer calf than his right.

Again, though, not an artist, so take this with a grain of salt.