Newbie's very first sprite.

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Sean
Posts: 12
Joined: May 13th, 2007, 1:59 am

Newbie's very first sprite.

Post by Sean »

First sprite I've ever done in my life. And naturally, it completely sucks. I would love criticism and general abuse to see how I can learn to improve so I can actually contribute to the various campaigns and factions on the other boards.

The original brainstormed idea was to create a vampire sprite. Obviously the skin tone coloration went all out of whack with it, so I'm not totally sure what it is beyond a blurry attempt at a guy with a big sword, flaming hands, and blood-red eyes.
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vampire.gif
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Philip le Cene
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Post by Philip le Cene »

isn't there a lot of black around the legs?
Is that for shadow purposes?

Also if you would like to drop the vampire idea for a bit and use this critter for a knight on foot it'd be cool. Meaning you could replace the red eyes by green,black,white,blue,brown ones being more human and conventional.

You could also lighten up the color on the hands.

Rounding off the hair a bit and after all that I can't find anything "bad" or just strange about it!

Nice, very nice for a first try!
What are you using?(GIMP, paintshop?)
I'm still debating on what to try: to create an avatar but i don't know yet.
Knights,elves,mages Oh my!?
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Sean
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Joined: May 13th, 2007, 1:59 am

Post by Sean »

Used GIMP for it. There's a lot of back around the legs; some of it is intentinal for shadow purposes, much of it is just an attempt at anti-aliasing that probably didn't do all that well.

One thing I really need help with is how to shade black hair - any examples would be nice.
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Sgt. Groovy
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Post by Sgt. Groovy »

Black in sprites should never be completely black. This will make them look flat, because you can't bring out form and depth with shading.

See the assassin, for example. He's supposed to be clad in black, but the colour actually used for it is far from full black.
Image

Good way to learn is to study carefully the existing sprites. Here you will find them all.
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Jetrel
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Post by Jetrel »

What Sgt. Groovy said.
Sean
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Joined: May 13th, 2007, 1:59 am

Post by Sean »

Well, I took Sgt. Groovy's comment to heart and spent two days studying the sprites in the game, Extended and Age of Myth. Here's my second try at something different - I would appreciate critique again.

I started with a completely different lineart/concept so I'll have a fresh plate to work with before I go back to try to improve my original sprite.

The concept here for a more or less line spearman in service of a "dark" army. Helm is my own lineart, while the body armor concept is borrowed/frankensteined from the Dark Elves. There's a warg pup trophy on his right shoulder.

Again, I rather gratituously used black and found myself a bit screwed later on. I introduced the warg trophy in an effort to add more color, but it still seems to be awful dark and uninteresting.
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nightguard.png
nightguard.png (2.77 KiB) Viewed 5245 times
Sabata
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Post by Sabata »

Sean wrote:Well, I took Sgt. Groovy's comment to heart and spent two days studying the sprites in the game, Extended and Age of Myth. Here's my second try at something different - I would appreciate critique again.

I started with a completely different lineart/concept so I'll have a fresh plate to work with before I go back to try to improve my original sprite.

The concept here for a more or less line spearman in service of a "dark" army. Helm is my own lineart, while the body armor concept is borrowed/frankensteined from the Dark Elves. There's a warg pup trophy on his right shoulder.

Again, I rather gratituously used black and found myself a bit screwed later on. I introduced the warg trophy in an effort to add more color, but it still seems to be awful dark and uninteresting.
The shadow is wrong...
Sean
Posts: 12
Joined: May 13th, 2007, 1:59 am

Post by Sean »

Shadow fixed for NightGuard(I also fixed up his texture to give him chainmail, as was my original intention), and my newer edit of the Vampire Lord. Still messy, mostly because black hair seems like its difficult to give shading to. This is my second try - hopefully it looks better.

Also, because all things great and small are improved by ballerinas.

I think I'll try to animate that later today.

I feel like I'm getting improving, but most of the time I have the sense that I'm mostly doing everything by guesswork rather than any real sense of technique.
Attachments
Revolution without dancing is revolution not worth having!
Revolution without dancing is revolution not worth having!
ballerina.png (3.05 KiB) Viewed 5140 times
Nightguard with partially corrected Shadow.
Nightguard with partially corrected Shadow.
nightguard.png (3.07 KiB) Viewed 5190 times
Vampire cleaned up a bit, and with more textures for hair.
Vampire cleaned up a bit, and with more textures for hair.
vampire.png (2.72 KiB) Viewed 5190 times
Becephalus
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Post by Becephalus »

The Nightgaurd is much nicer than the first one, you are improving :) Keep working at it.
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musketaquid
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Post by musketaquid »

The shadow of the nightguard is still wrong. It looks, like he is standing in front of a canvas and the shadow drops of on the canvas and not on the ground where it naturally should be drop of. Look at the assassin in this thread, and you'll see the difference.

I don't like the position of the legs. It is tippy. Looks like the first frame of an death animation to me, where he keeps falling backwards. Maybe better if you shorten the left leg.
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Jetrel
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Post by Jetrel »

musketaquid wrote:The shadow of the nightguard is still wrong. It looks, like he is standing in front of a canvas and the shadow drops of on the canvas and not on the ground where it naturally should be drop of. Look at the assassin in this thread, and you'll see the difference.

I don't like the position of the legs. It is tippy. Looks like the first frame of an death animation to me, where he keeps falling backwards. Maybe better if you shorten the left leg.
Correct problem, wrong solution.

Move the bottom of his right leg slightly to our left (his right). He's currently off-balance, but that should help to fix it. Otherwise I must say this looks great.
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