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T_N's long and rocky road (Read 197154 times)

Started by The_None, November 15, 2015, 02:25:36 pm
Re: T_N's long and rocky road
#141  April 05, 2019, 10:47:38 pm
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Yup, took a crack at spriting Santos from Trio The Punch, and part of me feels like I forgot how to apply the lightning (from top angle rather than top and side), especially on the face (altho' I'd guess that may as well be his backwards cap complicating a few things, I dunno)
Re: T_N's long and rocky road
#142  April 06, 2019, 08:44:07 pm
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So against my better judgement - and before I got any feedback at all (let alone anything sufficient) on my previous sprite - I ended up taking a knack at doing.... one of the more 'memorable' figures of the cast of Tiertex's attempt at developing their own unofficial Street Fighter I sequel. This time rather than me starting out with dark fillings and applying lights and shadows I went out to start with brighter fillings and adding in the shadows later. Of course this being me not having much of an idea what am I doing with lightning and other stuff (I still do need help after all, and I have a feeling this thread would end up having a streak of around 10-ish posts of mine with no replies isn't it?) it went around as "well" as I could expect, maybe it's just me tho'
Re: T_N's long and rocky road
#143  April 06, 2019, 08:59:46 pm
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It's hard to put into words exactly what's wrong with your sprites, but I'll try. I assume you're still using that vector technique you showed off a few pages back, yeah? The results just aren't that good, even if it allows you to animate things easier, since the linework ends up pretty messy most of the time and that affects the overall presentation of your sprites. In addition, the anatomy is all over the place (I have genuinely no idea what's going on with the above guy's legs at all), the faces look really off, and the shading never quite seems consistent across the entire sprite; in the above sprite, it's also worth noting that there's barely any contrast on the shirt at all.

Oh, I want a diagram. I fucking love diagrams.
Last Edit: April 06, 2019, 09:03:10 pm by PlasmoidThunder
Re: T_N's long and rocky road
#144  April 08, 2019, 11:50:21 pm
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I'd guess this may have to do with how after all of these years there are still a lot of things in graphics I still have a hard time nailing it down (doesn't help when for some things I don't feel I've got sufficient enough of help in them), especially for things I'd have to do entirely on my own (there's probably a reason why some of the traced characters like Beavis, Butthead, Balthazar's Dink, Clippy and others are among the sprites that came out most well). If I could actually draw worth a damn I would've done well with any technique. But with my deficiencies within my artistic abilities you can magically bring me some sort of automated graphics tool you can conjure up with and chances are I would end up still churning out something rather amateurish with it. Maybe it's just me tho'

Remminds me to reassure myself do I still have it regarding tracing at least, I've lazily grabbed a Youtube screencap of Bryan Fury (could've booted up Tekken 7 myself to get a nice clean screencap myself but as I've said, I was a bit lazy) then traced off from that, scaled down the vectors and did some pixel touchups. I've left the sprite unshaded as I'd rather be sure I got things right before proceeding further with essentially polishing the unmentionable. (Interestingly apparently @Ink: thought the lineart was good enough to have him play around with my own lineart)
Re: T_N's long and rocky road
#145  April 09, 2019, 12:02:16 am
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As someone who mains Bryan above anyone else in Tekken, I definitely don't remember him having such a pointy chin and nose. What I tend to see in the sprites where you're trying to go for more realistic anatomy instead of cartoony noodle limbs is that you don't define muscles well at all, instead scribbling in a few squiggles here and there that make it look more like wrinkles or saggy fat than pure beef.

It would definitely help to have someone more competent than myself critique your work, since they could probably do better than me simply pointing out what I think is wrong.

Oh, I want a diagram. I fucking love diagrams.
Re: T_N's long and rocky road
#146  April 09, 2019, 04:35:19 am
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You need to stop rushing into the details of your sprites and focus on the base before going forward. Putting detail on a bad base is basically polishing a turd, sorry that I can't put it in a nicer way.

This unfortunately means that yes, you'll need to practice your drawing to be better at pixel art. If anything, start with learning how to draw shapes in 3D space and breaking down the anatomy into easy-to-understand shapes; from there you can anchor your anatomy in the proper spots and yadda-yadda-yadda get a more anatomically appealing result.

I did this with the top part of your Bwyan Bryan sprite to show you what I mean:



it's probably not perfect (you can notice I struggled with his right (viewer) arm and hand and did some guesswork to get it drawn, and this was done on short notice), but when you break things down into shapes, it becomes easier to know where to place the details correctly, and eliminate a huge amount of guesswork on your part.

To get better at pixel art, you need to start practicing how to draw, there's just no way around it. Tough shit, but it's worth practicing, especially if you wanna sprite your own characters and make them look good.

These two channels have really helped me out when it comes to fundamentals, so yeah, I'll recommend them to you, pretty comprehensive and easy to follow along with:

moderndayjames
Proko TV

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Re: T_N's long and rocky road
#147  May 08, 2019, 01:02:42 am
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To add to the above reply, you could also use something like Design Doll to flesh out your bases.  You can learn a lot about musculature, proportions, and even lighting from it if used properly.

My own workflow has changed a bit thanks to it.
Re: T_N's long and rocky road
#148  November 12, 2019, 10:24:28 pm
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It's been a long while, and a couple of months had been a bit rough in places that included my two hard drive troubles (I had a lot of things backed up, not much worries) and therefore I've preferred to make sure I got hardware issues out of the way before proceeding with any serious work. I was able to work on some things on April and September and I've been meant to carry on, but I had a hard time staying consistently motivated throrough the other months, so let's see if I'd be able to warm myself into graphics by doing single sprites again.

This time I've tried to trace over and pose a bulk drawing and modified the drawings into what the outfit the character would get. Not sure was it that neccersary for me to try to capture the arm muscles considering these would be concealed by the suit he's wearing, but I tried whatever I tried. Perhaps eventually I'll try outright using a posed 3D model through the tools Helios suggested once I'd get around finishing that sprite, if ever....

Spoiler: Reminds me..... (click to see content)
Spoiler: Also, a belated bonus (click to see content)

So against my better judgement I opted to work on further on the sprite before waiting on any feedback and this is what I did.....

Yes, I ended up trying out a simpler spriting style for a change, perhaps starting out simpler would've been the key before I'd be able to get onto something slightly more ambitious. River City Girls had a bit of influence there, as it had in the previous sprite I did before Garcian, as below
Last Edit: November 13, 2019, 05:54:43 pm by The_None
Re: T_N's long and rocky road
#149  November 21, 2019, 08:30:07 pm
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Might as well blurt out a few single sprites I tried to draw in both my earlier and simplified styles....




I'll admit that some part of The Scout did give me a bit of the trouble (especially his hat), I wonder if there's anything else I ended up messing up....
Re: T_N's long and rocky road
#150  November 21, 2019, 08:35:40 pm
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Is that WILD WOODY?! AAAAAAAAAAAAA
Last Edit: November 21, 2019, 08:39:26 pm by RoySquadRocks
Re: T_N's long and rocky road
#151  November 21, 2019, 09:34:06 pm
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The Scout's left eye is somewhat misaligned.

That Poochie sprite is nice though.
Spriting is harder than I thought.
Re: T_N's long and rocky road
#152  November 22, 2019, 01:28:13 am
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It seems like you're relying too much on the vectors to do most of the work, which is resulting in the linework and shading being pretty messy.

Oh, I want a diagram. I fucking love diagrams.
Re: T_N's long and rocky road
#153  January 03, 2020, 11:30:55 pm
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I'm not exactly convinced PT has the full grasp of my graphical process. After I've made enough work with the vectors alone I save into a new .psp file just in case, convert the vector layer into raster layer and to plenty of per-pixel touching to sort of some rough edges, add few more detail or whatever else that would come into my mind, and then I'd make another raster (so per-pixel too) layer (with Soft Light blend mode) and draw blobs of highlights and shadows in good old paintbrush and fill-bucket tools. One could perhaps argue I could've been way more thorough within the retouching phase but whatever the case, I doubt my deficiencies would be result of my methods of spriting, more like with my lack of basic knowledge how to draw certain things, especially at certain angles.

I could prove you this by showing the earlier phases of my previous sprites from before I ever went into the retouching phase, but instead I ended up doing an all new sprite, showing also the early phase before the retouching, the phase between retouching and shading, and my two attempts at shading the sprite. Admittedly, it's been quite a while since I've bothered seriously spriting even for a practice to the point that I forgot how to even light the things properly, I may have messed up with his shoes and the yellow lines of his pants could use more work, but I did what I could muster....


Re: T_N's long and rocky road
#154  January 03, 2020, 11:42:00 pm
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It's less a lack of understanding and more an assumption based on my own brief attempts at working with vectors for a similar purpose. Regardless, it doesn't change what I said, only that I was incorrect on why the linework and shading was messy.

Oh, I want a diagram. I fucking love diagrams.