Jpg? In my your pixel art? It's more likely than you think.

The bottom one looks nice, though the back of the hair looks flat.


Edited by Pumpkinbot - 26 March 2010 at 8:11pm

Hi, Z! It's cool - love the style.

If I had to find a nit to pick, I'd say that since her body looks to be turned ever so slightly away from flat on, it seems off that both of her feet stretch down to the exact same line on the screen (the vector looks correct - and amazing btw!).

There is a lot of character in this sprite, and I really anticipate seeing more of it (always loved "Twee").

Thanks.

Thanks for the feedback :D

Okay, added in a bit of a highlight to the back of the hair to make it less flat.


@Ninja Crow - I'm guessing that's mostly from the belt line, so I changed it so it curves back down. Let me know if it's better now or not.


@NaCl - The sprite I'm working on I was thinking more of in a platformer game, with gravity and such so her hair wouldn't be floating about like that. But it did give me the idea to give her back her helmet and make the hair more curved for 'in space' areas. Kept the eyes as they are though, cuz they look a little bugged-out otherwise x3


So here's the latest stuff:



Tried to add a helmet without upping the color count... I'm not sure it works, what do you guys think?



Tiles and mockup thing






First time really doing tiles too, so any feedback on them would also be great :)

I love it!!  But I think her torso is a bit unbalanced and is rotated slightly to the left.  Here is some kind of edit by me



It just started out as me editing the stance and torso but I got carried away and tried to duplicate 1up's style.  I also selfishly edited your palette to suit my own tastes about color so please forgive me :(

I like what you have here and I would love to see a game with this character.  I look forward to any animations that may come from this.

I think you're overthinking the gravity thing. Even if you did want to consider gravity on her hair differently in different areas, then her hair without gravity would float freely up, not just curve. Anyway, I say don't let science and logic dictate your art. Also, plenty of women have curvy hair, gravity is not so strong that it pulls all hair directly down.

Honestly the one with straight hair looks totally static and boring, while the one with curvy hair looks dynamic and interesting. I say scrap it and just go with the curvy hair one.

Congrats on your deviation!

Well, I don't know if this is helpful, but before you decide on whether you like the old hair or the new hair (heh, my personal favourite - not to influence you or anything...) take a step back and decide if you are experiencing "initiation bias" which is what happens to me all the time. It's when the first thing you see of a subject creates a new room in your mind for that subject, and becomes the immobile standard (as a music analogy, it's for me what makes an original song always better than a cover - though some people like covers a lot, so I guess it varies...).

You may decide that your first version really is superior, all things considered, and not just preferred because it was the first you made.

Or you may find out that you are experiencing "initiation bias", which is keeping you from liking the second one more. If you'd seen the second one first, would it be your favourite, instead? (yeah, touchy feely much...)

Also, don't worry about what I was saying about "shape welding" (I just meant making any area of a single colour as large as possible, as is common in vector art) unless it "means" anything to you as an artist, because I do like the tiles (though on my monitor, the new set is so dark as to be almost featureless ) and fiddly advice is just gonna slow down your coolness .

YW ;)

Sorry again about the touchy feely stuff - I'm grateful you responded, and your thoughts were excellent. Also, a good idea about doing the helmet last (in fact, I'd probably make it a separate sprite entirely if I were putting it in a game).

I like the new (middle) hair the most (though a bit too much shows between her legs at the moment and seems to give the feel of a very heavy, sausage-like mass, as opposed to the light, springy feel of other versions) the diagonal line on the back edge is not very pretty (sorry!).

I like the combination (rightmost) arm the most. It has a purposeful look, almost masculine in a tomboyish way (though depending on your intent, you may not have been going for that, but I like people with strong personalities as Twee appears to exhibit).

Hope I'm not making you fiddle too much - I'd hate to see this project slow down, it's become a favourite!

Thanks.

Rock it, baby! Was hoping it would.... Well okay, you asked for it.... That new sprite is very sweet, and excellently made! Education (especially in science) trumps all, so take all the time you need - I'll be waiting here happily for the next image with bells on.

Still pretty jumpy with a lot of bugs to iron out and the back hair hasn't been touched (and the back arm doesnt move in 2 of the inbetween frames) but it's gettin somewhere.

edit: Ugh. just realized the back shoulder goes up unnecessarily high. I'll fix that by my next update~


Edited by Zeratanus - 06 April 2010 at 1:04pm

Thats awesome! Thanks :D

and yeah, she's just kinda bobbin along. I'm wanting a lot of motion in these. The hair will be animated too, just making sure i get the head and body stuff right before figuring out how to make it swing properly.

Haven't had much time to work on this the last few days, but hopefully I'll get something new soon

Thanks man~


Also - yaaaay! Smoother and with hair motion!

Old vs New



Edited by Zeratanus - 15 April 2010 at 9:33am

It looks like she's dancing, especially on the first image.

Another day another reminder that my eyes hate me~

Anyway, i think the standing is pretty finished now. Tweaked it some more - eyebrow movement is smoother, there were a few issues with the leg details, and the bottom hair spike blipped~

I also doodled up a veeery rough run animation, and some keyframes to a "grab the ledge" animation, and a portrait picture thingy~






yay productivity~

Thanks again Ninja :D

but that little head blip was just an animation error lol. It shouldnt really go down any further than the other side does~. I fixed the portrait image, but havent bothered to save it out again yet.

for now, heres some progress on the run - no movement in anything but the legs so far, starting with the basics and working my way up to the details like before :P

Nice work so far. The idle stance is a bit slow.

I really like what you've got going here. One thought on the idle animation though. When she reaches the last frame swaying to her right, her chin moves SW, but her hair barely moves. This just seems kinda... weird.

@Ambient - Which part of the hair do you mean?


@Ninja - You know what? you're right! So I'll ditch the completely straight line.

Heres the latest on the running. didnt do that much to it besides edit the face a little and make the shoulders move. spent most of my time on the idle again...



As for the idle... lots of tweaking. Eyebrow movements changed in a few frames, and they had a unique color for some reason, so thats been changed (down to 14~ woo!), hip movement tweaks, shoulder on the left's been tweaked, the jaw when bobbing to the left's been tweaked, the lines on the suit's movements been tweaked...

so yeah, the 3rd version of the 'finished' animation lol

old v new



Edited by Zeratanus - 21 April 2010 at 9:57am

The top right corner of her hair barely moves, but her face moves down to the SW several pixels. I think this is kind of odd.

@Ninja - I'd rather go crazy from trying to make it perfect than to crazy from noticing all the little mistakes every time I see it 

@ Ambient - Oh, I think i see what you're saying, but does it still look that way in the newest version? (the jaw doesnt move down as far SW anymore)

@Velrio - You're too kind~ But I'll definitely indulge you - Here's the latest!

slightly edited portrait: (not New vs Old, two different expressions)




ruuuuuuuuuuuuuuun~


still plenty of work to do, but now the arms and face have the proper amount of animation.

Yeah, that little blip is annoying >:( stupid pixels!

And this is just a mockup thing. Programming has completely left me since Flash flipped to Actionscript 3 and then i forgot all of 2 <<

Anywho, latest version: side hair moves up and down, middle spike is smoothed out, arm twitch removed, leg shading added, bit of eye tweaks. Unless theres something glaring here I'll probably move on to trying to get the back hair moving next.



Edit: probably going to add some bounce to the hair on the sides if i can. don't care much for them just moving up and down.


Edited by Zeratanus - 27 April 2010 at 11:03am

Phew. working this again after a while. been doing other junk~ and at home I've been busy wasting my life on video games ><


I'll be graduating college this week too, and I'm hoping to focus on a graphic novel project afterwords, so I'm not sure how often I'll be working on this, but I'm definitely going to keep it in mind.


Anyway, I think I finally got rid of that kink in the elbow (cant believe I didnt see it sooner! thanks Ninja) And I've made the spikes all sway with her movements. They aren't perfect yet (closest one needs to sway more in the middle especially) but it's something. Elbow and arm needs more work too, i think... but eh, always time for more tweaking!

Still haven't touched the back <<




Edited by Zeratanus - 10 May 2010 at 1:42pm

Hope you don't hate me too much, Z, but now the shape of the band at her elbow goes from an upside-down U to a sort of stretched S and I don't know why the sudden downward bulge appears.

And yes, the near sprike doesn't move as much as the far sprike, but I think the far one may swing too much? Also, I don't know how WIP the near sprike is, but when it moves to its most forward position, it pops across too big a gap to look natural.

Oh, and the central sprike doesn't seem to have enough mass to swing its tip out that far.

Congrats on the graduation - have you ever mentioned or cared to mention what you studied?

Graphic novels also sound awesome, but does that mean that games/pixels is the hobby, or the other way around? In other words, if some kind of genie were to make you choose between the two, which would you pick . (I for example, with many interests, struggle between game creation desires and a compulsion to write.)

@ snader: Yeah, I hope more people can come to this thread and enjoy the art that Z pops into it! I'm sorry to disagree with what you said about the run, though maybe what will improve it for you is it just being a little faster? I'd hate to turn it generic with normal arm swings etc., but if you have more reasons for your position, I'd like to hear what you have to say.

Yes. You have 4/4 which is exactly why it's off.
The key aspect of a 'run' is that at some point in time, both legs are off the ground. If you have 4/4, you'll always have one foot on the ground.

Here's what I mean with reversing the speed.

In your current method, the leg has 4 frames to traverse the lower.. ~40% of the ellipse, and the other 4 frames for the remaining 60% of the ellipse. Thus the legs move slower on the ground.

In the middle example the distance between every frame is roughly the same, giving a fluid motion.

The lowest one has most time allotted for the upper part of the motion, and only 2 frames on the ground. This will give a light, fast run, with fairly long strides.

Now this is just based on an ellips, which isn't the shape your feet make, but it gets the point across. I'll whip up a better example in a few days.

In the meanwhile... Reference!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ErKWoOmthmc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QlrSAmqF-HQ

Please don't do anything too drastic