Hi, I'm really new at this whole pixel thing but I've given up on finding an artist for my java game for now and I'm going to use placeholder pixel art made by none other than ME!

So here's the sketch I made NPA:


http://img222.imageshack.us/img222/1633/grakairesizedou8.jpg

And again with some quick temp color to give you an idea:

http://img215.imageshack.us/img215/2034/grakaicolorcm6.jpg

And here are the two first frames of him looking down and right. Not the final versions.





I think the colors may be wrong so tell me what you think :/ Maybe I should make his hair a bit smaller and his head more roundish.

There's going to be 1 more frame for looking up. The looking right frame will be mirrored in game by the engine I made. I think I'll do 3 walking/running frames in the up down and right direction. But I've never done animation before so If you have some tips or sites I could go to for help, feel free too share.

[EDIT:] the sword will be added as a single seperate sprite on it's own. It will be rotated by the engine to fit each frame of his animation. I allready made this part and it looks really well on the pre-placeholder graphic

back is done and yeah I'm slow at this:






Edited by Geki - 08 February 2008 at 2:05pm

Yeah i know. But everytime I try to make the hair smaller his head seems smaller as well. Maybe I should keep the same size and just try to even out the edges so it doesnt get the fluffy feel to it.. I'll be back with the result later.




Edited by Geki - 08 February 2008 at 2:34pm

Walking south



And north



His sword



With the sword in hand


Next up, the three attack frames for north west and south.




Edited by Geki - 09 February 2008 at 8:06am

Lol, i forgot I made the pants blue on the picture...hmmm and yeah I see the stray pixel i will fix it later. And for the first animation I think thats just because i either lefta frame out or doubled one of the frames in the animation. Never done animation before so I make a lot of mistakes.

Nope I didn't notice it got anti-aliased. Sorry about that. I just used the photoshop rotation. I doubt java's 2dgraphics will anti alias it unless I tell it to do so in the game though. So I hope it will look better in there.
And since I'm really really new at this I have no idea of what pillowshaded means?

EDIT: I know what it means now. And yeah it really is. I find it hard to shade right since he's going to be swinging this single image around.


Edited by Geki - 09 February 2008 at 11:20am

Horizontal attack done..sigh... I'm so slow at this 



I'm thinking I'll keep the black pants color.. maybe...

Attacking north:


And south:

hi. I thought the char looked aweseom but it looked like in the walking south animation that his shoulders were forward and he looked pretty focused, but on the walking north anim his shoulders are up and leaning backwards so it looks like he is walking with feet first, even that he might be backing off from something.

Also with the attack north his lower body doesnt move at all but in the attack east his knees are quite active.

Firstly, 90% of the posts here are yours alone, it is no use talking to your self.
Secondly, a word of advice, before animating a thousand different moves all of them flawed, work on one and make it perfect, then go on to the next one (it's better to play a good demo than a crappy game).
Thirdly, some more advice, try working more on the character concept before doing any sprites even if it's NPA.
Finally, I find the attacking sprites hard to comprehend,maybe try something with a sword.

good luck anyway.

these appear bto be edits of Chrono's Sprite with cropped frames.

maybe inspired...but the sprites are pretty different

head movement more exaggerated and bouncy
shadow stays still
arm swings differently

although...now I feel like playing CT...

I did use the old Secret Of Mana sprites to do his movement and stuff since I've never done any kind of animation on my own I needed a reference of some sort.
I don't know why you'r all so fixated on chrono trigger but I agree it was one of the best SNES games made. If it had been released half a year earlier it would've rocked the the world (more than it does now).
If you could recommend any guides on pixel animation I'd be delighted to try them out.

And I know the sword is horribly pillowshaded, probably won't use it in the game anyway since it's way too big.

Well I did redo the sprite from the bottum and up, and used the poses as a reference. I humbly apologize if that is not allowed. Anyway i'm done with this one and won't add anything more. I'll add him to my game and call it a wrap.
Thank you for telling me there was a resource forum. It's helped me out a lot. I'll do a new concept character and do a higher resolution 100% original character if I can. I feel inspired after looking through the tutorials thats for sure. Thx for your help :) and sorry for being such a noob (pillowshading etc.)


Edited by Geki - 13 February 2008 at 7:37am

You guys are too hard on him.  I personally have nothing against edits so long as they look completely different from the originals.

Having said that though ... I don't know if there's anything redeeming here.  For starters, the design of the characters just ... isn't very good.  I would avize against use large amounts of grey in any design.  Grey is just so lifeless and boring.

 

I would personally rework the design first and foremost before moving on to anything else.  You're kinda jumping head first into the fray of things.

 

As for the sprite itself;

 

- get rid of the rediculous outlines.  It looks especially bad on the hair where it clashes so heavily with the white.

- try a less zombie-like skin tone.  At the moment, the skin tone is really dirty and washed out looking.  This is further made apparent by your use of yellow.  Be careful in how you use yellow.  Generally, against other light colors, it tends to wash everything out.  Yellow is best used as a contrasting color against darker and richer colors (red, blue and greens).  Looks awful against skin tones.

Edited by Sonic_Reaper - 13 February 2008 at 6:21pm

Harsh words, but well deserved. Okay, I will learn drawing from the bottom up before I ever try this again, I promise. Hopefully some day I'll be able to meet your standards and return with something original and worthwhile. I thought I was creating an original sprite just using the movements from the original snes sprite but I see now that it's just too similar and realise I should start from scratch. I didn't mean to offend anyone but I can see why seasoned artists would frown upon this.




Edited by Geki - 14 February 2008 at 8:18am