XENOMIC'S SPRITE THREAD! GASP!

Added the braids in. I think they actually came out really well (no, I didn't use anything but one official art as reference), which surprises me. Guess braids aren't super hard to do after all.

This might be the last revision for the sprite for now as I'm honestly not sure what else I can do to make it better. I again am by no means that great of a spriter, and I'm terrible with colors overall, so...who knows? Maybe I'll come back at a later date and touch up on the sprite again, if I ever do. Or maybe I'll keep working on it over time.

Note to self to fix on Maria's sprite however:

*Fix the size of her hand that's underneath her right hand (so the hand below the other) as it seems far too big for her actual handsize.
*Maybe fix the right arm so that it has an elbow? Not entirely sure as I'm not sure how to do elbows really, nor not sure how to angle the arm to accomodate the elbow change.
*Fix the shading in various places.
*Fix the belt/sash and perhaps the tiny part of her back that you can see. Not sure on where the back needs to be...
*Change the face perhaps to not be so May-like
*Fix the shape of her hair perhaps
*Fix that goddamn ascot! >_<
*Fix the bust size probably. It's really REALLY hard to gauge her bust size from the official arts (despite some of them showing her to be quite...voluptuous or whatever. Which seems very strange for a 12-year old to be that way but...), and I'm terrible with doing breasts overall anyways...
*Fix her left arm (the arm on the right) to be more...bending? Not as hidden by her shirt? I don't know.


Anything else that I may have missed, feel free to let me know. Still learning so yeah...I probably shouldn't be doing these kinds of sprites already but...^^;;

So...this was something I was working on...



But thanks to being such a dumbass and not checking, I accidentally saved it as JPEG (why the hell is JPEG the default for Paint?!). So, this sprite which WAS really good ended up being completely ruined. Then I tried a second time...




And now it just looks plain freaking awful...like...you have no idea how angry I am at myself and Paint for losing such a great sprite, then spending another hour trying to get back to that point only to end up with this terrible sprite...goddamnit all...I haven't been THIS pissed off at myself in forever, but really now. Lenna ended up looking TOO manly in the newer version, and I had it perfect in the original...


References:










The last one is what pose I'm using. The other two images are what I'm using as references. Well..unless someone knows how to save a sprite saved in JPEG format...>_>;;


So yeah, 1 hour and a perfectly good sprite lost because stupid goddamn me. >___>


EDIT - A little update...




So I tried to slim her down some and whatnot. At least she looks more feminine than manly...I think. God this is gonna take a lot to fix this up. Also, hair. Not my thing.

Infranview can't be used for spriting purposes though. I do have Gale Graphics now (why I didn't have that before is beyond me) so I'll probably start using that now as it'll be easier to do pixel by pixel spriting.

It looks like it's taking good shape so far. Though I feel like the belt is TOO far down as opposed to the images...what do you guys think? Think it should be moved up some??

Also, that skirt is surprisingly difficult. I'm used to frilly skirts like Maria's or Remilia's, not simple ones like this where there's hardly any creases. x_x;;

I do think I got the body build right though. It looks slim enough to fit her (the clothes aren't exactly form fitting I think), and her breasts are actually the right size...I think.

The face is pretty much taken from Ougon Musou Kyoko's Shannon, so that's why it's already shaded and such. If I need to change anything, I tend to do it even if it's fully shaded and whatnot (I've done it before on Maria a bit and other older sprites). Generally, what you see up above for the torso and belt and necklace and whatnot is what I'd normally do BEFORE doing any details and shading. I generally get a head base first before doing anything though, seeing as I can't do heads for the life of me (I honestly tried to do a head for Lenna from scratch but...it would've ended up like this anyways ^^;; ).

So I decided for the first time in like...10 years or so to do some art. Granted, it's not from the top of my head as I was using a reference image, but really...looking at it, it's not that bad. There's some problems here and there yeah, but it's not bad for a first try with Photoshop and using a mouse. No I don't have a tablet, and none of the scanners here at home work so I didn't try with paper and pencil. Maybe I should give paper and pencil a shot though?

It's really hard to keep the mouse from screwing things up, lemme tell you. If you guys wanna color this in, go for it! I'm terrible with coloring lol. And feel free to give criticism and feedback if you so desire~

For those who do not know who it is, this is Nowi from Fire Emblem: Awakening. Yes, I'm aware there's some proportion issues going on, but it was hard enough getting myself to do this with the mouse. Ugh...x_x;;


I do have some sketches that, when we get a working scanner, I'll scan and upload. Been practicing on nothing but art this entire week, mainly on doing faces (haven't gotten around to doing hair yet) in the frontal position (doing angled views shouldn't be that difficult I wouldn't think...I intend on practicing those next once I get the frontal view stuff done, including full body proportions (no clothes for now) in the frontal view). All mostly using Nowi as my base and reference. Hopefully she doesn't screw me over in doing art for later characters seeing as she's supposed to be short as all hell. ^^;;


So, here's my line of practicing:

A) Frontal Views

1) Head/faces - I believe I got this down now for the most part. Only have trouble getting the sides of the head to curve easily into the jawline to chin area for some reason. I generally start my drawings with one eye, then do the other eye, then set the sides of the head, then nose, then do the jawlines to chin, and then finally the mouth (followed by the ears).

2) Full body proportion - This will require me to actually NOT draw super huge, which has always been a problem for me. I'm not sure how I'll be able to manage this on paper and pencil...especially when I start doing characters that are of normal average heights and not like 4' something like Nowi is...

3) Hair - I don't know why, but I struggle to get the hair right. I can't seem to find a good place to start with the hair at all, nor where to go with the hair in some instances...

4) Facial expressions - This will come after I master hair mostly because hair can affect how facial expressions look sometimes. Granted, I guess I SHOULD do this as #2 instead of full body proportions but...

5) Clothes - Seeing as #2 will be just a nude model with nothing on it, I'll need to learn how to do this eventually. I wouldn't think it'd be too difficult to do though with Nowi as my base, but for other more extravagant characters it may become a pain to do...

6) Arm/hand positions - Hands and arms, for some reason, have always been a thorn in my side. It's all the way down here mostly because well...the face and body should be mastered first before actually doing fancywork with things like the hands and feet.

7) Body positions/poses - Such as sitting, walking, excited, etc. I feel like once I master the first 6 in this list, this shouldn't be too difficult to do??


B) Angled Views
C) Side Views
D) Angled Back Views
E) Back Views

B and C will follow the same structure as A, although I'd imagine doing angled views will be easier once I master how to do frontal views. It's just moving some lines here and there a bit longer than others after all, right?? Side views will probably be a pain in the arse to do though...

So yeah, if anyone has any good suggestions/tutorials/whatever (aside from practice a lot, which I already know about and have been doing for the past week lol), feel free to help me out! I really want to get as good as I can get with drawing in particular. I really WANT to be able to do my own art for my characters, and be able to produce gorgeous art for my favorite characters out there. ^^

I am currently using Mark Crilley's tutorials on YouTube to try and learn these better, as well as some tutorials from Naschi on DeviantArt to help improve my art. So far, it seems like Mark's tutorials have been helping me immensely...we'll see when I scan and upload some of this art though >_>

So while I'm still waiting to actually find a way to scan and upload my stuff, I've finally moved on from doing just heads to the shoulders, arms, hands, and torso. The problem is...I have no idea WHERE to even begin on the placement of each. I know the shoulders are about 1/2 a face away the side of the face (though this can change I believe. For instance, someone who looks like around a 12-year-old or so, wouldn't have the same build as someone that's a full-grown adult). The problem from there is how the arms should look, how the arms connect to the torso, and the size of the torso itself.

I just don't have any good tutorials for these at all, and it's kinda frustrating to not have some kind of way to do these, unlike where there were a couple good tutorials for the head. So if anyone can help out and/or give advice on these specific body parts (note, I am still working on the female body, frontal and angled view), feel free to do so. ^^;;

Nowi was kinda used as a base again, but this was my attempt at a quick sketch (less than 10 minutes or so) of a head in an angled view, with some shading and heavier line art. Could be better of course, but it's not the world's worse I think. I've yet to read the Loomis books I have, nor either of the other books I have, and felt like doing a quick practice to see how I'd do the shading. Light source is from the left. I know my shading isn't exactly stellar either, but I think it's not TOO terrible...maybe.

Couple new ones~ Haven't been practicing enough as I should due to running like 4 projects but...





Bottom one is the newest one. I attempted to do another image of Nowi for the last thing, to see what I could do with the new techniques I learned. It's...a bit better than before? I'm not really sure...*sigh*