Any tips/criticisms for my latest attempt to make a sprite

[n1ghthaunter]

Hello, I don't post her often (I think maybe twice since I found ren'py a few years ago. but I enjoy creating stories and had a go making them into short simple kinetic and visual novels but used random pictures I found online for BG's etc.

Anyway I started creating a larger story which is no doubt stupidly large for one person to do but I don't mind if it takes two years or so to complete as I'm just doing it for fun. I would however like to have actual sprites for my characters and so I'm going to try and make them myself. I've tried to make sprites in the past so my first one for this VN is actually the 4th sprite I've attempted to make.

Here are the first 3 sprites I have made;
My 1st ever sprite.
https://kamihunters.files.wordpress.com ... 8/alec.png

My 2nd attempt after trying out the vector tool...
https://kamihunters.files.wordpress.com ... 8/naru.jpg

MY 3rd going back to mouse drawn after how durpy the previous face looked.
https://kamihunters.files.wordpress.com ... jtan01.jpg

And below is my forth one which if possible I would like some feedback on whether I am doing anything particularly wrong with her or areas for improvement (no doubt there are many but it looks much nicer then my first sprites =P ). I am also putting in part of the profile I have on this char (excluding her actual plotline) so you can get a feel of the character in the blue text at the bottom of the post.

https://kamihunters.files.wordpress.com ... a-body.jpg <- fullsize as it seemed a bit big for the post

And as a note at the end I mainly use Adobe fireworks CS6 but I also have Photoshop CS3. I don't have a tablet at all.

Mia
Ability: Thermal Supremacy - She can control the amount of thermal energy being transferred by an object which involves both absorbing and releasing energy. The result is that she can change the temperature of objects around her forcing them to burst into flame or drop to absolute zero but requires skin contact to make these changes.

Prior to route: she only turns water into ice from the water bottle she carries around. You do not know her full ability until you are on her route. She is however considered one of the more powerful Adepts.

Class: 12N
Height: 5ft6
D.O.B.: (17)

Home : She lives with her grandparents in the country. It is a cottage high on the hillside.
Family: Her father died during the Divergence, due to Mia's power. Her mother lives with her other daughter as she is afraid of Adepts and doesn't want to lose another family member. Her sister is also afraid of her and has not spoken to her since she was hurt by Mia.

Appearance
Hair clip from protagonist during her route as a gift of a Pericallis Senetti. She originally Wears a green one.
carries a bottle of water around all the time.

Background
When she was younger her mum was in a coma at hospital due to a car crash prior to the Divergence. Mia visited with her dad and grandparents. After a while she got bored so her father took her out the hospital for a walk in the park to get some ice cream. That's is when the Divergence occured, her dad takes her hand to try and pull her to safety but the moment he touches her he shatters into pieces. No one told her mother that Mia killed her father after she recovered and her mother became really fearful and untrusting of Adepts wanting nothing to do with them.

A few months after the Divergence Mia also hurt her younger sister with her power which resulted in Mia being separated from her younger sister who was afraid of her. Mia now lives with her grandparents and hasn't seen her sister in over 6 years.

When she was 8 on a day out shopping with her grandparents, she runs into a dog while at the park and when cuddling it, accidently burns it as she does not have full control of her power. This dog belonged to one of Stacy's friends although they did not meet when they were young. Stacy was blamed for this incident by her friend.

Because of how her power has hurt and killed in the past, she is afraid to get close to people in case she hurts them too. However deep down she wishes that she could make amends with her sister. She is afraid of her power and has got by within school through only using a small portion of it.

She escapes the world through reading but as she lives in the country and tries to avoid people she has also spent a lot of time wandering the woods near her home. She is very agile and good at climbing trees.

Personality
Mia is generally a quiet hard working and intelligent girl who can often seem somewhat distant as she rarely communicates with those around her.

So yes any tips, critisisms or glaring mistakes other then me not actually doing her hairclip yet as it's just a cropped photo I took on my phone with a colour overlay would be appreciated.

[Glitterbark]

Wow, these are being drawn with a mouse? That's impressive! I can see notable improvement from each sprite, so you're definitely making great progress!

As for points of improvement... The hair looks a little odd! Most notably, there's a space in the back where there's an obvious gap in hair, and it makes it look like the back of her head is shaved! Unless its intention, I'd work on making the hair fall a little more naturally. Reference images help a lot! There's no shame in using reference, and they can help you make giant leaps and bounds in improving your art. Also, the twist of her body look a little unnatural - most notably, the right side seems slanted in too much. I can sorta do that position if I try, but it's uncomfortable!

Reading about the character, she seems to be a little shy and withdrawn? The image seems a little direct for that, with her gaze meeting the viewer, and I'd almost consider her body posture to be kind of outgoing, or at least somewhat playful!

I hope some of that helped. I really am impressed you're drawing these with a mouse, and at the progression in your images. Good luck on your projects, and on future sprites/alterations to this one!

[n1ghthaunter]

Thanks for the feedback, I honestly hadn't noticed about the hair missing at the back although looking now it seems very obvious =P I've found hair the most awkward part of the head to do so far although I haven't used any references for it (unlike the body when everything was screaming about proportions before my latest sprite). I'll try and find some hair styles similar to what I want my charaters to have and build on them. As for posture I just tried to add some sort of angle to it so that the sprite didn't appear quite so plain and lifeless and didn't give much thought to her posture as I was more focused on the clothing she would be wearing and how it will vary slightly between characters.

I'll continue with my sprites and try to match the posture in with the characters personality more and hopefullly by the time I've done most, if not all the sprites for the characters I need, I can go back and touch up/redraw my earlier ones to bring them on par with the rest.

[hiko27]

If you have a scanner and you can draw better traditionally, I suggest you do that instead, that way you can get all the important details on there already. Also, so that she's not just standing there, change the perspective on her face. I usually do 3/4 profiles for my characters, that way it's not so bland.

Also, show her personality through body language. If she's a shy person and is a little closed off, have her face slightly looking down at the floor, or have her arms close to her body. Have her default expression be a shy one, maybe you can also change her hairstyle to make it so that it hides parts of her face?

Another thing is line variety. It's really hard to get line variety when using a mouse, but it's doable. It's good that you have Photoshop. You can use the pen tool. When you stroke the line, select the brush tool. Ofc, to get the stroke effect you normally would with a tablet, play around with the brush's settings. I think a soft round brush does the job, and I do believe there's going to be a checkbox somewhere there for the pen tool if you select the make stroke option. Turn that checkbox on, it's what emulates the stroke effect. Also, don't be afraid to create sharp edges, it gives more variety to you sprite. And having all curves to your sprite makes her clothing look all chunky. And lastly, don't do shortcuts. That's the hard part about using the pen tool. You could just finish a L curve in one stroke rather than two or three. Don't. Take the time to carefully do things. Don't rush.