sprite lineart -- suggestions please?

[roankun]

Please note that this is my very FIRST line art.

Alright, err... looking for suggestions. I'm not sure if what I'm doing is right (although if my instincts are working well now [dawn] they SHOULD be). Be the most critical you can, although, please stay nice. I'm still in high school and at a very critical age. XD

There's something wrong with the eyes, I think, and it's not just because it's pure black (gonna change that later). And I'm gonna try to put a blazer/button down shirt on him, or something. I dunno what to do for his winter uniform. And I'm gonna have cut back that shirt and put some arms. Although I have a feeling that it's not gonna work out the way I want it to.

I'm thinking of working on his other poses/expression first before working on the coloring. What do you think I should do first?

And I think I'm gonna need help with the coloring. I have no idea how to start. lol. I've read LateWhiteRabbit's posts on previous threads, but I didn't really find them helpful (yet). Yeah, they were interesting, but I don't really know what to with everything that he said. They did stick to my mind though. Thanks for all the tips.

So I was wondering what tools I should use and which program. I've got Photoshop, GIMP, Photoscape and SAI (although I've never actually used Photoscape and SAI before). And which tools SHOULD I use for coloring? Gradient, brush, fill?

P.S. Don't mind the crappy signature. I just felt compelled to add it.
P.P.S. I scaled down the original image by 50%

[xSamChan]

What do you need suggestions for exactly? ;A;
I think the line-art looks fine, I'd suggest putting the background instead of white, being transparent ~
That way when you choose scenes for your novel it won't look weird. . with a big white square behind your character! ~
Usually, if I were to change the expressions, I'd color first, then pull up another layer (on sai) and change the facial expression, and clean it up so it doesn't look messy with lots of lines all over the place :'D!

I think you should use sai, I mean I use sai, I'm not the greatest example of an artist but so many people do wonderful things with sai . .it's really effective. ~

The tools on sai are easy to use, more people use the brush tool to lineart.
When coloring sometimes people use the pen tool, unless they're going for a more painty style of portrait, then they'd use the water tool (from what my fellow artists tell me ^^)
They also use the water, airbursh or marker tool to blend.
Me, I use brush tool for lineart, and then I color with pen tool, and blend with water tool ^^.

[Reikun]

The line art looks pretty good right now (but scaling down the image actually makes it harder to see your details and make more specific comments).
I haven't made any serious sprites yet, but I think it makes more sense to color first and change expressions later. That way the only thing you might need to recolor is the face rather than coloring every single sprite line art or cut/pasting colors all over the place

As far as tools/programs, pick which ever one you feel most comfortable using. I personally use GIMP (though I have tried Photoshop, but not SAI) and I find it to be just as capable as it's non-open source counterparts.
For coloring, you might want to start by blocking in all the flat colors and then shading/detailing from there!

[Stripe]

As a recommendation, I'd say draw bigger~ You say you've scaled it down, but the way it's scaled down makes it hard to see anything. Draw at a stupidly ridiculous size! It lets you add more detail, and then when you scale it down it's still a normal size but looks a lot more polished~

[Auro-Cyanide]

This thread might be useful to you: http://lemmasoft.renai.us/forums/viewto ... 26&t=12885 since it included some step-by-step done by Deji.

It hard to tell if the inking is okay from the size, but generally it looks fine. The clothing doesn't fit the body too well, so it might be good to pull up some photo references in the future.
Programs will depend on preference. Deji uses Sai for instance, and I use Photoshop. We both use talets and the brush tool to ink and paint.

With colouring you should always put base layers down under the lineart, each colour on a seperate layer. You can then mask or lock those layers so you can shade them however you want. There are literally millions of different ways to colour so you will have to find one that suits you best. I made this tutorial a while back that shows some basic digital colouring techniques http://auro-cyanide.deviantart.com/gallery/#/d3g5xnz

[roankun]

Thanks for the replies, everyone.

Sorry for scaling it down. it's a bad habit of mine. I haven't done anything with it yet, but here it is again, with transparent bg (I have no idea why I exported it with white bg) and full res.

It's still ridiculously small though, since I read somewhere before that you should do at around 1000X4000 or something.

P.S. What's inking?
P.P.S. I'd just like to mention that I drew this by mouse (initial sketch was scanned) and that I have no (money) tablet. And that this lineart along took me four hours.

[Auro-Cyanide]

Your lineart seems a little fuzzy which might make it hard to colour. Often it is easier if you lineart is nice and clean and so can provide good guidence on where to colour. Bigger is better with raster (anything that uses pixels) because you can reduce but you can't make things larger. You should probably work at around twice the size you need for the actual sprites in games. Anything beyond that is personal preference for digital stuff. I draw on a massive scale (2480 x 3508) and Deji (using her as an example again XD) uses something much smaller. It depends what works for you.

Inking is just the term used for making your lineart (residual term from actual physical inking involving real ink).

[xSamChan]

Yayy! Congrats on making it transparent -y-
I agree with Auro-Cyanide,the less less fuzzy lines the better.

[Sapphi]

From what I can notice at a glance:

- His ears are very large compared to his face. Here's a link that explains a trick for drawing ears in the right proportion: http://www.drawingcoach.com/drawing-realistic-ears.html

- His collar on his shirt is too small (yeah, minor nitpick, but I love collared shirts). Remember that when fully buttoned, the collar, by design, would cover his entire neck. All this needs is a quick study of an actual collared shirt and you'll probably notice the difference.

- He looks like he is wearing girl pants. This is the most distracting thing to me about this guy. It's probably partly because they're flared at the bottom, but I like that look on a man, so don't change it What is working with the flare and really making them look like girl pants is that they are tight on his thighs and curvy. His right thigh especially is approaching womanly territory. I'm not really sure how I would remedy this, since you seem to have drawn it that way to indicate his weight shift, but I figured I would mention it.

That said, this is really good for a first lineart. I love the varying lines, and I like his shoes. I can never draw feet and shoes correctly, especially on men, so I am very jealous.

[roankun]

@Auro-Cyanide and xSamChan

How do I make it lezz fuzzy?

Um, let me just explain how I do it, so that you can tell me the right way.
I used Photoshop. Set Brushes > Shape Dynamics, everything to pen pressure. Then I use paths, and simulate pressure. This is pretty much the result I get. How do I make it less fuzzy then?

@Sapphi

The link seems to be broken. I can access it on cache, but the images aren't loaded.

I think I see what you mean about the collar but... In my sprite, it isn't just a collar, but it also has this kind of other layer thingy? (why did I make it that way anyway?) You know, the two triangle? So how do I make the collar go around the neck while still retaining those two triangle? Or should I remove those and just make a normal collar? My bad. I think I finally see it. I'll get to work on that. XD

About the leg, well, I didn't actually have shift-in-weight in mind when I drew that. XD So as a remedy(?), I kinda lessened the curve on his right thigh. What do you think?

Thanks for the compliment. I really needed that.

[Tag-]

What you could do since you use photoshop is duplicate the lineart layer. Then for the copied layer, go to filters > blur > Gaussian blur, then adjust it as you see fit. That's one way of making the lines less fuzzy.

[JustAnotherMe]

I'll just say this; again; because you said that you use mouse: use SAI- use the curve tool- use the pressure tool- and voila!! You'll get a really nice line art in no time!!!

[xSamChan]

@ roankun
Well I'm not very familiar w/ photoshop since I don't use it,
but I agree with JustAnotherMe, ^^

I'll just say this; again; because you said that you use mouse: use SAI- use the curve tool- use the pressure tool- . .

It's a very handy technique. Having both sai and photoshop on your side wouldn't hurt~

[roankun]

Tried making another sprite to test SAI out, and boy was I surprised. SAI is very useful. XD The sprite I made in PS took me 5 hours, this one made one SAI was just roughly 1 1/2 hours.

Here it is. One has errr... weight? And the other has less weight(?). Loliprof.png actually has varying pressure on the lines, but it wasn't too visible (1pt), so I tried putting weight (3pt). Not sure if it looks good. What do you think?

Err, I've only drawn men, so I'm kinda at a loss on how to draw girls.
I mean, sure, they should be kinda the same but... err... I'm having problems with the chest area. Like, how to make it obvious that she DOES have a chest, without making it overly out of proportion.

[Auro-Cyanide]

Either line width is fine, it depends what kind of feel you want to go for and what kind of colouring style you use. The thicker one will be more cartoony feeling though.

Females have a lot of difference to men, as well as the breast. Women tend to have narrower shoulders and wider hips. They tend to be 'softer' because the female body contains more fat. Something like this may help you figure out the differences http://browse.deviantart.com/?qh=&secti ... y#/d37hxqq