Sprite Practice [Critiques Welcomed]

[CCheshire]

Hello,

I've been drawing on and off over the past few years but this the first time I've tried drawing sprites for a VN.



I admit, I am a newbie when it comes to digital art.

Constructive criticism welcomed. Thanks.

[Ant-san]

Maybe you should post a finished (fully-colored) sample first? It's difficult to critique with only sketches ^^"

(though they look pretty good so far )

[MaiMai]

Like Ant-san says, make a completely finished sprite so that there's more to critique and give feedback on. At this stage though, I can just advise you to make sure you have strong and clean line art that supports whatever coloring technique you have in mind.

[CCheshire]

Maybe you should post a finished (fully-colored) sample first? It's difficult to critique with only sketches ^^"

(though they look pretty good so far )

Like Ant-san says, make a completely finished sprite so that there's more to critique and give feedback on. At this stage though, I can just advise you to make sure you have strong and clean line art that supports whatever coloring technique you have in mind.

Sorry about that I should upload the finished sprites soon.

[CCheshire]

Here's one my practice colorings for my sprite:

[MaiMai]

From what I can see, you're trying to color your sprite with a soft CG technique, but unfortunately it doesn't look complete.

1) The coloring isn't neat and goes over the lines.
2) The lineart isn't as very strong; fine lines are fine as long as they're neat, but yours look shaky. You could probably benefit from trying out different line weights.
3) Your shading isn't very well defined; you need to use stronger values.

Also it just looks like you don't know what kind of coloring technique to use resulting in its unfinished look. Have you looked up tutorials for CGing? It helps if you look up different tutorials and try out different coloring methods to see what works for you or combine things you've read in order to have a better colored sprite.

[CCheshire]

From what I can see, you're trying to color your sprite with a soft CG technique, but unfortunately it doesn't look complete.

1) The coloring isn't neat and goes over the lines.
2) The lineart isn't as very strong; fine lines are fine as long as they're neat, but yours look shaky. You could probably benefit from trying out different line weights.
3) Your shading isn't very well defined; you need to use stronger values.

Also it just looks like you don't know what kind of coloring technique to use resulting in its unfinished look. Have you looked up tutorials for CGing? It helps if you look up different tutorials and try out different coloring methods to see what works for you or combine things you've read in order to have a better colored sprite.

I ended up using Sai Tool's vector pen tool to keep clean lines, my free hand inking is much shakier. I could try inking it manually next time.

Yes, I have looked up coloring tutorials but most of them end up focusing on certain parts like skin, hair, or clothes. I'll keep looking around, I admit most of it falls under my problem working with lineart most of the time.

Thank you for the critiques :>

[MaiMai]

If you're going to use the vector tool (which is completely fine, I find it very good), like I said use different line weights or make sure that your lines "taper" at the end.

This SAI vector tutorial should give you a good visual idea of what I'm talking about.

I also have complete tutorials for CGing in SAI that just doesn't focus on just one section.

Part 1 by Rueme (this one gives a basic overview about the tools)
Part 2 by Rueme (part two gives a good headstart on how to approach CGing)

CGing Step by Step by NickBeja (Different technique from Rueme, but still same idea.)

CG Speedpaint by Meago (If you're looking for quicker techniques, I think this tutorial does ok; she uses photoshop, but it's more than applicable in SAI)

Also, technique won't mean much if you don't choose your colors well.

How I See Color (A good crash course in color and how to use it)

I hope this helps!

[CCheshire]

Second attempt at coloring z__z

[MaiMai]

It's a little better compared to your first attempt. You're doing some interesting shading with the red jacket by not using a darker version of the same hue and that's good!

Your lineart is still shaky however and certain places of color still bleed over the lines (including the part where you accidentally colored the ear of the sprite brown like the hair). Skin shading needs to be a lot stronger since I barely see anything defining the planes of the face. I don't think it looks like you actually know what kind of shading style you want to do though. I see a slight cel-shade style in the hair, but everything else looks as if you've been using a soft painterly style to some extent.

The most important part of art in a VN is consistency and it needs to especially show in your sprite if you're willing to put in that much work.

EDIT: Here's my redline and sprite edit. I used my coloring style, only to display that you should achieve neatness. As you can see, the colors don't bleed into each other or over the lines and there are very few patchy places. You just need to make sure you lay down flats and do shading in different layers. (Read those tutorials for elaboration and for actually applying those techniques!)

[CCheshire]

EDIT: Here's my redline and sprite edit. I used my coloring style, only to display that you should achieve neatness. As you can see, the colors don't bleed into each other or over the lines and there are very few patchy places. You just need to make sure you lay down flats and do shading in different layers. (Read those tutorials for elaboration and for actually applying those techniques!)

Hmm, thanks for the critique. I think I have a better idea now for coloring neatness from your example. I was trying for a cell-shading for the body and softer shading for the hair. I'll keep practicing lineart too.

Example of free-hand inking:



This tends to take longer and my lines look less smooth compared to vector line-art.