Character Art Style Feedback

[Chieftac]

Hello everybody,

I made multiple characters for my game in the same style. There are all made in Microsoft Paint because i'm still not very good in making drawings with Anti Aliasing involved. First i made all the characters in pixel-art format and after that i resized them by rounding up every pixel (yes it took me hours of work). But i just wanted to know if you liked my character art style and if you maybe know something to improve or change. They are all female at the moment with a couple of body variations. They also all have the same faces but im still working on the different emotions. I wanted to use these characters in my first game called Pai Yousei (Translated to "Boob Fairy"). I can give you the backstory if you want.

[Lola]

I've never heard of "pai" being used alone to mean boob. Maybe I just don't read enough hentai anymore? XD But you should put a bit more research into your title to make sure it's correct. ^^

As for your style, do I like it? Personally I think it has a cute nostalgic feel to it, but that's just me. Art is an important factor in deciding whether or not a person will read or play something. Most people aren't going to give a poor story with poor art a read, a great story with poor or so-so art will get a pass (At least that's the case with manga,) and a great story with great art is a big win/win.

Do you think your art is appealing enough to attract potential gamers? Is your story good enough to make up for any shortcomings that may lie with the art? Your art should fit the story, if you don't think it's good enough then either practice or get a artist on board with you.

Why don't you tell us your plans for the game? Is this a project you're doing for fun or profit? Do you plan on doing everything solo?

If you want to do all the art by yourself to keep costs down then I could give you a few starter tips that helped me. Your designs are cute and I would like to see some of them in full body.

[PN04]

People's opinion of art is subjective, What looks great to one person can be horrible to another. I think what matters though is if the art style fits the product you're making and that it's consistent. To me these characters come across as cute, fun caricatures, not very serious , but they are consistent in their style and design.

[Chieftac]

After some more research on the internet i now know it's Oppai instead of only pai . I will change the title to "Oppai Yousei". I'm making this project just for fun to try out the Ren'Py Software and all his features. I always wanted to make some of my ideas into stories. Because it's just for fun i'm working solo on this project. I know that the characters look unfinished because the don't have arms and proper legs/feet but i am also not very good in drawing those. I like the style that some people call the Rayman-style because of the floating hands without arms because then it looks more cartoony to me. The same goes for the legs.

But enough about the art i will tell you a little backstory of the game. As you maybe already guessed because the characters are all female the game has a lesbian undertone and that's where the game mainly is about. It's a love story about magic versus technology. The story takes place in the future on a all-girls highschool (again?, yes again!). The protagonist isn't a big fan of all this technology and is more into the magical stuff. That's why she always is left out which makes her a loner untill she meats a real fairy. This fairy uses her magic powers to grand her multiple wishes to show everybody that magic is better then technology. The protoganist also likes one of her classmates but can there relationship stand strong against the technology and the magic of the fairy? The game will also be 18+ for obvious reasons!!

I had also plans for another much bigger story in which a boy was transported to another dimension in which the earth was square and was inhappited by different kind of humans, aliens and monsters, but i'm still working on that story for over 5 years now :S. I don't know if i ever make a visual novel of that story but if the game i'm working now is popular enough then i will try maybe.

[Lola]

Rayman? That's why it felt so nostalgic! I haven't played a Rayman game since early 2000's!

Sounds like a fun idea to try out for your first project~! The folks here seem pretty nice and helpful, so I'm sure they'll give you advice as you progress. I'm also working solo on my VN, so if you ever need any encouragement just ask!

Now this might sound weird, but I have a tiny request: Could I draw one of your characters for practice? XD I took a liking to the Fairy character and I really, really want to draw her. :3

[Chieftac]

Rayman? That's why it felt so nostalgic! I haven't played a Rayman game since early 2000's!

Sounds like a fun idea to try out for your first project~! The folks here seem pretty nice and helpful, so I'm sure they'll give you advice as you progress. I'm also working solo on my VN, so if you ever need any encouragement just ask!

Now this might sound weird, but I have a tiny request: Could I draw one of your characters for practice? XD I took a liking to the Fairy character and I really, really want to draw her. :3

If you don't use the drawing for anything else then practice then i don't mind. In the final game she equally will be much smaller resized then all the other characters. Instead of being the same size like in the posted picture. Too bad that the picture size can't be higher then 800 because the original sprites of the characters are much bigger then in the posted picture.

[Chieftac]

In almost every visual novel is see that the characters are only visible above the whaist/hips and that the legs are behind the textbox for most of the time or not visible at all. Why is it done this way? Is it not good when the full character is visible? I have small character sprites of fully visible characters and now i want to know if i need to make them bigger or something that the legs are behind the textbox. Do the characters legs always need to be behind the textbox or is this not required for a good visual novel?

[PN04]

I think a lot of games simply do it because that's been the most common way of doing it. The medium shot, for the most part, seems like the easiest way to show a majority of the character at a high detail level without breaking the illusion that they're standing in the place that the background represents (since you can't see their feet you can fake the perspective). Plus it's close enough that it seems like a normal distance for a first person conversation if the game is seen from the player's point of view.

If you can envision a better way of displaying your characters and still get the story across the only issue with it would be how well it's excepted by the people playing your game.