Broly, glad you posted these. I like the third best so far, and will post more of what I think soon.

Sorry it took so long to get back to this. Not cool of me.

Broly103 wrote:

Thanks, its was easier then I thought. Just need to know how to add more detail. Such as, muscle and better shading.

I'll try.
Keep in mind, I think this is a really good first effort, and you show a lot of potential.

So, this is where I might take this sprite.


1) Ok, you've got some space above the head. It's hard enough to do sprites in 32x32 so you may as well use all the space you've got for them. Also, you've got some proportion stuff going on that you may wanna change: the arms are very large compared to the torso, the waist is very small, and the legs a bit short. The head is large, but that's kind of common for rpg sprites in general, so aside from some things we'll get back to about the head, it's proportions are fine.
What I did was use the select tool and split the sprite up into a couple of parts. I then moved the arms, torso and head up (to give some space for taller legs), and the arms away from each other (to give some space for a larger torso).

2) Here all I'm doing is going back in and redoing an outline to connect the pieces.

3) Lemme say that you've got some colors (especially in the flesh tones) that are so close to one another that you may as well have used the same color for all the tones. When picking colors, for a sprite that has only about 16 colors total, go ahead and make them different in shade or color; Different enough that at 1xzoom you'll be able to see the difference.
I used the fill tool to make the torso and head all one single mid range flesh color. I then picked a grey and did the same for the pants and shoes.

4) The arms looked pretty beefy to me, even for an rpg sprite, so I started working on thinning them out a bit (mainly in the bicep area. To do this I took the outline color and placed it on the sheet (top right), then, leaving some space, I placed that mid range flesh tone (from step 3) and (leaving some space for more colors) placed that on the sheet, too (4 square down, top right). In between those, I worked up some colors that, although they're the same hue, are different shades. Now we've got four colors going from darkest (top - the outline color) and lightest (fourth down - the mid flesh color).
These colors will let us blend between the outline and the filled area, softening jagged lines (anti-aliasing) and shading.
I took the second darkest color (second from the top and used it to soften the lines on the inside of the arms (around the biceps). I chose those positions because: a) it's a point where the darkest color is right next to the lightest, and b) because when I looked at the sprite actual size, that area looked jagged in the outline.

5) Here, I was looking for more somewhat jaggy areas and using the second lightest color (third from the top) and softening those areas.

6) Just continuing around the torso here. I even continued to soften up under the arms.

7) Here I used the middle two flesh tones to describe some muscles. It's pretty generic. At this level you don't wanna add too much detail or the final, actual-size sprite will look scattered and messy. Just add some of the larger muscle groups like the pecs and abdomen.
I also used those colors to put a little shade on the neck/chest where the chin and head would block the light (coming from our upper right). The arms are also shaded here with all surfaces on his right side getting an extra line of middle shade (like his right outside forearm and side of torso).

8) Now I'm starting on the lower torso. I decided to raise the knees a bit as that low line shift looked pretty bad. It still does, but at least now he doesn't look like someone shot his kneecaps off. You could in 3.5++/4.0 go into the DM icon editor and put some 50% opacity/alpha over that jagged part to help that, btw.
Anyway, I raised the pants up a bit because the hands will generally reach to about the middle of your upper legs when they're at your side. So, while this isn't perfect, it helps a bit.

9) Now I'm just applying stuff from step 5, 6, and 7 to the greys of the pants and shoes. I also took out the pixels in the heels of the shoes to give them a little more perspective.

A) So, here I'm messin' wit your head a bit. I moved the eyes down a pixel and squashed the sides in. The head isn't exactly a sphere, it's more like a sphere with flattened sides and a curved plane for the mouth and chin.

B) Added the mouth back in and decided to use the lighter color to add a chin under it. I'm not really gonna mess with your eyes because that's a pretty signature thing. The way people do eyes on a small sprite can often tell you who did them without even reading it.

C) I'm shading and anti-aliasing the head. Shading mainly his right side (as the light is from his left). I added a nose by shading down the inside of his right eye and added some darker shade underneath it. Also his right temple.

D) Here I did some color changes. I copied the lightest color and made it a bit lighter (fifth from top right) and for the pants (bottom right). I used these to highlight some of those parts of his body that would be facing right into the light (the forehead, the shoulder/pec, and the top of the pants, knee, and shoes). Use highlights really sparingly. It's easy to go overboard.
I also added a darker version of the darkest flesh tone to shade under his right arm and on the insides of both arms.
I decided I'd round the figure just a bit by bringing the belly out and making the whole figure (hopefully) curve like a cylinder.
I also lightened the blue of the eyes to give the dark pupils a little separation from the eyebrows. I lightened that blue even more and put it in the lower corners to make the eyes a bit more round (whether it worked or not I don't know - he's a bit more cross-eyed now).
More, I lightened the outline on his left shoulder and the left/top of his head. This is related to a technique called selout, where you shade the outline as well as the figure.

E) I then tried it on a dark background to see if I'd need to change anything, and, yep, I did. I brought the darker colors of the forearms all the way up (compare D & E) and darkened the right shoulder a bit more.

Anyway, that's the way I might do it. You don't hafta, your style choices are yours, so just be aware of and expand on what you can do and that'll give you more options.
That's my two cents anyway.

BUMP