I'm having some serious trouble! I simply cannot draw decent looking female characters at this level. The guys in my game are only about 17x34 pixels in size. Which is very stout and short. It seems impossible to convert the guy sprites into women. Here is my best attempt I've studied the crap out of old-school RPGs, but the characters in those are even smaller than mine, having only about 30 pixels total for a head If anyone has a clue how I can improve/redo this, let me know. EDIT: The one on the left is a guy, just in case it's not obvious! [edited by - Jiia on March 19, 2004 4:53:09 AM]

In my opinion the one without the outline for everything looks most coherent and another suggestion is to look at the effects of the chin, in the article so you want to be a pixel artist..

It''s a medieval theme, and my guy sprites are not yet dressed in this way. I have only a template for them so far, with hundreds and hundreds of bodies/heads/legs which get glued together in my animation editor.

Which one doesn''t have an outline??

Pixel artist? Hell no, but it sure beats posing and rendering 3D models in Max/Poser. It''s amazing what types of expressions you can give guys this size. I have their eyes & mouth seperated from their head, and their facial expressions show through all of their animations. I would never be able to do that with 3D renders.

I think he mean the article, "So You Want To Be A Pixel Artist."

I think you''ve got a good start here, actually. The biggest problem I see is the angle of the arms. The guy''s hang straight down, but the girl''s angle in towards the body. Besides being a somewhat awkward pose, I think that makes her shoulders look broader than they are. Not very femme. I would have the arms hang down, or even angle out slightly, and possibly bring the shoulders in. You could also try bringing the shoulders down a pixel, maybe even two, to make them look less bulky.

A slightly redder color for the lips and maybe a pixel''s worth of lowered neckline on the dress might help, too, but I think the shoulders are the biggest issue.

"Sweet, peaceful eyelash spiders! Live in love by the ocean of my eyes!" - Jennifer Diane Reitz

Alright! I did some fast editing of your sprite. I made her big arms skinnier and more ladylike. Plus I made her huge head a little smaller, or less "wide".... heheh

http://www.geocities.com/geminus10/Womanfix.gif
here is it, copy and paste into your browser.



"Like the clouds, he has no place to go, and like the water, he never stops."

Like this?

As you can see, lowering her shoulders made her head a bit bigger. I tried to fill the space with plain black pixels, but I usuallu try to avoid that. Also, I think her arms look a lot better with your suggestion. Thanks!

Any more ideas?

No offense dude, but the guys make her look anorexic. And her head now looks twice as big compared to her body. I appreciate the try though. It would work if my guys weren''t so damned huge.

Oh yeah, to all those concerned. The little "V" on her chest is supposed to be lining in the dress, not outlines of her breasts. Does it look like it''s supposed to be breast lines? I''ll remove them if so.

I can''t really see the picture, but if you''re looking for good advice on pixelling, I highly recommend going to the forums at pixelation.swoo.net. They have a lot of amazing pixel artists there, and tons of board members to give you ideas to help with your pixel art for your game. The forum was founded by the same guy who wrote the "So You Want To Be A Pixel Artist" tutorial

The v does resemble a breast line... perhaps a softer color would help the outline? Maybe even moving it up a pixel and making it spread wider?

Also I think the sprite on the bottom is the best (the one you modded with the caption "Like this logodae?"), but she looks like she's sticking her butt out and leaning forward, almost out of breath or something. Perhaps moving the upper body one pixel to the left would help? And the suggestion above of making a broader neck line was a good one, too. Nonetheless they look very good

[edited by - MajorShredd on March 19, 2004 2:39:40 PM]