The VG Resource

Hello all, I've come for some critique. =]



Firstly, I took the cyndaquil from the TUGS preliminary round and shaded it (I was away so I couldn't actually enter). I thought I did a pretty good job, but I'm not the greatest with fire, so if someone could tell me the proper technique I'd appreciate it. =]

Next beside it is a custom oddish I made; I'm trying to break out of the habit of editing others' work because I figure I'll learn more if I try it out myself. I thought I did a fairly decent job, though the leaves may be a little overshaded. I tried to mimic the style of the cyndiquil, but I don't really know the name of the style so I couldn't look up any examples. I figured since the leaves aren't really solid, they shouldn't get a black outline, but I could be wrong there. What should I do to make it better in general and more in style?



Lastly, I tried making a color palette based off the advice of the noob tutorial posted here, and used these colors on the cyndaquil and oddish. Is there anything particularly wrong with any of them?

Thanks a lot. =]

The Cyndaquil's problem is it looks pretty bland.

The way you shaded is fine to me, but the fire should be brightening the area around it, seeing as how fire is a very important light source.

The Cyndaquil's fire looks really boring.
Brighten it up a bit, give it some more life.
The skin/fur could use a little more contrast to bring out the shading.

The Oddish looks like you took two styles and stuck them together.
The leaves have a coloured outline, while the body seems to just have one solid, dark blue shade the entire way around. And the leaves should have some sort of impact on the shading of the head/body.

(09-07-2010, 07:31 PM)Proton Wrote: [ -> ]The Cyndaquil's problem is it looks pretty bland.

The way you shaded is fine to me, but the fire should be brightening the area around it, seeing as how fire is a very important light source.

The Cyndaquil's fire looks really boring.
Brighten it up a bit, give it some more life.
The skin/fur could use a little more contrast to bring out the shading.

The Oddish looks like you took two styles and stuck them together.
The leaves have a coloured outline, while the body seems to just have one solid, dark blue shade the entire way around. And the leaves should have some sort of impact on the shading of the head/body.

Ahh, okay. Yeah, when shading the cyndaquil, I considered the fire as a light source, but I wasn't really sure what color to place against that kind of dark blue skin on him. I guess I could experiment with some colors to see what'll work, unless you have a suggestion.

The fire's "liveliness" and the contrast between the shades is a problem I don't really know how to fix. I spent a really long time selecting the colors, and I'm not sure how to pick good ones. I suppose to make it livelier I should just make all the shades a bit brighter? I'll fix the contrast between shades.

When making the oddish, I figured that the leaves shouldn't really constitute a full black outline since they are flimsy and don't really hold form well. As for the outline around the oddish, it is pure black. And what kind of impact should the leaves have on the shading of the body? Would it affect the light source at all?

Innnnnn addition, I have another one:



I made this before I saw your crits, though.

I think I was more true to cyndaquil's style this time, having the black outline around everything except the fire. His left (our right) leg reallllly bothers me, but I don't know how to fix it. The tail and the fire itself could use some work, too...At this point, an edit of how it's done would be really helpful, to anyone out there.

Needs more contrast.
Jagged lines.
Bad pallet (leaves aren't that bright)
The lineart is also pretty bad.

The easiest way to fix this is probably to take those things into consideration and start again.

(09-07-2010, 08:27 PM)Woppet Wrote: [ -> ]Needs more contrast.
Jagged lines.
Bad pallet (leaves aren't that bright)
The lineart is also pretty bad.

The easiest way to fix this is probably to take those things into consideration and start again.

Haha, all right. I think I'll redo oddish tomorrow. Do you think the line art on oddish's leaves is all right? I thought I did fairly well on that part, but I can see what you mean for the body and charmander as a whole.

Do you happen to know of a good tutorial to create a palette other than the noob tutorial? That one really isn't all that specific...

Thanks a lot, dude. =]

the best way to learn how to pick colors is to basically study other's work, see what would work for the sprite you're trying to make, and simply go trial and error. the noobtorial's main purpose is to show you the basic concepts of hue, contrast and saturation. these three concepts and what they mean are everything you could ever need to know, plus some reading on color theories(actually i'd recomend you to read about Color Theory, if you're adept on research and such).

if there's something you should be aware at the moment of picking up colros is that, no matter what someone could ever say you, there is no universal palette of colors that can be applied to anything. as your knowledge and experience grows, you'd notice that its easier and more natural to pick colors on the fly and adjust/tune them as the piece requires it. sure, you can use bases and such, but depending on what you want to do with the worka nd what you want it to express, its what you'd end using.

well you took blunt criticism without crying or throwing a fit so i have hope for you yet, mr. oddish
so as a reward I'm gonna try to help you out as much as I can

and as for the spheres, most of them aren't perfect but I didn't feel like going in-depth with each of them (although some are actually pretty good, like the first on the left in the second row), but the biggest one that was easy to show something was the final, "grey" one

actual greys with literally zero saturation don't really occur in real life at all, and regardless of whether they do or not picking actual colors that are just CLOSE to gray (i.e. low saturation) looks much nicer, so, do that (I put an example of some "colorful grays" next to the sphere in question)
edit: i tweaked the colors a bit, hope you don't mind (on oddish's "skin")
edit #2: if you want i'll give you a good general guide on picking colors and making palettes at a later date

Thanks, guys. It means a lot to get such in depth C+C with it, I think it'll really help a lot. =]

With the cyndaquil, I was trying to establish a primarily light source to the top right, but I didn't really know how to handle the fire when it came to shading the body, but I'll definitely take it into consideration when I go back and try it again.

As for the contrast, I agree totally with you. I was just being kind of dumb by trying to completely stick to my palette when there really wasn't a good color for shading the skin. I'll definitely revise my palette and add more contrast for that.

The black outline around the oddish was due to me trying to keep in style with cyndaquil, but looking at what you have there, I think it's a lot better. I'll follow the colored border for when I redo it.

About the spheres, the more I sprited with it, the more flaws I found with each. I like the orange and the light cyan blue you pointed out, but I'll pull an overhaul on the rest (unless you think those need to be redone, too).

If you have a guide for picking colors I would definitely like that; it would be really helpful, truly.

As for the color theory, I've looked it up before, but I'll go back and make sure I perfectly understand everything there.

Well, thank you both for the criticism, and I'll try to re-shade the cyndaquil and do over oddish again and edit this post to put it here.

Okay, before I continue with the new line art for the oddish, I would like some criticism on the palette I created.



I think I did a pretty good job employing hue shift this time, and increased the contrast between the shades. I also created a more interesting gray palette, so that's good.

What do you think? Acceptable to start working on oddish?

(09-08-2010, 10:05 PM)Oddish Wrote: [ -> ]Okay, before I continue with the new line art for the oddish, I would like some criticism on the palette I created.



I think I did a pretty good job employing hue shift this time, and increased the contrast between the shades. I also created a more interesting gray palette, so that's good.

What do you think? Acceptable to start working on oddish?

Great Job There. I think you should get crackin'

We'll at least you're not like me when I ignore criticism or get angry. T_T

(09-08-2010, 10:05 PM)Oddish Wrote: [ -> ]Okay, before I continue with the new line art for the oddish, I would like some criticism on the palette I created.



I think I did a pretty good job employing hue shift this time, and increased the contrast between the shades. I also created a more interesting gray palette, so that's good.

What do you think? Acceptable to start working on oddish?

Still needs more contrast between the shades.
Maybe this will help:

I went back one more time and tried to add more contrast to all of them, as you suggested:



How do you think they look now? The yellow gave me a little trouble, and I'm not sure if that's what's best, but I suppose it's acceptable.

Any more crits on the colors before I begin the line art?

Actually, I quite like the bold yellow-green you're using, good job. I'd say you're good to start on your lineart.

PJAMA; please don't make meaningless posts in S&PA. Focus on the thread and hand and not yourself.

I started oddish over and here is my result for the night:



I thought I did a pretty good job with it, tried to establish a light source from above, but a little to the left. I definitely like the new colors better than the old, so that's good.

Some criticism would be helpful; I'll repost another oddish tomorrow after considering what you all say. =]

The leaves seem to be too wide where it connects to the body. If you looks at some official sprites, the leaves taper slightly as they join to the body.