Yarrun's Inarticulate Workshop

Yarrun XIX · 2014-01-25 19:37:58

A little corner that I have carved out for myself so I can celebrate the advancement of my various projects without going into the main thread.

I guess.

Aliroz · 2014-01-25 21:19:27

Yay!

Yarrun XIX · 2014-01-25 21:43:48

First and foremost, I'll need some assistance

Out of these six men of merry, which do you find the most and least uncanny?

Imipolex G · 2014-01-25 21:44:58

Right column, middle and bottom are the best, I think

Anything with a red nose has gotta go

Salix Babylonika · 2014-01-25 21:46:39

numbers 1 and 4, respectively.

Tanya · 2014-01-25 21:46:57

The red nose draws too much focus and thus is by definition more uncanny as the brains tries to process the details of this sprited fellow.

Yarrun XIX · 2014-01-25 21:52:58

So, that's a no on the nose then.

Hmm. On the one hand, this fellow should make the player somewhat unnerved and off-put, which would make the nose a good thing. On the other hand, he's kind of a focal character--in fact, he'll be the first character introduced--so I can't have him scaring off my players.

Tanya · 2014-01-25 22:00:04

Also, the character has a bright red nose against a cool palette, that kind of contrast looks silly.

Yarrun XIX · 2014-01-25 22:11:39

Very well. The red nose is out of the running.

I'll stick with 4 for now. I might use 6 and 2 to express certain emotions.

Yarrun XIX · 2014-01-25 22:57:41

Such an adorable couple of sociopaths.

Imipolex G · 2014-01-25 22:58:15

why does everyone have to be a sociopath these days

Obā-san · 2014-01-25 23:01:24

Imipolex G said:
why does everyone have to be a sociopath these days

because band-canticle grundsmansdottir made it trendy

Yarrun XIX · 2014-01-25 23:04:27

Hmm. Yeah, you're right, that's a bit deceptive.

They have low levels of empathy rather than none, and they're capable of learning from experience.

Crud. Misusing the word 'sociopath' is definitely against the Code of Yarrun. And I'm way too lazy to get up and find the wakizashi to commit seppuku.

Yarrun XIX · 2014-01-25 23:06:15

An adorable couple that hurts people.

Salix Babylonika · 2014-01-25 23:09:57

you should still change the eyebrows on the girl, imo.

Yarrun XIX · 2014-01-25 23:17:17

Hmm, I think I'll keep them.

The only other option that I see is taking out the top two pixels and making them straight lines. That's a bit boring. Also, it'll be easier to switch to straight lines than vice versa.

Yarrun XIX · 2014-01-25 23:28:52

Okay, so I have no idea how to make dark skintones work, which is bad because the next character on the drawing board is black.

I can't help but think I'd be having less trouble with this if there were more black people in videogames.

Tanya · 2014-01-25 23:32:56

Yarrun XIX said:
Okay, so I have no idea how to make dark skintones work, which is bad because the next character on the drawing board is black.

I can't help but think I'd be having less trouble with this if there were more black people in videogames.

Hmmm, This is interesting, what made you decide to make the first two whiteish?

Yarrun XIX · 2014-01-25 23:48:02

The Seer (i.e .the girl in the blood-soaked robe) is...well, it's a bit complicated. Long story short, she's of Asian descent and she's intentionally trying to look dead, so I went with something relatively pale for her. The reason that she's that specific color, IIRC, is because I took it from the skin of some other video-game sprite. I believe she may share skin with Lain Claes. Ah, scratch that. The Seer's a fair bit lighter than Lain.

The Jester's race was never of great concern to me, so I went for an ambiguously brown sort of thing. Ended up a bit lighter than I intended though.

Yarrun XIX · 2014-01-25 23:55:07

The Girl...I quite like the idea of her sharing my race.

So it shall be done, because I hold the reins here.

Salix Babylonika · 2014-01-25 23:56:04

Well, I know it can be done since off the top of my head at least Eva from To The Moon is black.

Maybe just Google it?

Yarrun XIX · 2014-01-26 08:15:21

Eva's a start. I consider her to be more ambiguously brown than a specific race/ethnicity (and if I had to pick one, it'd probably be Indian over black), but she's definitely a good fit skintone wise. And it's better than starting from nothing.

Unrelated, but I looked through a good bit of Eva's fanart and, wow, those are some light skintones you're giving her, fanartists.

Tanya · 2014-01-26 08:18:47

Yarrun XIX said:

Unrelated, but I looked through a good bit of Eva's fanart and, wow, those are some light skintones you're giving her, fanartists.

Yarrun XIX said:
The Girl...I quite like the idea of her sharing my race.

So it shall be done, because I hold the reins here.

I can't help but feel as if these two are related in any manner.

^_^

Yarrun XIX · 2014-01-26 08:49:38

Indirectly, I suppose.

There's a post trending on tumblr about how this one African writer started out writing books as a child, with white children playing in the snow and whatnot. She had never seen white children. she had never seen snow. But that's how the people in the books she read were, so that's how she wrote.

I know I have that tendency in myself as well, and I aim to fight against it.

Yarrun XIX · 2014-01-26 15:09:13

Note: The hardest thing after finalizing the head is connecting it to the body in a way that doesn't look and/or feel stupid.

Yarrun XIX · 2014-01-26 15:10:42

Also, I'm realizing that the Jester has no depth while the Seer does.

Maybe I don't have to change that. The Jester's supposed to be unusual. But it brings my skill level into question.

Aliroz · 2014-01-26 22:43:12

Well, if he is the only depthless one, then it's pretty clear that you have the skill to do depth.

Yarrun XIX · 2014-01-26 22:48:24

I'm only two character's in. There's still a lot of room for doubt.

...Your encouragement is appreciated nonetheless.

Tanya · 2014-01-26 23:11:05

Yarrun XIX said:
Also, I'm realizing that the Jester has no depth while the Seer does.

Maybe I don't have to change that. The Jester's supposed to be unusual. But it brings my skill level into question.

You don't have to necessarily flesh out characters and give them depth to make get people to care about them, but you could at least give vague hints at depth.

I think it more depends on what you want to do with the character.

Yarrun XIX · 2014-01-26 23:35:32

Ah, no, you misunderstand. I mean visual depth.

The Seer has all of those bits that aren't in the foreground, while the Jester doesn't. It makes the sprite seem more three-dimensional.

Yarrun XIX · 2014-01-28 00:29:43

....

It's a start.

Tanya · 2014-01-28 00:48:53

Is that four arms?

Salix Babylonika · 2014-01-28 01:13:57

those are actually pretty good.

You might want to change the tails on whatsername's coat so they don't look like extra limbs.

Aliroz · 2014-01-28 01:38:11

I like it!

We need more six-limbed characters in fiction.

Because six is divisible by three.

Yarrun XIX · 2014-01-28 09:44:20

Yeah, if you're wondering which of those are her arms, chances are that you're wrong

The arms are those four brown pixels above her legs.

It'll be clearer on the side sprites, hopefully

Salix Babylonika · 2014-01-28 15:05:24

Yarrun XIX said:
Yeah, if you're wondering which of those are her arms, chances are that you're wrong

The arms are those four brown pixels above her legs.

It'll be clearer on the side sprites, hopefully

maybe you should make the cottails flair out less.

Yarrun XIX · 2014-01-28 15:09:08

Hmm. Perhaps.

Any closer and they'll be pretty close to the leg pixels though.

Salix Babylonika · 2014-01-28 15:11:00

you could possibly differentiate them with a single line of transparent pixel.

Alternately it mighit be wise to just get rid of them.

Yarrun XIX · 2014-01-28 15:12:04

Ah. Right again, Mr. Mojave. It looks much more respectable.

Tachyon · 2014-01-28 15:30:54

just wondering, but why are her arms so close to her body when the jester dude's arms stick out so?

i think that might be part of what's throwing people off

Yarrun XIX · 2014-01-28 15:43:01

...

Space issues. I'm trying to keep every sprite within 17x27 pixels. The Girl needed space for the coat while the Jester didn't.

I may have to thin out the Jester.

Yarrun XIX · 2014-01-28 15:45:42

That does look a little less uncanny.

Yarrun XIX · 2014-01-28 15:52:14

Okay, so don't thin out the Jester. Widen out the girl a bit and maybe replace the coattails with arms. We can always put them on one of the side sprites.

Yarrun XIX · 2014-01-28 16:05:58

...Conservative. Very conservative. But it'll have to do.

She can't have arms and the jacket at the same time, not from a frontal view. If I try to add more of the jacket here, it'll look like a cape, and that'll just be ridiculous. I might be able to do something in the background. Maybe. Perspective's not my strong suit.

At least I know how to do capes now.

Salix Babylonika · 2014-01-28 16:16:37

she's adorable!

Yarrun XIX · 2014-01-28 16:25:26

I

Now see, this is exactly why it can't look like she has a cape. You'd all be squeeing over her if she had a cape.

She is the most inherently violent of the characters that you've seen so far. Cute is...not what I wanted to evoke. Yet here we are.

Salix Babylonika · 2014-01-28 16:26:15

Most small sprites have a way of looking cute unintentionally.

Also, it will create a nice contrast later on.

Aliroz · 2014-01-28 16:40:43

Right above her belt, on the left side, she has a lighter colored pixel that is not matched on her left side.

Yay for assymettrical sprites!

Tachyon · 2014-01-28 17:05:14

i don't know if this is just me, but sprites with tall, rectangular eyes high on their faces have a way of looking cute

compare Madotsuki to the original Pokémon trainer; the latter seems cuter to me

Yarrun XIX · 2014-01-28 23:23:53

Hohohohohoho

Yarrun XIX · 2014-02-02 09:31:05

Hey, question.

I tried thinning out the Jester so he's the same body width as the Girl. Thoughts?

Yarrun's Inarticulate Workshop

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