In my opinion, it looks very pillow-shaded. The trick here is have the second shade (middle pink) be AA to connect the first and third shades. Right now the body and the head look like they've been done by different people. The animation doesn't really make sense either.

I sure remember you though. You're that guy who loves to perfect Kirby in the Super Smash Bros Project in TSR. Welcome back!

Yeah, I was hoping to get a sort of free-jiggly motion out of the strange shading, but it didn't show up at all. I've been redoing it in the time I have.
That's rather the point that is doesn't make sense. Just messing with motions that I've never really done before. My plan now in redoing the motion is to clean it up, and then messing with the timing to get a sort of delay that could enforcing a sort of bouncy, but not visible ripple.
(like how there's a delay between Kirby's bouncing up and down and when he swings his arms [referring to his Idle])

Ha yep, that's definitely me you're talking about XP.

I've been throwing a bunch of different things around, and I kind of like this one.

It has a sort of Dreamland 3 feel too it.
Yes, I know the shading is still off a bit, but I think it's a little better.

@Dithered cap
That is what I meant by saying "making the body rounder may solve the [neck] problem". I'm not a big dithering fan, though.

I compared the two large sprites next to eachother, and I like the new one too! The newer picture seems to have a much softer appearance to it, using lighter outline colors and shading dithering. It looks quite nice, but I think the color point between the body and the head (the neck) is noticably visible.

The body during the animation seems a little too rectangular, becoming more apparent the flatter the character becomes. I think the body should resemble closer to a half-oval on top of a smooth wide rectangle while the creature is at it's flattest point.

Oh.
About the game, I have a looooooooooooot of ideas, but I don't usually write them down. I'll take a look at my books and see if I find something that could be usable.
I'll see if I can think of anything else and tell you.

There is a flash program called flixel that is a cool gamemaker, as it (unlike others) don't do it all by itself but just aids us.

I would love to make a 3D game, but I haven't ever done anything 3D <- have (not) ever/never, what I'm studying right now at the english course. Kinda hard to remember all the past participles as we don't often use them, but the teacher told us a trick..

@MultiSenhor[first]
Yeah, I figured. I'm not a huge fan of it either. This is literally the first time I've tried it, and it too awful didn't turn out awful. It sort of adds a fluffiness to Cap.

@shyan
Thank you! I'm really liking this one a lot better too. I will be lightening that area up, along with touching everything else up a bit.

That whole first attempt was kind of more like a basis for me to have something to look at, and plan out the final version. It certain was much to rectangular. The final is going to look a lot looser (especially the ears), so don't worry. I am worried about the ears though. I want them to sort of be "flapping", for say. I guess "flopping" would be more correct =).

@MultiSenhor[second]
When you do, don't hesitate to shoot me some PM's or something. I'd love to start tossing ideas. I've got a few myself anyways...

Ooooh, I love pretty much every flixel game that I've played on Newgrounds, so I'm sure this could turn out well.

I think to start with, because I have little experience with creative 3-dimensional art of any kind (I'm much more of a drawing and painting sort of person), that it would be best to start in the 2nd dimension. Plus, my computer couldn't handle it I'd bet.

I hate the dithered sprite. It feels rough now and your dithering has one of the oddest yet simplest patterns that doesn't work on the sprite.

Well, I do appreciate you expressing your opinion, but I think I'm going to stick with the dithered Cap for awhile, and see what happens.


Did some tweaking and added a hand. Look nice and soft now. Problem with the softness is animating it...

The purpose is learning, am I right?

And yeah, I don't either, but I just mean that 3D could have a more elaborated gameplay. But may an action RPG like Terranigma or KH:CoM (just an example, it would have its own gameplay).

I'll see if I can learn something, draw some stuff, sprite a bit and I'll tell you if anything.

When you added the hand, something about the hand seemed strange to me; it seems to lack a little definition and shape as the previous design's hand. I also agree that with dithering to that degree, it may take significantly longer to sprite the individual images. Unless you plan on the dithered sprite being the "final piece" or "final draft", I'd think that using the old design would save you uncalculated amounts of time, especially when it comes to animating rough drafts. Besides, when a good animation is produced, you can just edit the design from there.

MultiSenhor, you mentioned something about a game? What might it be referring to?

Dithering would work on that sprite if it wasn't dithered so badly. Try again. Choose spots where you want it to have dithering, don't dither everywhere. Also, your selout is very confusing.

Indeed.

Maybe we could do some sort of game with 2D graphic, but a more 3D environment...?

I'll start brainstorming as well.



Yeah, I think I'm going to darken the outline a bit to something that look a bit more like the ear's outline. I'm not worried about time or difficulty. I'm worried that because it looks so soft (or whatever you want to call it, but to me it looks soft), the animation won't look as stable, for say. The animation will have to match the style - very smooth and soft.
I may edit the old one to have equal proportions to the new one, then animate that. After doing that I'd detail it and such...


Well, I for one don't think it's done badly, and am satisfied with how it is for now. It's not dithered everywhere, on in the spots where I want it to be.
What do you mean by sellout?

Selout is selective outlining. That's when you don't always use a single color for the outline, but also shade the outline.

If you don't want to remove the dithering it's fine, but at least tone it down. One of the best ways it can be the toned down is reducing the amount of space the 2nd shade is consuming in the sprite. If you look at your earlier sprite, the head has the 2nd shade as AA only, however, the 2nd shade on the body part is consuming almost as much space as the 3rd shade, making the shading look like banding.

A dream-esque possibility.

@Kirbyfan
Yeah, that's what I meant, a faux 3D thing, kinda like those games.

Or maybe mode 7 with a pixel art scaling algorithm (but that would be a bit complicated, maybe when I'm more advanced at this :p).

@Kirbyfan/Shyan
Yeah, I think there are too many shades for dithering to be used, it works better with less shade.
And also, the dithering should slowly disappear/blend with the other shaded, not break into a non-dithered shade (for the lighter shade in the belly).