Yeah, I honestly don't want to use a Cone-shaped body because of well... this:
http://forums.mcleodgaming.com/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=40482&start=15
But I get what you try to say, so I will get wokring right now.

Okay so, just for practice, I removed her shirt and revealed she wears shorts under them lol:

I'm gonna add the shirt and finish the smock, but I wanted to work on the legs first.
Any criticism?

Okay, but Rosalina and Adeleine are two different stylised characters though. I don't really understand what Living Shadow's work has to do with you not wanting to make Adeleine look like a cone like in Crystal Shards.

Because it's his design of the character, and he's free to change it as he sees fit. If he doesn't want to go with a cone shaped body like the original design in favor of something updated, that's his choice really.

While that's certainly true I think he can speak for himself. He asked for feedback, saying he wanted to make the clothing more akin to Crystal Shards, I replied with a suggestion and asked him why he had taken a specific artistic direction, and he replied with a link and not much else.

Of course he doesn't have to aswer but I was curious and decided to ask further. My intention wasn't to force him to make any specific changes and I think he's well aware of that. Your comment was a it uncalled for.

He already stated that he didn't want to use a cone shape. Instead of trying to push his sprite into a different direction, try to work with the direction he wants to go in.

Honestly, I want to stick with this design because real smocks don't work like coats, so I decided to retain her hourglass shape because I found it more fitting for her. I was asking for criticism because I wasn't sure of the shading and the shape of the arms.

I actually understand keeping an hourglass shape. It makes her look more feminine. The arms look okay in my area. In fact, the whole sprite has some pretty good improvements. The only thing that needs work is the shading. Shading can be hard to comprehend, hell, It's hard for me to explain, but I'll explain in the best of my abilities. The way you have shaded the sprite now is based on the shape of the sprite, and not like an actual body. If the light source is from above, then the shoulders would gain the highest tone along with a high mid tone anti alias. Depending on the way the arms bends, the forearm may get the same treatment, but the lower forearm will have a darker tone. It's kinda confusing when the arm is completely straight. I don't really know how that works. Usually, I just shade in a slash like fashion, leaving the lower forearm with a dark mid tone. The legs usually only gets light tones when perspective comes into play and you wanna show a bend in the knees. The hat actually looks well shaded.

Hope I explained well enough.

I personally thought this made a valid point. I like the fact that he's not following the trend.

Okay Sage, I kind of got what you say, but...
I think I need a visual example. Here's a shading-free version of the sprite (sorta, face and beret look good in my opinion, and the shorts are gonna be replaced by the skirt anways, so shading isn't important there).
Could you arrange the shading so I can look at what I did wrong? Some descriptions could help too.

I will only ask for this kind of favor once, because I will make the rest of her animations.


... What does this exactly means? That I should not give her a "hourglass" shape and better make her a cone?

I prolly didn't shade it in correct perspective, but this what I basically meant. The way the colors are in your current one looked liked the shading of a sphere or a cube with the wavy positioning of the shades. I sorted the shades out a little better and made them more thinner. Hope that helps and looking forward to the animations. ^^

... Actually, the light ssource was from above...
But thanks anyway.

Pretty much. I mean Adeleine is wearing a large sweater(?) and a skirt, not a shirt with shorts.


She is pretty cone-like.

I made the shorts just to work on the legs, they're being covered by the skirt right now.
The shirt was suppossed to be a smock, but I can't really find a proper way to do make it look like a smock.
I'm working on a new arm, mostly because I felt the arm was too "straight". But I think that the current arm looks too stretchy, but I wanted to know your opinion.