So, I have decided to create a fan game. I was considering making a case involving a Black Jack crossover, wherein the surgeon is accused of intentionally killing a patient and must be defended by, of course, Phoenix Wright.

Additionally, I have created a small cast of characters for the original cases to be included in the game. Unlike Black Jack, these characters are confirmed and will certainly be in it.

I would like advanced critique on all of these sprites, as I am making them almost entirely from scratch to avoid having them look like the preexisting characters. After all, not to sound snide, but I want the characters to look like new individuals rather than a bunch of Edgeworth recolours wearing Godot's visor.

Therefore, if I have made mistakes in making my sprites, I would greatly appreciate critiques and advice on how to fix them.

I shall first present to you the sprite used as my avatar, Black Jack in his neutral pose with a slightly adjusted face. (That is to say, his neutral pose doesn't normally feature the slight smirk.)

I have created several poses for this character, and shall post them later, along with the rest of the cast. In the meantime, how is this first sprite?

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wow its pretty good you might want to do some shading but apart from that i can't wait to see the rest of the cast

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Looks great so far. You seem to have a real talent for this. Ah, though I do recommend some shading on the clothing though.

I'm loving his hair your shading is really something.

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Interesting...
Dracula man without teeths.

Looks nice =)

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Looks great. :)

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Wo-how..Looks..That's the best..Wow, your sprite looks awesome, where is the rest?

We really need you. NEED MORE SPRITES!!

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......You scare me, Su =)

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Well, there's no MultiQuote feature so I'll answer you like this.

Lottie and LadyK: Thank you so much for the kind praise. Ah... Shading. I'll fix that right away, thank you.

Zinle: Dracula man? Hahaha, I've thought myself on many an occasion that Black Jack does resemble a vampire. But, he is a human whose body was damaged by an explosion and reassembled by a genius doctor. He's from a classic manga by Osamu Tezuka.

Sphinx: Thank you.

SuzuneAyasato: Wh-whoa, thanks!
More sprites will be added tomorrow!!

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You can click quote for the first person you wish to quote, then if you'll scroll down you'll see a "Topic review" that includes more "quote" buttons which you can click to add to your post, just like clicking on the BBCode or smilies. [/PROTIP]

Anyway, very nicely done~ Aside from the shading suggestion, which others have already said, also note that there are some mis-colored blinking pixels on his right upper-arm (our left) during his blink animation.

... Also, I thought that the side of his face was blue with a scar, but I guess that was only the manga. Huh.

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Always there if you need someone to comment/scare you. :3

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Fixed! I completed his body, added shading and definition, and fixed the grey pixels that appear during the blinking.

Thanks for the tip, Jeti. And yeah, it's blue in one manga, brown in the other and in the anime, and tan in the "Infections" and "Seizures" films. I just picked the brown because it's my personal preference. (Whoa, I'm glad someone recognizes him!)

Anyway, here's the completed sprite.


Here's one of his expressions.





And here's Dr. Kiriko. He is another character from the same manga. (The original characters come next)
The "doctor of death", he's a witness and possible suspect in the Black Jack case who refuses to give detail on what happened. What is he hiding?



The book was a real bitch to make, on account of the pages not wanting to turn out realistically enough. But there was a lot of satisfaction in seeing this baby complete. Yeah, he is taller than Black Jack and has broader shoulders. That's just the way they are.

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Dr. Kiriko definetly looks like Orochimaru from Naruto :D

Although, VEEERRYY GOOOODD!!

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No prob! I figured something of the sort, that kinda thing happens all the time (though it always drives me crazy, trying to decide what color scheme to go with).

So, just some tips on shading:

I can see that you're very good at shading faces, but I think your clothes/body shading could use some work. With cloth, very often less is more. If you check out the sprites for suit-wearing PW characters, you'll notice that there are predominantly three main colors--highlight, shading and outline. There's often a light outline color and a middle tone just to make things a little smoother, but those two come after the fact. To give an example, Edgeworth's suit uses only three colors--the shading color doubles as the lighter outline color. The Bellboy character uses exactly five colors, one for each function (he's not as thrifty as Edgy, I guess.) More colors usually means something is SHINY. Or breasts. Sometimes it even means shiny breasts. (Desiree, anyone?)

Although you're only using three colors, because you're using the outline color to double as a shading color, you're making things seem too round... so your shading gives off the effect of being chubby. Typically a shading color can be used as an outline, but the outline color should not be used for shading. After all, the outline color is there simply to provide definition and is therefore usually quite a bit darker than your shading color. Your outline color, in order to make it blend enough to be a shading color, doesn't seem quite dark enough and again adds to the effect of everything being soft and round.

Even if you don't actually use the sprites to create your characters (I know the sentiment well), I think it's still often nice to benefit from the color palette used on the PW characters. Often, when trying to create a palette from scratch, colors tend to be too close together or seem "grayed out." Although pink suits seem to be the way to go in the PW world, there are a few characters who dress a little more somber, and I think you could put their color schemes to good use. Luke Atmey, Mia Fey, Damon Gant('s shirt) and Romein LeTouse (GS4) all have nice black suits. Phoenix, Mike Meekins, Jake Marshall and Lamiror & Kristoph Gavin (GS4) all feature varying shades of blue that may be helpful for Dr Kiriko and Alita Tiala (GS4) has colors that may help with his cravat.

For the placement of the shading, it's all around pretty good, but you may want to look at the way suit lapels are shaded on Edgeworth or Romein LeTouse (who features more colors. Kristoph Gavin's clothes are actually pretty similar to Black Jack's bow & vest and could serve as a nice reference while Damon Gant and Drew Misham can provide a look at light sources on lifted suit arms (for instance, the arm Dr Kiriko uses to hold up his book.)

Finally, I know from experience that making book pages look nice is HARD and really SUCKS, but Wesley Stickler has a book you can look at (he even flips through it and closes it, so it's also nice if you're planning to do that type of animation with Dr Kiriko).

Um... haha, long post whut. Hope this helps, at least.

Edit: Oh, forgot to mention, but your shoulders are too high. It's makign your sprites seem as if they have no necks. Look at someone (or yourself, if a mirror's handy) and check out the distance between the bottom of his/her chin and the place where the shoulder meets the neck and there should be a sizable space. These two got nothin'.

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I... I see. How embarrassing.
I'll get to work on that... Immediately.

Thank you for the indepth advice, hair and faces are my specialty but I suppose I didn't look closely enough on the bodies. Weird for me, considering I draw the traditional-paper-and-pencil way and do just fine. But I think that's because I don't have to conform to the Phoenix Wright style. These sprites? They're actually my first two PW sprites...ever. So I'll work on it right away.

When I post the new BJ & Kiriko sprites, please critique them as well! Thank you again.

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Great defiantly looks better with shading keep it up

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I made the bodies over again from scratch, with the exception of Black Jack's vest, ribbon, and collar, and Dr. Kiriko's arm and book. This time, I paid closer attention to detail and followed your advice to the number, Jeti.
You'll notice that their necks are longer and shoulders a bit longer and broader.
Thank you again. I believe that this time I have gotten it right.

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Ah, very nice. The shading on Black Jack looks very good, I especially like the work you've done on his vest. It really makes the whole sprite come together, I think. :3

For Dr Kiriko, the only thing I notice is that his lapel looks a little off. Typically the larger, lower portion of a notched lapel overlaps the the top half a little bit, so on his suit the two seem far apart. Also the corners look kinda rounded, but that's just personal preference.

Actually, his right arm (our left) seems a little too thin compared to his other arm. Maybe it's because the shading on his shoulder looks slightly spherical, but I'm not sure.

Just as a note, the reason I can notice all these things is because I often make the same types on mistakes with my own pixel art... I work zoomed in and it looks great, and when I zoom out it's suddenly bluh. So no worries, yeah? n_n;

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hmm, what's going on here?, wow! I'm impressed!
For your firsts these are incredible.

No remarks on Black Jack, On Dr. Kiriko i would replace his right shoulder, cut it about half way. (His shoulder sticks out the front, make his chest overlap part of it)

Other then that, pretty good so far.
Keep it up.

These are awesome!
I'm actually a fan of Black Jack, so when I saw this I was psyched.
The shading looks great, and I can't wait to see more!

-Jen

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Totally awesomes, <3 specially Black Jack

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Mm, thanks. I'm glad Black Jack is finally finished.
Seems everyone agrees. Next step: Expressions and poses!





Alright: Dr. Kiriko's Right Arm. Thanks.
That's the problem, and it'll be my next step. I'll upload the revamped sprites posthaste, accompanied by some beta emotions/poses for Black Jack and possibly a new character!




I have that same problem... Eheh.



Ah, thank you! I'm glad my firsts were a success.



Hey, awesome! Another Black Jack fan! I'm glad you like the sprites.
So, have you seen The Two Doctors of Darkness? That film is truly an anime jewel.



Thank you.

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Yeeeehaaa! Oldie! =)

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Unfortunately, Kiriko is still not ready... I'm working on it, though, and in the meantime, here's Black Jack's first expression: Stress.



This is a fairly minor change compared to the energetic pose-changes typical of Gyakuten Saiban characters, the only differences in this instance being his expression and the bowing of his head. Later expressions, however, will most likely entail a complete change as usual.

Suggestions from those knowledged on Black Jack's behaviour or the general character type would be most appreciated.

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That's cool!

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Just read this thread I'm no sprite expert but these look great! Love the Black Jack sprite especially, I did actually read a couple of volumes of it but t'was never really my kind of manga. Anyways keep it going and stuff

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