Actor Profile Images

[JoshuaKing25 1]

I've been messing around with actor profile pictures. My style is more American comic than Anime but I thought I would see what you all think. These are characters I've been working on for my most recent game. The game is about a humanoid race of creatures called The Oren. They come in all colors depending on where they grew up, so that is why some of these are green, blue, red and so forth.

[Spectre 829]

It's quite nice to see an American styled illustrator these days. Really admire the spirit behind it.

 

That being said though, two things you might want to work with for the portraits:

 

1. Size Consistency

Generally you want all the heads to be of equivalent size; this way it won't look weird during dialogues or battle sequences. Half of your pictures appear to be more configured to busts than portraits; though a simple resizing ought to do the trick.

 

2. Play with skin tone blending

I'm not sure what region of the world causes something to be bright red; maybe that's just my opinion on it, but consider blending grays and beiges into skin colors for variation. I notice a lot of the skin variations have very saturated looks; perhaps try mottling it a little with a few patches of gray?

[JoshuaKing25 1]

Thank you for the input. As far as the skin tones go, for the game I am making they are an alien race of people who tend to share the same color as the environment they grew up in. So those who grew up in the snow tend to be white, those who grew in the jungle were green or yellow, those who grew up around the heat of the lava pits were red, so forth and so on. Then there were those who grew up in the cities, they tended to be more "Normal colored"

[Latoa 37]

Wonderful variety I am seeing. I just think people are used to seeing one style/theme when someone posts but I really like how alive they look if that makes sense.

[JoshuaKing25 1]

Thank you. 

[Spectre 829]

Thank you for the input. As far as the skin tones go, for the game I am making they are an alien race of people who tend to share the same color as the environment they grew up in. So those who grew up in the snow tend to be white, those who grew in the jungle were green or yellow, those who grew up around the heat of the lava pits were red, so forth and so on. Then there were those who grew up in the cities, they tended to be more "Normal colored"

Quite an interesting concept, actually. With simple colors it can get a little dull, but it has potential.

 

To expand on this though, perhaps work with a swatch/color selection rather than a simple color for each region. Snow-folk can have any range from white to blue, or even mottled white patches on blue skin or vice versa. This adds a lot of variation even for single races, and allows you to make modifications for "evil" characters by playing with darker and less saturated colors and customized features.

 

While we're on that, you can also consider additional features to make them less overtly "human-like". I'll include a few sketches as examples if you're interested.

 

p.s. The Pantheon's up. Check it out for some inspiration, hehe. #shamelessadvertising

Edited January 13, 2015 by Spectre

[JoshuaKing25 1]

Thanks, yes these are only a few of the profiles I've been working on. Most of them are not as extreme red or blue as others. I am trying to keep them mostly humanoid aside from the color, eyes, and skin markings mostly so I don't have to go through allot of work making individual sprites for everyone. It's much easier to just change a sprites skin tone hehe. Kinda lazy I know but I'm already doing a lot of work on profiles and battlers. I am always willing to see what ideas others have though.