since we're already talking about this, i've taken issue with your goombas - http://m.imgur.com/twmwbx3 goomba A is what the official art looks like, and goomba B is how your goomba looks like. addressing the elephant in the room, your goomba isn't two circles and an oval base, but a rounded trapezoid. as a direct result of this, your 'goombas' start looking less like goombas but more like goombos. my other big problem is that your goombas' faces all seem to be towards us and aren't really aligned with the mouths or the facial guideline i drew in on both.

Generally speaking, that's actually some useful advice there. I'll keep it in mind when I redo my Goombas. By the way, if I ever do remake the sprites based on the suggestions from Virt and Mit, can I still submit them? I figured that since the shading that'll come out of it will be simple (or even nonexistent), I'll be fine with the idea that those sheets will never get submitted.

[quote="E-Man"]Mit, you raise very valid points throughout all this. Unfortunately, I'm at a loss at what to do now. For me, I'm pretty much presented with three options. - I could take your advice to heart and draw my own variations on Paper Mario. I don't really want to do this because I like the overall shape of the original Paper Mario and your variation is not what I had in mind (not to say that yours is bad). Regardless, I'm at least willing to consider this option. Otherwise, I may as well trace over the original artwork and not use any shading (or maybe some basic shading, such as what you get from the gradient tool). - If I don't give up on what may as well be a lost cause, then I'll follow the route of a spiritual successor and make my own paper series without any preexisting IPs. That way, I'll be free to use my own variation of the Paper Mario style. - Just continue what I'm doing with little to no changes in my current work. Even if it's clear that my work has flaws, at least a fair amount of people like my work as it is now.[/quote] so, wait, for what purpose are you recreating all of these paper mario characters for if you intend on basing it on the actual paper mario design? my entire post wasn't to say "my variation is better, you should use it", but rather "you should be following the same steps the people who designed paper mario took and take cues from super mario rather than paper mario". by just referencing paper mario, you don't really know what you're actually doing when you're designing it, and as a result you can see bits and pieces that look more finished and polished than others. for example, your mario's head portion is enormous, his chin should stop where the ear begins, not go past it. and when virt said there were a lot of "chunky, blocky" shapes, he meant that the linework isn't as graceful as it could be. as an example of that, your mario's cap seems rather flat, almost deflated. his nose isn't as round as it could be either. these combined with the aforementioned larger head overall make mario look rather odd. if you're making your work solely because "people will like them", then i'm sorry to say but you're really working for the wrong purpose. the entire point of criticism is to help guide you to improve yourself as you're working, not to put you down and to tell you it sucks. everyone will always think their work is fine the way it is. but it can always, always be better, and you can't really achieve that without trying out things that are suggested to you. not every suggestion is valid, obviously, but i'd like to imagine at least mine hold some water given the amount of effort i've gone through to try to explain them.

[quote="Mit"] so, wait, for what purpose are you recreating all of these paper mario characters for if you intend on basing it on the actual paper mario design? [/quote] Well, it's just that I really like shading these parts my own way. Not because my way is superior, but rather that it's relaxing to digitally paint these parts. Also, I didn't mean to imply that I don't appreciate your criticism and how I see them as attacks. Surprisingly, I'm quite open to suggestions and willing to apply them (hence why I submit one bit of progress at a time instead of all at once). Otherwise, I'd not ask for critique at all and get offended over the slightest change. Even though I could always just trust my own instincts, I'm always interested to hear the kind of feedback from others, so that I can learn something and maybe apply a nugget or two of advice to the current work. I'm sorry if that wasn't clear enough through my actions. Anyway, thank you very much for telling me specifically the areas that bug Virt. I promise that I'll keep those in mind when i make a new Paper Mario sketch. By the way, before I end things off, I have something I'd like to share with you based on your feedback regarding to to use the actual Paper Mario as a reference and Virt's talk about achieving what made the original art style so great. [img]http://i.imgur.com/2DPYkIK.png[/img] This is by no means the final shape of the hat. Also, I was thinking about using rounder shapes, but I took a cue from an older art style I once had to further capitalize on the paper feel. I know the results are probably not all that visually appealing, but maybe this could provide a good step in the right direction?

that's lightyears better, oh my god. i like that a lot. the only thing i can really say at this point is to keep mario's anatomy and whatnot in mind when you're going on to making the rest of him. i'm beating a dead horse, but i think in your previous mario, his "base" head shape was what threw it off the most. if you try to work around that then you should be fine. i would maybe make that purple outline a bit darker to contrast better but that's ultimately your call. like just from the hat alone i find it to be more appealing than the official paper mario art style, being obviously more inspired by paper and looking like a cutout. as an art style it's interesting and original, so you're pretty much on the right track there. keep it up.

Ooh, I really like that! <3 It even looks a lot more like it is made out of paper when compared to the official Paper Mario titles. I'm really looking forward to seeing what will the rest of Mario and the others will look like in that style. :)

I like the textured style. Looks really good.

Dude that is [i]slick.[/i] I see you took my suggestion to make the line art more varied! If you play with that from point A to point B (as in, not just different line bits within the thing), you could really achieve a sort of jagged paper-y look even more than you already have. Nice job! :)

Oh wow! I wasn't expecting this kind of reception at all! I simply decided to try the concept of applying a paper texture I had in my head for quite a while and mash it up with an art style I once used in Adobe Illustrator roughly ten years ago. Generally speaking, I actually enjoy experimenting with outlandish concepts whenever I get the chance. Now that I'm on the right track again, here's some new progress to review. [img]http://i.imgur.com/2skLOpb.png[/img] I tinkered with the outline color based on what Mit said. If it's good to go, then I'll apply it to Mario over there. Also, I tried something else that's new, which involves drawing outlines first before making the shapes. That way, if there's something off about the lineart for whatever reason, then you guys can show me the problem and I'll move the points around until I get it right. I not only demonstrated it with Mario's head, but I also played around with the idea of making Mario's hat look less deflated. By the way, there's still some shading on the hat. While I'm up for removing it, I'm interested in knowing if increasing the contrast of it would do any good.

you should tweak up mario's head a bit- [img]http://i.imgur.com/cFFFIUS.png[/img] primarily, give him a more distinct chin, try to make the end of his head meet up with the end of his ear, and i don't think giving him oval eyes to that degree would end up looking good. widening the mustache a bit might help a bit too.

Wow... I really did like them before, but what you're doing now is even more impressive, and much more unique! I really, really like it! :D It has an even more papery feel to it than the official sprites, as it looks like a paper cutout. I see you followed the advice given by making your own Paper Mario style, rather than recreating the already existing ones, and you've done a great job! I'm very impressed! :)

How about this then, Mit? [img]http://i208.photobucket.com/albums/bb109/E-Man276/Mario_zpsrpbgikv1.png~original[/img] Imgur wasn't working for me, so I had to use my old Photobucket account. Since you didn't mention anything about this, Mit, I decide to remove the shading and darken the outline on my own. Looking at this, the eyes could be a little more narrow. Also, I think the hat is a little too big for my tastes. Then again, what do you think?

that looks a lot better. i think the hat size evens out the head shape, but ultimately that's up to you

What is this grainy texture?

I'm glad the head is shaping up nicely, Mit; however, I still need to handle the hair under the hat. I know that it overlaps, but much like my previous Mario sheet, each head will have two versions to make it fit with the hat. Once I get the hair right, I'll make the shapes for the rest of the head. [img]http://i.imgur.com/2Et6aXV.png[/img] Besides determining whether or not the new colors I picked are any good, I also took a suggestion from Virt in an attempt to give the eyes more soul. How about it? [quote="SuperArthurBros"]What is this grainy texture?[/quote] That would be the construction paper texture I applied to further capitalize on the paper feel. If it bothers you, then I'm willing to work something out to make it more appealing. Speaking of the texture, due to some technical difficulties, I lost a fair amount of the original texture used in this project. As a result, I found a new paper texture to keep the new parts a little consistent. How is it?

If you could try making the eyes smaller / thinner and a little more cartoon-y, I think that could help in making them look less soulless :P Other than that though, this is yet again shaping up to be really awesome looking! The new paper texture is more subtle and adds a better paper feel, whereas the original texture was too grainy to really identify as paper. Keep it up!

yea, i think with the eyes it's less about giving them the shine and more about making them thinner. the simplicity of the shine-less eyes is more appealing honestly

That I can do! By the way, while I work on the eyes, are there any other parts/colors that need adjusting?

The cap; it looks orange. :p

So, would it look better if it was more red, like this? [img]http://i.imgur.com/981qVyp.png[/img] Also, besides thinning the eyes, I took the liberty of starring more additional head shapes. I would have done more right now, but I have to hit the hay soon.