Fighter Sprite Faces (female)
Lucky as it may seem, female fighter faces are not much different than males! Since the pixels are so small, subtle differences in bone structure in the cranium between male and female equate to minimal pixel editing from your male base skull. Besides, les' face it, women are just more fun to draw anyway! Take it from me, im an expert on women, I obviously attract enough of them that I should be able to recognize their bone structure in my sleep. Grab a notebook or two... The lesson starts here!... You might want to read the male face tutorial before before you proceed if you havent already done so, considering this tutorial assumes you already have.
Cut the jaw line in slightly to alter your male base head into a female base head. Soften the browline with a less dramatic eyebrow.
• Not much has changed here, eh? The main difference is that the jaw line starts to recede at a much more gradual slope as compared to the male face, but even at that scale its just a matter of pulling back the face a couple pixels. The brow line is also not as drastic, and there is more cheek area as well.
Same as with the males, block in your hair structure. It might be beneficial to use
2 shades for blocking in female hair, since it is easier to distinguish between
the top of the head and the back strands of hair this way.
• Next step, block in that hair! I cant stress this enough, your hair is what defines your character, the facial details pail in comparison to the uniqueness of your hairdos. Les' make her a cute blonde, obviously my type, and throw in some bangs for show. Notice that I immediately drew in two shades for the hair instead of one, which is just compressing two steps in the male's face lesson. Whether you block in with two shades or one, dont start highlighting and detailing your hair until you position it where it pleases you most.
And its shadow n' highlight time again! Start to soften the facial features with a touch of "AA", as well as adding some extra hair volume with more highlights and shadows.
• Oh shes starting to look cute! Same as before, we start to suggest features with shadows and highlights. A female with bangs is more likely to cast a heavy shadow over the forehead and brow. Also, her eyebrows in themselves tend to be lighter and not as pronounced, which means you should soften them and shorten them in comparison to a males face. The ears are made the same, they are pretty androgenous features. The hair really takes form now with an extra shadow and highlight color to define dymanic strands.
Make your next pass of AA and subtle shading to smoothen out the hair and facial features. Last minute structure changes should be done now.
• Good god shes looking sexy! This step is just another gradual shading and "AA"ing process of which you are blending in facial features. Now would be a good time to finalize how your hair should be highlighted and where each strand should be separated. Shade the inside layers of hair if you havent done so already, as this will make the top of the head and bangs really pop. Add some "AA" to where the facial features meet the perimiter outline, as before. Notice how ultra sexy she looks without a pronounced , or even slightly suggested nose! Not to say that doing so would be wrong, but its a subtle feature that might be too delicate to suggest with pixels, but rather let the viewers mind fill in that gap with their imagination. I guarantee you her face would look loads more cluttered with a nose pixelled in there somewhere! Oh, make sure you soften and shorten the lips if you havent done so already, it should at least be a pixel shorter than a male's lip line. Again, notice how the lightest shade of skin tone is used for the eye whites.
Add your finishing touches, such as eyeliner, blush, mascara, lipstick, etc. If you'd like to change your palette choices for any reason, no time like the present as they say! Just make sure that your neck connecting to the rest of the body isnt as thick as the men ;)
• Time for your last additions and cosmetic detail! Notice that the hair colors were close enough to the skin tones that I decided to replace the hair shades with the same shades used in the skin! This is a great tactic for color conservation if you are working with a 4bit palette. IF you have any spare colors, or have pink or red or some other fitting color that could shoe in for a lipstick shade, throw it on the lipline to give her some glamour! One other fun feature to play with at this stage is her cheekbones. Add some highlights and see what effects you get! Alrighty partners, I dont see how much sexier she can get... its simple, yet charming and effective! now if i could only draw her a body I could get her number. Surely she couldnt resist my charm... or dashing face... or my really thick.... wallet. What are you still doing in my classroom? I have a date to plan, scram!