Our less creepy eyes

[Pinesal]

One of our biggest criticisms is that our characters look creepy. Especially the eyes.

When constructing new character, we took the opportunity to work on getting the eyes less creepy. Here is what we came up with. These eyeballs are entirely vector graphics

OLD EYES


NEW EYES

[heyvern]

Much better.

Actually, in my humble opinion, you don't really need the "corner red" part of the eye for this. It seems to "stand out" too much for me. Or possibly desaturate/darken that pink color so it matches the skin tone a little better. It seems "bright" and lighter than it should be. That corner would be "in shadow" mostly. If you look at photos of eyes, the red is almost the same color as the skin just a bit redish. Sometimes it can be really red but doesn't have to be.

Another thing that might help, is to add a drop shadow for the hole of the eye. This would darken the eye ball "naturally" based on it being "inside" the "eye hole" you may not need to shade the eye ball itself because the shading would be from the shadow of the eye hole (hee hee... "eye hole"... sounds almost as bad as another type of "hole". I think I will start calling morons "eye holes" from now on for a change of pace. )

A darker "ring" or stroke around the iris also would help. Irises almost always have a darker outer ring. I think that would really pull it together.

p.s. All of the above comments are based on my own personal artistic tastes and are by no means a serious criticism. I would hate to see you get bogged down based on my own OCD tendencies.

[Little Yamori]

I don't mean to be an eyehole, but here's my 2 cents, gradients go a long way. try using that as a color fill option with complimentary shades of colors in a radial gradient to the pupil and see what happens. The new example looks not toooo much different than what you had, though it was better.

LY

[ianmage1]

It's definitely better, although I'm not sure why you chose to give the pupils a ragged shape. Shouldn't they be round, like the iris?
If you plan on shading the eyeball, make sure the shading overlays the iris too; right now, you only have the sclera shaded. The unshaded iris on top of the shaded sclera doesn't look natural, as heyvern said.

This is only my stylistic preference, but I think highlights would help give more life to the eyes.

p.s. All of the above comments are based on my own personal artistic tastes and are by no means a serious criticism. I would hate to see you get bogged down based on my own OCD tendencies.

The same goes for my comments.
Keep it up, Pinesal and Hentron.

[Pinesal]

Thanks for the suggestions. I'll adjust it and report back.

It's definitely better, although I'm not sure why you chose to give the pupils a ragged shape. Shouldn't they be round, like the iris?

The pupil is made using a gradient and that's just how it turned out, I guess. I will switch it to a vector pupil instead.

[funksmaname]

still pretty creepy imho
I think it may be uncanny valley - you could try taking actual photos of pupils to use instead of mixing photos and vectors?

[Pinesal]

still pretty creepy imho
I think it may be uncanny valley - you could try taking actual photos of pupils to use instead of mixing photos and vectors?

I am actually using photos of the iris for the front view but I need the flexibility of vectors for the 3/4 and side view.

Here is an updated one

[funksmaname]

looking better - maybe too blood shot at the corners... and it's a creepy pose is what's doing it

[Little Yamori]

Much Better IMHO, now a bit of a soft edge or blur on the fill for the coup de grace

[Hentron]

Yeah, the iris/pupil are too sharp. Sharper than the image. A little fuzziness would help.

[Danimal]

Alright, finally I remembered to check this out at home.

I normally heap the praise on your work, but I gotta admit that the eyes still look creepy. Maybe even creepier. They still look "drawn" so they still stand out. The amount of pink in the corners seems excessive too. I guess I just plain got used to the old way.