Spriting tutorials?

[AkiraOkihu]

Look at the EDIT

**I am not sure if I posted this where I should, so if it is not posted in the right thread, please move it accordingly.

Hello! I am new to RPG Maker VXAce and I am curious about some spriting tutorials. I kind of understand the dimensions a character sheet has, but I can't find actual spriting tutorials. I work with Adobe Illustrator and I want to create graphics for my first game in VXAce (the chibi graphics don't look serious enough, I am looking to make Xp or Mack graphics). I am not that good at drawing, but I can do it with some tutorials (I hope). I am interested in actual spriting tutorials, to create graphics like the ones in the RTPs. Those were you color each pixel, not where you draw with brushes or pencils. But I don't know how to. (I am refering to 8bit graphics if I am right [something like this http://cdn.arstechnica.net/sprite-something-review.png ] ). I would also draw some, but I don't know how good I am. Thanks!

EDIT:

So I've tried them all: read all "So you want to be a pixel artist" tutorial, and now i understand shading and tiling and how to create a final fantasy character (kind of). But I still can't grasp on how to create XP characters. The problem I have is that I want to use XP sized characters, not chibi style, because they don't fit my story (it's set to be a serious story that talks about morality) and I am a very bad artist. Seriously, I am a writer at heart, not a painter, so I don't quite understand how to draw characters.

That's why I got Game Character Hub. But it has few resources and most of them are for fantasy characters, but my story is set in modern times. So I got the character template from Game Character Hub and tried to draw clothing over them, with some very ugly results. I don't understand where shades should go or how to make them look natural, I can't round the shirts and pants as I should and I can't draw hair. So, I was left with recoloring and editing XP RTP characters, but, guess what, most of them are for fantasy stories...

My story follows the life of a guy, from birth and until he's very old, so I need to create him as a baby, then as a toddler, then kid, then teen, then young adult, then adult and then old man. From young adult to old man I can use recoloring to get some of the desired effect, but it still looks like it's not enough. I also mess proportions for when I am trying to create the baby to teen sprites.

I have also looked at 2D will never die, but I find mostly tutorials on how to draw fighter sprites. I would hire somebody to do the sprites, but I fear that the cost would be too high, and I'm still in high school, so I don't have a real source of income. I had to save some money to buy the RPG Maker Bundle when it was on Humble Bundle and I also got Modern Day Resource Pack.

Also, the Modern Day Resource Pack isn't enough for what I want to create, because I need the items in the house to change as years pass and also I need some school tiles and whatnot. I don't even know where to start, and making a game now seems very daunting. I also need good characters, because the game is more a story focused game, so there will be no battles. There will only be story with some puzzle elements.

Lots of people told me that they began by editing existing sprites, but when I zoom in on the sprite I see lots of pixels in different shades. The sprite loses it's form until I zoom out, and it's very hard to keep track of all the shaded pixels. I could edit the Modern Day Resource Pack, and creating some tiles for a school seems easy, but creating the characters just destroys me. When I zoom in on existing RTP characters and see all of the shades is very intimidating.

This is my first game project, so suggestions are more than welcome and if you have some good tutorials that teach XP character spriting and how to proportionate the characters, I'd be grateful. Most spriting tutorials use 2D fighter sprites, and while I can understand some of the concepts, I still can't understand how to draw XP characters.

Please keep in mind that I've also asked for tutorials here.

EDIT: I have found some characters I could use from the XP RTP, and with some modifications, hopefully I can make them look unique. Still, my problem remains, as I won't be able to use the same sprite for all my games. So, please let me know how you understood shading and how to draw characters. Also, tiling tutorials are welcome.

 

[Sharm]

First off I'm going to move this to General Discussion.  I could see why you put it here but I think it fits better there.


Making the image one pixel at a time is called pixel art, and you actually do use the pencil tool to do it. Illustrator is a vector program, you can not make pixel art with it (although you could make some nice anti-aliased sprites with it).  You will need a raster program like Gimp, Photoshop, Krita, Paint.net or something.  Luckily for you there are more raster art programs than there are vector so something that suits you shouldn't be hard to find. Just don't try looking them up with the words "raster art programs" because no one calls them that.


I'm not sure why you haven't been able to find spriting tutorials, unless you're only looking on this forum. There are so many options for a good tutorial that it'd be best if we could get a little more information. What type of sprite are you trying to make? An animated battler, a character that walks around on the map, special effects? Is there an existing sprite style you're trying to match or do you want to do your own thing? Are you starting with a base and then putting clothes and such on top or are you wanting to do it all from scratch? Are there tiles you'll be using that you want your sprites to match so we know what scale you want?

 

[AwesomeCool]

There are good tutorials out there, but it is hard to find them with all the bad pixel art tutorials out there too.

 

[HumanNinjaToo]

You can find various sprites templates around. You could also use the templates from here. I don't really watch any spriting tutorials myself. I've been kinda self-taught. I do however study the way other people have done sprites, particularly shadows or folds in clothing. For me that's the hardest part.

I've been working on making my own sprites for a sideview battle system. I take the XP sprites I have and mix-and-match pieces to create the look I want and then recolor when necessary. People usually call this frankenspriting. I also use the Kaduki style sprites as a base for my own battler sprites. I practice mimicking  the Kaduki poses with my own XP style sprites. It has taken lots of tinkering and practice on my part but I've finished my first battler sprite.

I say all this because sometimes it's better to just start doing it on your own. You can create your own tricks on how you get things done and develop your own style of spriting. I use mainly GIMP to get things done. It's basically the free version of Photoshop.

Sorry I can't give you any links to some good tutorial videos but, I hope you get all the help you're looking for and good luck in your endeavors.

 

[Alkorri]

I always found this useful.

 

[AkiraOkihu]

First off I'm going to move this to General Discussion.  I could see why you put it here but I think it fits better there.

Making the image one pixel at a time is called pixel art, and you actually do use the pencil tool to do it. Illustrator is a vector program, you can not make pixel art with it (although you could make some nice anti-aliased sprites with it).  You will need a raster program like Gimp, Photoshop, Krita, Paint.net or something.  Luckily for you there are more raster art programs than there are vector so something that suits you shouldn't be hard to find. Just don't try looking them up with the words "raster art programs" because no one calls them that.

I'm not sure why you haven't been able to find spriting tutorials, unless you're only looking on this forum. There are so many options for a good tutorial that it'd be best if we could get a little more information. What type of sprite are you trying to make? An animated battler, a character that walks around on the map, special effects? Is there an existing sprite style you're trying to match or do you want to do your own thing? Are you starting with a base and then putting clothes and such on top or are you wanting to do it all from scratch? Are there tiles you'll be using that you want your sprites to match so we know what scale you want?

Thanks a lot! This helped a whole bunch. I couldn't understand why I was unable to draw pixels. I think that working with pixels will be easier, especially since I am not very good at drawing. I also didn't know that it was called pixel art, I was always looking for spriting tutorials, that's probably why I didn't find the pixel art tutorials. I didn't know how to call it. I want to make all types of sprites, so it's good to know as many. But my main focus right now is modern day sprites and character animations. I am doing a story heavy game with no battles, so I don't need battlers. Also, I am looking to make them appear more serious, because the story has a strong moral and is about hard decisions, so the chibi style doesn't really fit. Probably looking to make Mack or XP like sprites. This chibi style would work on a comedy game, but I don't know how much it would work on a game about moral, that's emphasizing bad decisions in life.

Also, thanks a whole bunch to the others that posted. To AwesomeCool (though you didn't provde much information , to HumanNinja Too for recommending me his way of understanding sprites and to Alkorri for the useful link. Now, I have another question: I was working with Illustrator because I've initially aquired it for other projects, and I thought it would work for pixel art. From what I understand, it does not. So then, I have to ask, is GIMP good? I mean, in Photoshop you have all kinds of tools and you can make grids and guides to help you, can you do that in GIMP (grids and guides)? And does GIMP also have all the tools needed for pixel art? How many spriters around here use GIMP vs how many use Photoshop? I want to be sure that I can do something good instead of struggling to do it. Also, Photoshop looks rather expensive.

 

[Sharm]

GIMP has almost everything that Photoshop does except the interface is very different. Most of the time the people who chose Photoshop over GIMP are people who've gotten used to the way Photoshop does things and don't really want to change. Since you're not used to Photoshop, GIMP is a better choice all around. If you're doing a lot of animation then Graphics Gale or Pyxel Edit might be better choices. They're both set up specifically for pixel art and the animation tools are more straight forward. Out of those two I personally recommend Pyxel Edit, I use it all the time and like it quite a bit. It's not free, still in beta and mostly built for making tiles but it's fairly cheap, most of the bugs are worked out, the guy who made it is open to suggestions, updates are regular and even though it's made for tiles I still find it easier to animate in than I do Graphics Gale, even though I picked up Graphics Gale first.


So, for some tutorial links:


http://gas13.ru/v3/tutorials/sywtbapa_world_of_sprites.php The rest of the tutorial is pretty awesome too, but this is where it starts talking about making sprites.


http://www.manningkrull.com/pixel-art/walking.php This is focused on animating sidescroller walk cycles but the information is still very good.


http://wayofthepixel.net/ This forum is the reason I can do pixel art with any sort of quality. I highly recommend it, though it works better if you lurk for a bit, see what the common points are that get brought up again and again and only after fixing those, then post your piece for critique. People are also more likely to reply if you update often, showing that you're working on it and not just throwing it there and saying "fix this".

 

[Omega Weapon]

I have always liked 2D Will Never Die. It has some tutorials of itself too, but those are more geared towards 2D Fighters. It has some information on stuff like sub-pixel animation.

Otherwise, it has a great repository of links to more great tutorial sites.

 

[AkiraOkihu]

Thanks! How can I mark this topic as solved?

 

[Shaz]

If there's no "mark solved" button on posts, you'd normally just report the first post and ask the mods to close it (which I'll do for you now).


Not mentioned above, Lunarea has started a series of spriting tutorials on the RMWeb Blog. They might be worth having a look at, as they go over a lot of theory. I think so far it's been tiles and not characters, but a lot of the information will be useful for both.


This thread is being closed, due to being solved. If for some reason you would like this thread re-opened, please report this post and leave a message why. Thank you.

 

[AkiraOkihu]

Edit: Merged with first post.

 

[BoluBolu]

Hi Akira, I'm sorry I can't really help you because I'm too, pathetic in matter of graphic thingy, but I got a feeling that your post here is too long and that might cause someone lazy to read it. I suggest you to make it not to long but hit the point. Someone might look your post but quickly gone because your post is to long, I'm sorry not mean to offend you, really I just want to help . 

For my opinion, if your heart is not painter, then it's hard for you to learn, because in order to learn you must throw out all your heart into it(moreover this is about art), it's not instance, ones need a lot of time, even monthly or yearly to be able make an art properly wether it's drawing or music. That's only my opinion .

I wish you luck and have a nice day =)

 

[AkiraOkihu]

Thanks a lot! Will see what I can do tomorrow.

 

[Sharm]

I've merged this thread with your old one.  Please, if you have an existing topic on the same subject, just update the old one, don't make a new one.  Since your old one was locked by request all you had to do was report the post and ask for it to be unlocked.  You may want to edit your first post to reflect the newer elements of your question.

 

[AkiraOkihu]

My bad. I thought that since this topic was asking where to find pixel art tutorials and the other one was asking specifically for tutorials for XP characters, they were different. Thanks for letting me know.

 

[Sharm]

Yeah, that makes sense but really all you're doing is refining what you're asking for. You've been asking for spriting tutorials from the start and XP sprites are pixel art.


If none of these tutorials are making sense, I don't think that more tutorials will help. The basics are going to be the same no matter what kind of sprite you're making, having one specifically for XP sprites isn't going to be much different. Maybe you're more of a hands on sort of learner. You could try copying an existing sprite pixel by pixel, see if that helps you figure out why things are done the way you are and give you a better sense of how to modify it to suit your needs. That way you won't be trying to sort out a bunch of text and how it relates to the sprite, you'd jump straight to the doing. That's part of the reason I linked to Pixelation with my tutorials. Sometimes you just need to give it a shot and have someone tell you what you're doing right and what you're not getting, and it's a lot faster way to learn than trying to sort it out by yourself.


As for tips for how I do it, there's a lot of trial and error and a lot of zooming in and out to see if things look the way I expect. General artistic knowledge helps a whole lot. The best pixel artists I know are also great at other forms of art because the concepts of things like color theory, lighting, form, anatomy and so on aren't just for one type of art. If you want to know better how to shade something any shading tutorial will help you, it doesn't have to be pixel based.


I don't know if it's the case with you but a lot of people try to pick up pixel art because they think it's easier than other forms of art. That's actually not true at all. Pixel art is just as hard and in some ways can be harder than other art forms. It's just more accessible and easier to be a perfectionist with. I'm not trying to scare you away from anything just trying to give you a better idea of what you're in for so you don't give up too soon. It's normal when you first try a skill based activity to end up with something less than ideal. We've all been there, it's just part of the learning process.

 

[AkiraOkihu]

Thanks a lot! Actually, I picked pixel art because it seems easier that vector art with a mouse for my games. If I had the budget, I would have hired someone to do the pixel art. It's more of a need than a want. As I said, I am a writer at heart, not a painter. Will try recreating the sprites. Thanks!