The Resource WIP Thread

[Paladin-Cleric of Awesome]

@Cosmic Kitty.

I used lots of references for drawing it, i think i broke my brothers computer looking up stuff. lol.

I do have a tablet, only since my computer broke and I've been left using a reeally old one it won't let me use it to practice on, it also won't let me download very much either which sucks.

You gotta admit though, it's loads better than when I started. lol.

Thanks for the input and rest assured, I will do my best to improve!

 

[monkeynohito]

@Paladin - A tip for when you're using references while learning: Don't draw side-by-side from a reference. Put down the drawing and look at your ref, take in as much detail as you can and then put the ref down and work on your drawing separately. If you work on your pic and look at a ref side-by-side it gives you less of a chance to actually think about what you're learning from the ref, the transfer of ideas becomes more automatic. This also helps you develop your own stylistic impressions of visuals more.

 

[Aceri]

This was just some practice on making circular type shapes out of pixels. I don't know why I put eyes on it, but I did haha.

This one is my attempt at a mushroom type being with smaller mushrooms of various sizes growing on it's head.

Sorry for the bad uploads, this site is being buggy for me, I can't click on anything without refreshing first, so I have to refresh like 20 times to view one topic.

 

[cosmickitty]

I like the frog he's cute   I like the mushroom but I wouldn't guess the things on the mushroom are smaller mushrooms, look more like oddly placed spots

 

[FluffyVonSnugglemittens]

also your color ramps are very straight.

Thank you for posting this link, I have recently started to (Attempt) spriting on my own and I was having a lot of difficulty with the color scale.

- Aceri, just though I'd add that your Signature is freakin AWESOME lol

 

[Aceri]

My attempt at recreating the male templars from Hellgate: London. One is with a helmet and one is without. I used Loose Leaf(Mack)'s sprite as a base.





And here is an attempt at an "eye creature" of sorts. I don't know if I got the shadowing right or not or what else I should add to it. I plan on it being a flying monster but not the kind that flies with wings, you know?

 

[cosmickitty]

The body of the eye looks neat, the eye itself looks like its in front of the body, id add some shadowing from the top eyelid onto the eye.

Looking at it again im not sure if the shading on the top is right, it looks really flat, but the eye may fix it. also break up the black outline all the way around it

 

[EvilEagles]

Your templar looks great, although I would desaturate the green and lower the luminosity a bit.

 

[Aceri]

@Cosmickitty:

Thanks for the feedback. I changed the color on the edges and tweaked the shadowing a bit. My intentions are that the creature doesn't have eyelids, so to counter that I tried adding some shading to the eyeball itself to make it look rounded/shadowed. I really don't know how to do eye lids/sockets. Or eyes for that matter, that eye is the RTP default of VXAce's plant-eyeball monster thing. Here's the changed version:



@EvilEagles:

Thanks for the compliment, though I do wish to give credit where credit is due. When I say I used Mack's sprite as a base, I don't just mean like a nude model template, I mean I pieced together armor pieces from the Loose Leaf gen, then recolored to fit what I was looking for. So the character/armor design is Macks, not my own. I simply did some recolors and made a helmet. The helmet itself is made out of the RTP Ace assassins facemask and what I am assuming is the dwarf guy from the RTP as well, the one with the helm and the big brown beard. Then I just edited away the tiered look of the helmet(that brim thingie) and adjusted the shading and coloring then mashed them together for a full helm.

I chose that vibrant of a green though because in Hellgate: London, if you look at the cinematics, the green bits that I have on the armor/helmet are like neon glow strips of sorts, so I wanted it to look like it was lit up. If there is a better way to do that though I am all ears. Using vibrant colors is the only way I know how to do it right now though, so that's why it looks like that.

 

[EvilEagles]

Ahh I see.

As for your floating eye creature, you'll need an outline to define the shape since the body is relatively dark, just not BLACK outline. As for the eyeball, I suggest eliminating the highlight inside the iris and add deeper shading around it, like so:

Certainly not perfect since I only took a minute just to help you have an idea on how to go about it.

 

[Aceri]

Yeah, when I get good enough with my pixelling to not need to frankensprite and I can make a character from the first pixel to the last original, it'll probably be accompanied by a whole bunch of caps and a yata, haha.

Here is the eye after readjusting it to your suggestions EvilEagles:



Edit:

With this one I decided to, instead of have a big ole dark splotch on the side for the shadowing, I would add in textures just a shade up so that it still looks shaded, but not like just a messy canvas. Do you think that was a good decision or was the old one better? Also changed the eye glint like you said, adjusted the outline to a darker blue and tried fixing some of the shading on the top.

 

[EvilEagles]

Much better. Just add some more shading on the eyeball, especially on the top, and reduce the highlight in the white area just above the iris, 1 or 2 pixels will do I think. You're nearly there.

One thing though, your color count is very high (somewhere around 310). You need to watch out for that for consistency.

 

[Aceri]

Okay, this is the eye after further following of your tips, I hope I understood you correctly:



And what do you mean by color count? I don't understand. I mean, I know English but I just don't know what a color count is, what's good or bad for it, stuff like that.

 

[Ausops]

Spoiler

I come from a game that was restricted to 32x32 sprites with very little in the way of other spriters so this is all very new. I had a go at making a character sprite for starters but yeah, advice/tips pls

 

[EvilEagles]

@Aceri: Did you make that with some tools other than the pencil and placing pixels manually? When you have too high a color count, the piece isn't really pixel art anymore (in this case it's the body. The eyeball is certainly pixel art since you took it from a pixel sprite). The jagginess of the pixel part will clash with the blurriness of the rest.

@Ausops: I suggest lowering the breasts in the sideview one a tad lower. As of now it looks as though they're sticking to the neck. Other than that they look great, although I'm not a huge fan of the pointy feet. But that's just my personal preference. 

 

[Aceri]

@EvilEagles:

I used the brush tool from my Paint.net program because someone(either Celianna or Lunarea) told me that RPG maker uses a brushed style, and that the pencil makes things look kind of cartoony.

@Ausopos:

I'm not a professional by any means, but one thing that I've noticed(going from RMXP to RMVXAce) is that if you're going to do taller sprites like the one you showed make a fourth frame to make everything look smoother. How exactly you go about that, you would have to ask someone else I just know that four sprites compared to three make things look smoother on taller sprites.

Also, although it's a sprite, I am not sure if those nipples are PG enough for these forums. That you would have to ask an officer or something or read the guidelines, but I don't think it's very forum friendly, not to sound too prudish.

 

[Ausops]

@EvilEagles

I see what you mean but then it doesn't match up with the forward facing sprite. This is where I get slightly confused because it probably wouldn't anyway because the front facing sprite is slightly at an angle. eh I'm not sure but I'll look into making it look like it's not that attached to the neck. As for the feet well I just can't figure out how to make nice looking feet with so few pixels without doing that style where the legs/feet widen as they go down.

@Aceri

I'll look into making four frames, that being said it sounds easier said than done. As for the nipples, I honestly put them there because it's one more detail I can use to make sure everything looks right. I'll remove them if it's against the rules though.

thanks for the advice guys

 

[Aceri]

The way RMXP does it (I think)is that they have a stand still frame, a move frame, a just barely moving frame, and a opposite moving frame, so try making one frame where the sprite is just barely starting to walk and see if that doesn't help make the transition from moving to standing seem smoother.

 

[Lunarea]

I used the brush tool from my Paint.net program because someone(either Celianna or Lunarea) told me that RPG maker uses a brushed style, and that the pencil makes things look kind of cartoony.

The brush is only used for the RTP-style tiles, though. Pencil tool is still used for characters in VX/Ace, as they are purely pixel art.

 

[Celianna]

Also, although it's a sprite, I am not sure if those nipples are PG enough for these forums. That you would have to ask an officer or something or read the guidelines, but I don't think it's very forum friendly, not to sound too prudish.

It's a sprite, it's art, nipples are allowed when not presented in a sexual context.