First Sprite C&C

[makerofgamz]

well is there a problem with using the filter...? And Ill fix the hands. im going to try my hands at animating the main character. We'll see.

[ThreeOhFour]

If you want a pixeled look, do not use a filter - it is messy. Draw it with pixels to begin with.

If you want a not pixelly look, keep at it the way you're doing it

[makerofgamz]

Well, i sure don't want them to look messy. How would I repaint them so they look pixel ed? Im a little confused with the process. Thanks for all the feedback

[ThreeOhFour]

That depends on what program you're using

In The Gimp, I'd use the Pencil Tool with 1x1 brush size and 100% opacity. In Paint, hit the line tool and/or the single pixel brush.

You'll have to redo these from scratch if you want a clean pixelled look, but it shouldn't take long and if you use a new layer to draw over it, you can practically just trace the old sprite and colour in the lines.

[makerofgamz]

im using the GIMP. So just outline the old sprite with black then color it in with flesh colors and such...

[zenassem]

I'm using the GIMP. So just outline the old sprite with black then color it in with flesh colors and such...

Take a look at this tutorial. especially sections 8,9,10, & 11

www.petesqbsite.com/sections/tutorials/tuts/tsugumo/default.htm

I learned everything I know about sprites from it. It was an invaluable tool for me & I hope it helps you.

[makerofgamz]

I redid the boy using the link above for instruction. Does it look a little better?

[zenassem]

I am looking at it now. One thing of importance is to never save your pixel art as a .jpeg or .jpg 

Jpeg is not a lossless format and truly destroys your work by adding artifacts. you should save them in .bmp, .png, or gif.

I believe the site prefers that you post in .png

====== Edit Quote from posting recommendations

* Only publish .GIF or .PNG images here.  .BMP is too bloated and .JPG's have severe artifacting in most cases.

Anyways, I will have to zoom in on your sprite... but at first glance it does look better. It's "neater"/"cleaner" (don't know how else to explain it). Although your first one is more of a freeform sketch and "loose", this version looks more like a game sprite and it will be easier to animate and draw at different angles.

I'll post more when I am done zooming in on it.

===== Edit After Zooming in...

As I suspected the .jpg format artifact(ed) your sprite to heck. So please post a clean version of it. Hopefully you have an unartifacted save in either .bmp or .png  if not you will need to redo the pixel work to fix this one, or start again.

[makerofgamz]

ok, heres a cleaner version. i saved it as .png...

[Babar]

I don't understand why everyone was going on and on about how you should shrink down your images so that you can use them as 'pixelated'. There is nothing majorly wrong with your hand-drawn style, and it definitely looks better than artificially shrinking down your image. You do know that AGS can support resolutions of up to 800x600? The most I would suggest is scanning in the images at a slightly lower res, and then using them in a 640x400 game.

For one thing, the black outlines look okay on the higher resolution sprites, but on the one you just posted, even if you cleaned up the double-pixels, it still wouldn't look so good. Then only thing you have to make sure about is that you can animate them.

[makerofgamz]

so i still hav'nt hit the notch yet huh? Back to the drawin board:D

[zenassem]

Babar, is correct in that you don't necessarily have to do your characters as 'pixelated' sprites. My post was more aimed towards if you "wanted" to have them appear that way. It really all depends on the look/feel you are going for, and your skills in animating characters. Personally I tend to think of 'Sprites' as pixel art, and the other as cartoon Animation. So choose what works best for you.

As far as the Sprite character, you would need to clean up the double pixels in the outline as well as get rid of unecessary corner pixels. And it's possible that this character would look better with a darker shade of the interior color for the outline, as opposed to being black. The tutorial i posted covers this, as well how to achieve some anti-aliasing by alternating pixel shades near the outline. I can post later about what I mean, or if you don't mind I could do a version of that character tonight and post tomorrow.

[makerofgamz]

sure...why not:D I'll go over this sprite again and see what I can do to change it. I'm kinda using this sprite as a practice, so that I can replicate it the technique on the est of the sprites so I'm expecting to have to alot of learning work. Ill post back later today with a redone version.

Thanks guys!

[makerofgamz]

I cleaned up the pixels and redid most of the outlines as well as the side of his face. Its looks smoother although im sure I will have to do some more work on it.

[zenassem]

I think it's coming together nicely. I see a lot of improvement, and it's looking good. You've got the outline and solid coloring down.

The other things you can try is working on the shading & highliting to give the character more depth. remember to choose a single light source and shade accordingly.

Finally try playing around with giving the facial feature more detail, closer to the original large drawing. This and the shading is the most difficult part to get right, so give yourself a few practice shots at getting it right. It can take time but imho you are well on your way to creating great looking sprites.

===
One tip, in the original the head (more specifically the face, not the hair) is pretty symetrical left<->right, while in your sprite things got shifted a bit. So for symetrical parts like the head, make one side and then just copy it and mirror it to make the other side match. then do the hair style. I find it easier/faster  to do this then to count and match each pixel manually to maintain symetry.

[Questionable]

I don't really understand why you've redrawn theat character as pixel art. It worked well the way you had it. I think you should practice with pixel art but for this time around, until you're proficient, the art style you had was real good.

[makerofgamz]

oh for sure, I will practice with pixel art, its an art I really want to master. it just seemed that everybody thought perhaps the pixel redo would make the character look better, and also be easier to animate. Although I still have all the original work files, redos etc so its not all lost:D For my next sprites, I will do them in pixel form, but still draw out my sprites to use as a tracing guide, but just change the resolution and scale.

 

[Alarconte]

this resolution isn't a bit tiny for this character type?

(well, I think yes..)

[makerofgamz]

not quite sure what you mean.... Are you saying it should be smaller...

[makerofgamz]

I decided to take a jump into making a character from scratch using pixels, so I made up a template to use:D Turned out pretty good. I enlarged it a bit so y'all could see it.