Spriting Tutorial Part 1

[jubeh]

Well what am I supposed to tell you? Make the arm exactly 6 pixels? Make the head exactly 4x4? We're starting out with 3 colors so that we can avoid the pitfalls I see in a lot of indie game sprites. Poor use of black outlines, noisy sprites, and general lack of character.

What the actual standing sprite looks like doesn't matter until it's animated anyway.

[Regantor]

Maybe it would help super-newbs if you actually explained the basics of how to use MS paint? It sounds obvious to somebody who has been using it for years, but to people who are used to things like potatoshop, the simple stuff like having the secondary colour go transparent, or defining custom colours, might not seem so obvious...

It's still quite a nice tutorial regardless.

[Inksprout]

Here is my little guy, first ever attempt. He looks kind of like a blue haired shaggy from scooby doo. >_< I used graphics gale which seemed ok.

[jubeh]

Maybe it would help super-newbs if you actually explained the basics of how to use MS paint? It sounds obvious to somebody who has been using it for years, but to people who are used to things like potatoshop, the simple stuff like having the secondary colour go transparent, or defining custom colours, might not seem so obvious...

It's still quite a nice tutorial regardless.

Idk if I want to go that far but I'll field questions and help people oot. Animation is the really hard part anyway, which will hopefully end up being a lot more in depth.

Here is my little guy, first ever attempt. He looks kind of like a blue haired shaggy from scooby doo. >_< I used graphics gale which seemed ok.

Awesome. Graphics gale is cool but I can't be arsed to learn it /lazy

Anyway I made some changes. Consider it like a red line without...any red lines (except the box which is red)



I like his face a lot actually. It reminds me of an earthbound sprite.

First of all I need to point out that you broke the rules! You're sprite has 5 colors including transparency. White, blue, green, brown, fleshtone. I reduced the sprite to 4 colors (not including the box). The background is green, which would be transparent in a game. I had to make the shirt blue and the emblem on his shirt brown.

I turned him slightly away from the camera so that the transition to him walking will be smoother when we start animating.

I gave his shirt proper sleeves. This is important! The sprites upper arm and lower arm need to be easily distinguished. It helps a lot during the animation process. I noticed you tried to give him distinguishable hands. At this size it's honestly pointless. Squares suffice. I put his arms into a more relaxed position. He was positioned like a soldier in your sprite when he looks a lot like a slacker.

I forgot to retain the bagginess of his pants. That was my mistake and I only noticed it just now. Sorry!

[Inksprout]

Ah awesome! I dunno what happened with the colours XD I was just like yeah! 3! For some reason >_< I see what you did with the changes, it looks a lot better now. I'm hoping I don't get lost with animating in graphics gale but theres probably loads of tutorials

[ClockHand]

ok, I now my turn.



I have no idea how to make it bigger =/

I just learned how to do a gif animation!!! fuck yeah! 2 things learned in one day, I'm done for the entire year. But I don't have how to upload it, so... lol.



Ok, so now I'm addicted to sprites (thanks jubeh, another thing you have make my addiction =/). And I did these:

Saga Master System Version.


Snes Version.


Evolution of the Crimson Knight.


And a GIF.