The Resource WIP Thread 3

@Sharm Vibratos sprite are out of my league :kaocry: i was suppose to use his/her sprites but one character is lacking thats why i can't proceed. but thanks for the feedback ill definitely use them for reference!

I'm trying to make a sprite tip-toe. But they are so small with tiny feet it seems impossible. Here's my silly example:

@StrawberrySmiles
Not much can be done for front view/back view since the level of detail for the feet is miniscule. If anything, what you did with the arms is nicely done.

On side-view, there's some room to give it the illusion of the character tip-toeing.

Here's what I can do for now as an example:


Since the toe is the basis of the character's balance, not much pixels are needed to sprite the foot. However, you will need to increase your poses' height by 1 pixel tall, since realistically, you're leveling yourself slightly more than your current height.

Trying to create tiles for a minimalist contemporary city map. The hardest part for me is choosing the palette, and finding balance between too much detail and not enough.
This needs way more work but I'd love some feedback

@StrawberrySmiles Try making the skirt flair upwards a bit when she steps forward, it might help with the illusion and at that size animation success often comes down to exaggeration.

@acirnep Well, there's two things you can do to keep things low detail. First, put all the detail in the edges, keeping the centers blank. This lets you give the viewer a lot of information while only working on a very small area. The other thing you can do is to have only spots of detail. For example, on the roof instead of making a full pattern for the shingles you could just have a few random shingles here and there. You should definitely put edges on those buildings though, keeping them flat colors like that makes it feel unfinished.

I get this, in theory, but I'm having a hard time visualizing it. Maybe you have an example, or even pointers on what to look for?


This is superuseful advice, thanks so much! I changed the roofs and it already look so much better. I'm going to work a bit more on it before posting again.

The absolute best example I can think of for putting details at only the edges is also one that has more detail than you're wanting to use, but maybe it'll still help. Look up some maps for Minish Cap. It's lush, and gorgeous and if you look closely at it you'll see that in reality that there are large spaces where there's just a single color, no texture at all. It mostly just has edge pieces and random alternate tiles. This is a pretty extreme example, but it's a nice one of how you can trick people's brains into thinking there's more information than there really is if the information is in the right places.

@Sharm thanks! I always find it interesting to study what other have done and how they achieved something.
I'm not opposed to detail for the sake of itself; I did start using RTP tiles and after a short while I realised I was never going to be happy with it, because being quite detailed it makes you notice more when something is missing, so I started adding details, but then you notice when there are too many repetition... so I asked myself if that amount of detail was going to add something to the kind of experience I want to create with this game, and the answer was "not really". So I've started from the simplest shapes I could, and it's an interesting challenge to find how much is enough.

I took a break from mapping to go back to the sprite:

Huh. That's interesting. Most people start completely original tiles because they have a desire to do everything themselves. FYI, if making the repeating elements less glaringly obvious is a problem you should check out Pyxel Edit if you haven't already. There's now other software that will show you how your tile repeats as you draw, but I like Pyxel Edit because it's the best combination of cheap, easy to use, and most features. I became at least twice as fast when I switched to it. Also, if you're not set on doing everything %100 yourself, now is a really great time to look up existing artwork to see if there's anything you can use. With a little editing a bunch of surprising stuff can be made to work together. I really think it's important to do this because making your own set is way more work than you think it is. Even now, with how much you've already done, I would bet you're underestimating. It's good to use every shortcut available to you so you can get back to your game.

Good start. Probably a little too neat still until you have the animation where you want it. First thing, you'll want to do the same perspective on the sprite as the tiles. This means that you'd see the character from above and to the front, not just from the side. For the front walk this means things like the head overlapping the shoulders and seeing way more of the top hair. For the side you'd see more of the shoulders and the back leg would be further up, again see more of the top of the head, things like that. References for examples of tall sprites are more limited but they exist. Maybe Alundra? I know there's some with a more realistic style but I'm not as interested in those so I'm not familiar with them.

Hi all!
Would like to know if you could give me some feedback and/or advice regarding my floors.
I did ones I'm not happy at all and that made me insecure about the ones I already had...
What do you think?

You might want to make the segments slightly more obvious in the wood diamond floor, and I'm not sure what the bottom right one is meant to represent (spotted carpet? A type of stone with white flecks?) but in this context the rest of them look great. You should test them out in the context of a room if you haven't already, see how they look with furniture and a character. Floors in general need a careful balance between detail and not drawing too much attention to themselves, and it's easy to make something that the character sprites get a bit lost in.

Even if something isn't working it can be made to work, so don't worry. Just think of those ones you thought were failures more as first steps.

@Sharm thank you for the feedback, it's a great help!
I also thought that the lines that divided the boards on the diamond wood floor were lost in all the brown. Will try to add a slight darker tone.
It's a blue carpet with white and yellow dots (was trying to do something close to flowers).
Well, it's a relief to know they look good, I already tried in-game some of them, so far I don't think it causes any type of problems, I believe...
This is just to show how some of them look in-game:
Again, thank you for the help and advice, I'm more positive now. :LZSsmile:

Hmm, they all look pretty good in game. Nice!

@Guiguimu They all look good and the carpets in your game are gorgeous! The blue one is effective in that map. ^_^b

@Sharm @starlight dream thank you both! ^^ those words really mean a lot to me!

Hey everyone, was just wondering if I could get some feedback on a sprite I drew, please. :)
I know you can just create a naked RPG Maker Sprite and alter that, but I wanted to try my hand at drawing my own. It's just the base sprite, no hair or anything. I've never drawn in this style before so if I've completely missed the mark, please let me know what I need to focus on. Perfect practice makes perfect ;)
Just a note, while it is technically chibi pixel style, it is currently naked... so don't click the spoiler if you don't see that

Okay. Harsh critique coming up, I hope that's what you wanted. If not, skip to the last paragraph. This is a very good dress up doll but it's not going to work well as a sprite. What you're missing here is context. Don't use a white background when drawing (ever actually, color and contrast is contextual and using only white as the only background in a finished product is super rare), use a medium gray with a touch of color or a screenshot of your tileset. Test it out against all the backgrounds it's going to be used with. Try to make super quick clothes and hair for it. Is it easy? Annoying? Looking really funny? Remember what perspective your tiles are in and that your sprite will have to have the same one. Remember that your sprite is going to have to move. Maybe those little details are going to get in the way and create visual noise instead of being interesting.

Creating something that looks pretty should be something like the fourth priority, not the first, at least when you're making something for a game. Top for example, could be usability, how well it works for the purpose that it's being made for. Second: visual clarity, how easy it is for the player to comprehend what you're representing. Third: budget, how much time/money you can spend creating this before you have to move on. Fourth can be how pretty it is. It's not that it isn't important, but it's not the most important thing.

Gather up a bunch of your favorite sprites together and take a good close look at them. Why do you like these specific sprites over the others? What do they have in common? Why do you think they do the things they do? For example, the chibi thing has two causes. One, it made it easier to see the character back when they could only be one tile high, and it stuck. Two, because the face was more important to make the player identify with the character as a person than the clothes did. To apply the things we learned from the chibi thing, what's the most important things you want your player to notice about your sprite's anatomy? Why? How does it help you tell the story or make it easier to communicate the game mechanics?

You don't have to do this full analysis all the time, it's better to do that sort of thing as a way to figure out if it's working or if something is wrong. But doing some every time can be very helpful. Take it apart, think it through. It's important to come at game art with a focused purpose, you'll work faster and come up with something better and more you.

Proportions are good, eyes might be a bit wide. Looks like you'll end up with a very cute character using this base. Mostly you did a great job with shading, you just had some trouble with the head. Think ball not plate, and use some references if you need to. References are always a good idea. You might want to add an outline, it looks like it might get lost once you put it on the tiles. Overall a really great start.

@Sharm, your critique was definitely not viewed as harsh. If anything it was probably not "harsh" enough lol. Where I'm coming from is a background in sculpture, so 2D art is very new to me, especially Japanese styles which I've literally only been exploring for a couple days now.
What I'm getting at is the more honest the critique the better because that's the only way I'm going to learn this early on. Thank you for taking the time to give me such a long critique. I'm not sure if I understand completely what all these tips mean though?
I'll go through what you've said...


So does this mean that because I was using a white background I've got all the colours or shading wrong? Should it not be as bright or saturated or something? I colour picked my palette from a pre-existing chibi character. I'm unsure how I could go about improving upon it without a bit more to go on.


Should something this small have less detail in general? Should I only use detail in larger sprites? I just looked at how much information was in the clothes of the default sprite and decided to go ham lol.


I'm not making this for a game, I'm just trying to practice pixel art for the purpose of game art. But for the purpose of usability and visual clarity, does that mean I should work over a whole sprite sheet for the purposes of practice rather than just one frame? Or is that overkill for what I want?


Is this a nice way of say I've messed up the Chibi style? :guffaw: If so, I'll try to do some more research on the topic.


Thanks for the specifics! I'll try to fix all these things :D

Thank you again for replying, I really need straight up advice. Would've been a little disappointed if someone forewent advice for simply patting my ego.
:kiss:

I'm glad. People's reactions are so hit and miss and I was being unusually "EVERYTHING IS WRONG!" for me, in my own opinion. Especially since you had created a very pleasant base. Most of what I was saying was meant as an in general sort of thing, a way to help you get better on your own as you thought about things and came to your own conclusions about them.


It can. But it's more than that. Using a white background shifts your perceptions, and you'll end up with a different image than one you would have made using a different background. In general when using white as a background it tends towards a washed out palette, and a drawing that only looks good on white. This can happen even if you pick colors from something that's working, because you can use those same colors in different proportions to make something a completely different color. To determine what isn't working you'll have to change the background and just see for yourself what is and isn't working. White backgrounds also make it a little harder to give a fair critique of whether or not you've got a good sprite. ;)


Well, that's a bit tricky. Sprites should only have the important details. When I was first making bases I did the all out details and made it as perfect as I could, but the more I've made sprite bases, the more I've realized that most of the information I was jamming in there was not only useless, but getting in the way. My latest sprite is a super simple pudgy soft doll looking thing and it's the most effective as a sprite base out of everything I've ever made. I feel a bit like I'm cheating my way out of work, I'll be honest, but because I've changed priorities when working on it, it's doing it's real job better. That's so much more important, especially since I'm not making my artwork just for myself.

This is why I was focusing on asking what details were important to you and why. If the game is going to have a nude beach, for example, having a really detailed sprite with genitalia details might be important. But if the game never has anyone in less than full winter gear then that's not important at all.

Basically, the details are the focus, telling the viewer what's important. Your sprite has huge eyes, this means that the eyes are extremely important. Maybe you want to be able to show a lot of expression with just the way the eyes move, maybe eye color is a big deal in your game, maybe you want everyone to look soulful, but you've chosen to have the eyes as one of the most important things there and without reducing the details for them (in this case by shrinking them) there's no getting out of that. This base would be awful on a game more focused on the body, like if you had a FF5 job class system, or wanted to do a more western RPG where the focus was way less on characters. Being aware of that will help you make better decisions on what details to keep or add and which don't matter or would get in the way.


Functionally this means the same thing, unless I'm not understanding your point. I mean, you did say perfect practice makes perfect earlier. It doesn't matter if there's a real game, if you practice like it's going to be in one you'll have better practice at making real sprites.


I'm not sure I understand what you want. I think doing the full sheet would be better for practicing a sprite. Doing a front view is very different than doing a full sprite, and you'd be surprised at how things you thought made sense suddenly seem wrong when you try to get them moving or do the full turn around.


No, but it is a very roundabout way to try and get you to figure out on your own that you messed up the perspective. ;) Now that I'm less cranky I don't feel so bad about being direct. It's a very common error, but the sprite you made is in full front view. Your sprite needs to have the "camera" of our vision placed way higher. If this were 3D the camera angle would be roughly 60 degrees.


You're welcome. I'm just one very noisy person though, so do the amount that suits you and what you're doing. As long as you're listening and making those decisions purposefully, I don't mind being disagreed with.

@Andreyla Hi

I'm not a big expert either, but I'll point out some things that I notice in your sprite. Just opinions meant to be helpful (hopefully).

The fact that the sprite is naked, makes me wonder if it would be used 'naked' in a game (or art piece). You said it's just for practice of course, but I think it's useful to look at it "as if" it'd be used in a game.
If the character won't be seen naked, then the effort it takes you to shade the skin, and create those exact proportions, is perhaps too much work.

I can say I'm impressed with the detail (esp. if you're just starting out) and the color choices. It shows you're capable of coloring and creating volume and tone, which will come in handy when you're creating clothes for it too.

But the detail is likely too much for a base (IMO), unless it is to be used naked.

One thing that stands out is the size of the head compared to the body. I feel the head is a bit too large for her thin body, but I could be wrong here as I'm no chibi expert. It could look that way due to the angle of the body.
The fact that the body is so detailed and the head isn't (on the top part) clashes somewhat visually at this point.

The only "glitch" I can imagine is the position of her legs.
This is for your future reference, it isn't something to focus on at this point:

If the sprite is active and must take a step forth (imagine you'll have to create 1 image with a leg forth, and no other frames in-between) it will be difficult to position the legs into a smooth stepping transition from the current standing pose. Main reason is that the legs are as wide as the hips, when they should be a bit more close together (if the sprite is walking and not just standing there). For a sprite that only stands still the position isn't problematic.

Like I said, I'm no expert, so listen to Sharm :p

When people post sprites, it's better if they put a color background instead of white, because it's hard to distinguish skin tones and where all the pixels end.^^
I believe Sharm was referring to a background while making the sprite, so I don't want to confuse you about backgrounds :LZSrasp:

I also think it's important to ask yourself the questions she mentioned, before beginning to sprite.

The things I wrote about the legs are "finishing issues" and shouldn't be applied at this point. It's better to know what you're aiming to achieve with a creation, and work on the overall shape and size first.

I think you have the talent and color knowledge to make great-looking sprites.
Cheeeeers! :)

Edit: I hadn't read Sharm's latest reply when I posted. Sorry for any repetitions.

Edit #2:


Superb point! Only when I read that, I realized how true that is. And how important.
It changes how I see character creation entirely. Wow. Thank you! :)