The VG Resource

Though I want the point of this thread in the future to be about asking questions about the technical side of pixel art, right now I just want to know if that purple and red wizard guy is ripped off from somewhere.

I started out with that completely bland wizard design (surrounded by angry red arrows and the word NO), but then I started wondering why, even though I limited the color palette utterly, it lacked any sort of character. Turns out it's because the pointy hat and robe wizard has been done so many times that it's only ever cool in its original incarnations. So I looked around my room for things that would inspire the shape of the hat, and I found a cup.

Anyway; I have to know, am I subconsciously ripping this design concept off some other game I've seen? The cylindrical hat and poofy pants just seem so familiar...

Feel free, by the way, to explain to me why the color choice is bad and why I should feel ashamed about it. You can talk about the other stuff, too, like the untested bird animation (actually intended to look lifeless) and the clumsy untested explosion effect.

Are these sprites meant to be 8-bit styled?

Yeah. I feel like a limited color palette and some tight size constraints tend to give sprites more character than just using whatever colors you want and whatever size you want.

EDIT: I don't have much ability to give pixel art much character with an unlimited color palette and larger image sizes.

Yes, I agree. Though your sprites aren't bad for 8-bit they seem to suffer slight readability issues. I'm no sprite expert but this is what I see. I can't really tell what's going on in the third sprite, for example.

He's forced to scratch the back of his head in an awkward way (It's the end of an animation and the formlessness should be less of an issue in context. It's him swinging the staff as if it were a sword.)

Well uh, I don't know of any crit. to give you, sorry. I haven't worked with sprites enough. I guess you'll have to wait for a mod to view it. And BTW I really like the color wave thing you have at the top.

EDIT: I feel so useless in fields like this.

too small and unreadable.

It's intended to be viewed at a larger resolution, where the colors are easier to differentiate. Is it still unreadable then?

And, nobody recognizes the design from somewhere? I don't really want to continue with it unless it's at least a little bit original.

i actually think the sprite is pretty decent for a super tiny pseudo-atari kind of style, but the colours are poorly chosen and make it very hard to differentiate the parts of the sprite

Basically what Fish said. Red and Magenta are too close in hue to be easily readable. And considering you're working at max saturation (which can be a risky business, but let's not go there), it's all looking a bit eye bleeding.

Even if you did the lazy thing and switched the magenta for blue (or green!), the readability would go way up. Won't fix the eye-bleed, though.

Slightly updated. But now I feel as if... IDK, as if I don't quite know where I want the light source to be? I added shading to make context less of a necessity, but I'm not sure it's very effective, and some bits of it seem to cause some interference.

Are there still color issues?

EDIT: They're still intended to be viewed at a resolution closer to the first row than the second.

getting better, but i would recommend using a higher contrasting colour scheme than red and purple, especially with such a small style

Pretty completely reworked. Changed to the Atari 2600 color palette and am relying on pretending the orange is red through that weird color illusion some folks use. I decided it might be better to make this distinguishable at 1:1 resolution. I think, at this point, there are a couple misplaced or miscolored pixels, but I'd like to hear what you guys have to say about it.

That thing under him is a paintbrush, and he's balancing on it. The idea is that the brush could act like a witch's broom and he can fly on it, or he can use it to summon ink familiars or create barriers. I'm still working on the character development aspect of this, but I think the design is fair and functional.