The VG Resource

Ok, guys ill take your advice. When i come back home ill surf a few styles on the main site.

do you guys have any suggestions of new styles though?

Any style really, It's all up to you. Find a game you like, and use that.
Most people seem to start with megaman or sonic sprites, but I
wouldn't recommend that.

Try to find something that doesn't seem overly complicated, but is
still detailed enough to learn from.

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help

we might warn you: you're on a rather early stage and you might need to practice and study A LOT to show some progress. most of us had to, all of us still do need to study from time to time to keep improving. pixel art, just like any activity in your life, requires perseverance and patience to master.

I think he's warning you against what seems to be the public's assumption that practice is enough

Practice is good and all, but studying is really what takes you to the next level. A lot of people are bad artists because they just do stuff they like all the time without bothering to actually learn. It's kind of depressing how often I see that people think they're good artists and just don't know what kind of resources there are out there...

By studying we mean reading lots of tutorials, observing life, figuring out what techniques (good) professionals use, learning anatomy/proportions, etc.
Lots of looking and reading. As in, the boring stuff. There's a lot of information out there. I'm kind of wondering if we should have a more accessible list of resources (the spriting dictionary is good and I know we have a thread in the creativity subsection but iirc it's a bit overwhelming to try to sift through and the first post isn't fully updated)

I've learned so much just by observing other people's work on here too, so browsing through the other sprite threads will give you some ideas and insight as well.

new style

That fire should have a slight glow to it, make it brighter and hue shift more. A good palette to go for is dark purples to bright yellows, and everything in between is your standard fire hue shift, red-orange. Also, make the base more complex, like something Neo-Classical out of Infinity Blade. Brighten up the colors too, and avoid specular highlights that are one pixel unless there's very little contrast with the surrounding areas (your sunglasses).

I just got home from a super long day so I don't feel up to spriting what I mean, but why dont you make the candle holder be her dress, and shape it as such, and then have her hair be a ponytail of wick material (no idea what it's called) that's on fire at the end, or else have her hair be purely made of fire, and her head and shoulders/arms/hands made out of wax.
This post probably makes no sense but I am too tired to read it over, I might draw what I mean for you tomorrow, this is just a basic description of the idea that came into my head when I read "candle lady"
As for making her look more sexy, don't, there's no need.

this is, other than spriting problems, a lack of design sense. Character design is tricky as it doesnt really have a "right" way of doing it, its something kinda subjective and prone to errors, especially coming from me.

the thing is, feel free to bend the stuff you have to your advantage. Instead of making a normal candle holder as her body, try distorting it into something real people would use, such as a dress. The curved forms will also represent her breasts and therefore you wont need to tack tits on a candle. that is weird.

I´ll make something, hold on.

Yes I know I was making that and forgot to post to WIP of the candle

Something like this?

completely forgot about this thread, and probably gonna work on Candela someday

original on left

the human head isn't shouldn't be all that round... Even with his mugshot in the game
a realistic human head is kinda like this