The VG Resource

I'm having some real trouble getting the shading right, I haven't sprited in years

I think your squid is actually to clean. KDL3 sprites are grainy so they have a grainy look. Like your outlines, for instance, have long segments of solid color, and there's more AA on the Kirby sprites, some that, frankly, are way too low-contrast to be effective.

Honestly, given what I've learned on this site, KDL3 sprites seem pretty badly made, although personally, I always thought it was an awful style. But if you wanna use it, it's your choice. In my opinion, though, you've actually improved on the style with your sprite.

How to make crayon-like KDL3 sprites without raising your color count:



1) Create an indexed .PNG with the palette of your sprite.
2) Save your image to as mid-quality JPEG (I used 6/10 in ASEprite)
3) Paste that .JPEG into your indexed .PNG and you're done! Hurray!

Ok that is really useful but I'm kind of confused on how to do that... I followed your instructions and it's still a blurry jpeg?

It's most easily done is Aseprite. Put your sprite into a new file, then hit F4 and click the + on the corner of the window that pops up. A selection of new buttons will appear. Click on "Quantize" to have the program count the colors and generate a palette. Save the image as a GIF, then as a JPG. Reopen the GIF and the JPG separately (the one you left open before may not autocorrect pasted images, so close it and reopen just in case), and paste the JPG into the GIF. It will correct itself to match the GIF's palette while remaining grainy, then all you have to do is clean up any stray pixels that end up outside the sprite. Hope that helps.