The VG Resource

I've decided to post this thread here, to show off some sprites I decided to make. I'm open to any and all criticism, and I'm hoping I'll be able to get better at spriting.

My first custom sprite started out as Bubbles from the Powerpuff Girls, and, it has pillow-shading, which is a shading style I dread. I wasn't really full of inspiration when I made this, so it wasn't going to be the best, and, it's one of the pixel-type sprites, where it has a complete black (or any other solid color) outline without variation. I made this last year in December.



The next two customs I had made were just for practice so I could sort of get the feel of it. They were both sprites of Sonic the Hedgehog, and they turned out horribly in my opinion. The sprites, to me, make me question my knowledge on sprite anatomy.



Another mistake I had made when making those two practice sprites were the fact I had used both pure black and pure white for whenever those colors were needed. Big mistake.

My fourth (third) custom sprite I had made was today, and I'm proud of it! I know I'll be able to do better than this one, though, definitely! It's a sprite of my friend's character, Darkie. I don't remember what species she was, but I thought it was the least I could do for my friend, since she was down in the dumps. (I used some Sonic the hedgehog sprites from other people to use as a size comparison. Why I used them? Simple: I had used them as reference for anatomy-based purposes.) Who knew she'd turn out to be taller than the three? Below that, I have a little time-line of the steps I did to make her, and right beside the drawing of Darkie (which my friend drew), I have the scaled-up version of the sprite. (This makes it better to see.) I also have a color palette with the original-sized sprite (finished) right beside it.



Hopefully there will be more sprites to come!

We actually have a Fourm for Custom stuff. an Admin can move it soon.

Just pointing that out there

(11-07-2014, 07:20 PM)nateismyname Wrote: [ -> ]We actually have a Fourm for Custom stuff. an Admin can move it soon.

Just pointing that out there  

Okay, I didn't know that. Thank you.

I've moved this to the custom board where it belongs. You should get more feedback here, too.

Your two biggest problems are that you are using too many colors on the palette and the shades lack contrast. Pixel art is all about readability, so by sacrificing multiple shades for a higher contrast, the sprites will look much better.

It seems you've improved a bit since you made that Bubbles sprite last year, which is great. Your newer sprites still use a tad too many colors, but knowing not to pillow shade is half the battle.

Let's look at those Sonic sprites you have for reference.

They accomplish a lot with a smaller color count, and clean pixeling. Make sure the shading on your sprites is sharp and noticeable. (aka contrasted)

Let's break down Sonic's color count...
Blue- 4 shades. It's the most prominent color on Sonic, so it has priority.
Skin- 3 shades. It's not as important as the blue parts, so gets less colors. Notice the reuse of white as a highlight, though. Reusing colors is smart when it comes to pixel art, so do it often.
White- 4 shades. It's pretty important like blue, and can be reused elsewhere since it's such a neutral color.
Red- 2 shades. In this case, it gets the job done with simply just two colors.

In total, this blue bitch comes down to 13 colors. Not bad. The main thing to remember is to reuse colors when possible. It's all about efficiency.

I was working on some bases so I could make consistent Sonic sprite, and I tried to reduce the amount of colors that were used. I ended up using 13 colors for both sprites. (Imagine how many colors I'll be using when I add clothes.)

If you're using those colors I think you should make that 2nd shade of blue(closest before the lightest shade) a bit brighter so it won't look a little unnecessary.
Kinda like 'dis maybe

I made the secondary light blue brighter so it's more visible, but not too bright. (And to make it more necessary.)

That's just what i like to see. People giving criticism and other taking it and improving. It makes me want to cry :,)

Your shading is coming from multiple light sources, which is not good. If you start from left to right, the head goes lighter to darker in shading. The body, however, goes from darker to lighter shading. This contrast makes the head and body look like two separate entities. Make sure your lighting is consistent, it will add cohesion and qualitypiece.

I attempted to fix the lighting on the head to match where the light source is coming from on the body.

You can easily cut down the amount of colors on the palette by at least 1 per color. You can remove the most light color that you're using for highlights and use white/gray where useful.

Also, there could stand to be a bit more contrast between the shades that you've selected.

I attempted to add more contrast to it, and I changed the hue a little bit on the skin. I replaced the lightest colors for both the skin and fur, and either got rid of the light bits, or just replaced them with the off-white colour. I also added some eyelashes to the taller one, since it is a female.

Sorry for a double-post, but now I have another sprite.

I haven't stopped working on my Sonic base sprites, but I had recently joined the Superjail fandom, and I made a sprite of The Warden. I want to know what you think of it, and what I could fix or change.



I tried using tips from previous replies and attempt to have the lowest amount of possible colours for contrast and readability. I also tried to re-use colours as much as possible. I have a bad feeling about the glasses, though. To me, I feel like they blend together too much. Same with the under-shirt.

What would you say about just cutting out the middle shade and just skipping ahead to the darkest value for each color in the shading? That way, it's possible to clean up the sprite a bit since multiple colors for the shades have the risk of making a sprite look less readable. If you want to still keep two shades for each base color, though, try using an outline that uses the darkest shade, while the lighter shade is used for the shading. Of course, if you go this way, give your colors more contrast because the current lighter shade does not look too different from the main color at 100% scale.