Okay, I've decided I want to work more on fixing these. For right now, I think I'm going to stick to the one, since it has less that would need to be redone.

But first one thing: if you're planning on posting just to say some general insult about how "ugly and unappealing" it is, without any actual feedback, save your breath. You will be reported. If you plan on posting to say I use too many colors I will ignore your post because that means absolutely nothing. You might as well tell a writer he uses too many letters, or tell a weight lifter that he has too much muscle. Unless you plan on clarifying, save it.

Now then...


For anatomy, I think the legs need some work; as is they seem to be different lengths.

I suppose my main question would be, how would YOU fix the shading? I'm having trouble seeing how to do this without losing definition.

You pillowshade/band and use too many colors.

edit - (Deleting your previous thread in anger over legitimate C+C which was completely warranted was /not/ the correct course of action, by the way. Getting butthurt over people not praising you as the god of spriting when there are legitimate issues with your stuff won't get you very far here.)

Yes. I get it. You don't like my work. Now, do you have any advice for how to fix it or are you just going to keep telling me how terrible it is?

Also, you just got reported.

With spriting, it is mostly seen with trying to make art with using the least amount of colors possible. Using too many colors can make it look crowded and ugly, for example; your character's arms look ten shades darker then his chest which isn't a good thing, so saying that you are using too many colors is a liable crit, stop being an ass about it.


-Cut down on the colors (like Viper has said)
-don't pillow shade (like Viper has said)
-the Pendant looks like a ripoff of the one from Castle in the Sky with the color's inversed
-with the true form, due to the black, you can't see many of the details so you need to pick out your colors better
-The Torso and Arms look a bit short
-I don't understand why the true form as 3 arms, one of them being ridiculously short and fat with the other one being ridiculously long and skinny, not to mention the normal looking arm is too short.
-I don't get why his hair changes color, what is he? a Sayain?
-Welp that 4th arm is too noodly for me to have seen it as an arm earlier.
-The tank top makes him look like a girl

When I think of more I'll add more.

to fix the shading's definition, you need to fix the pillowshading. to fix the pillowshading, you need to drop the absurd color count you've got on each one of those abominations. to drop the color count you actually need to understand how hue shifting, contrast, saturation and lightsource work. to do so, you need to re-analyze your own work, study other people's work, drop the stupid attitude that you are somehow aware of what you are doing(protip you are not) and realise that if you came here to recive feedback, you might as well take it, analyze it and use it towards your improvement, rather that utterly react in such a childish manner as to deleting your entire thread because you didn't like how people beated your work to dust.

if people told you to drop the color count its because a proper understanding of contrast and saturation leads to a more fficient and clean use of palettes wich in turn helps you build characters with more defined shapes and more consistent volumes. throwing a shitload of useless ramps and just microscopically reduce their luminosity does nothing but make them extremely dull, reducing the overall readbility and specially destroying the readbility of any small detail you gave them.

how would i fix the shading on those sprites? i would need to completely remake the shading from ground-zero. if you prefer, you can actually take shortcuts, but the whole basis on how those characters is shaded is flawled, so unless you dont rework them completely, you're not going anywhere.

also i asked you to remove the useless walls of text because no one gives a fuck about them.

also its funny, i thought users came here and followed our rules, not vice versa.

(02-12-2011, 07:02 PM)Knight9910 Wrote: Yes. I get it. You don't like my work. Now, do you have any advice for how to fix it or are you just going to keep telling me how terrible it is?

Also, you just got reported.

I'm warning you for abusing the Report system, in no way was Vipershark's comment irrelevant or insulting, look at your characters arms compared to his chest, the skintone is like 10 shade darker on the arms which is caused by you using too many colors.

(02-12-2011, 07:02 PM)Knight9910 Wrote: Yes. I get it. You don't like my work. Now, do you have any advice for how to fix it or are you just going to keep telling me how terrible it is?

Also, you just got reported.

Advice?
It's simple; stop pillowshading and cut down on the number of colors you're using.

I'm not insulting you or being antagonistic or saying your art is terrible or whatever I appear to be doing in your eyes.
You asked for C+C, and I gave it to you. Just because I'm not sugarcoating it doesn't mean I'm insulting you.

I don't accept "too many colors" as a legitimate criticism because it's not my style. I think I get what you're talking about, but to me sprites that use the style you're talking about are ugly. I hate cell-shading, I tend to use a more realistic shading style.

For your other comments:

I'm not sure what Castle In The Sky is. The symbol is actually taken from the Dungeons and Dragons supplement Lords of Madness. The cerulean sign is the symbol of an ancient goddess that has the power to seal or destroy aberrations.

About true form, the flat-black coloring that makes it hard to see details was intentional. Also, it's two arms and two tentacles if that helps. Also, I was watching DBZ reruns at the same time i made this, so I might've picked up some inspiration there. I do agree that this is probably the sprite that needs the most work, though.

Also, saying he "looks like a girl" isn't really a sprite criticism, is it? It's not an error in the artwork.

EDIT: Again, Viper, my complaint isn't that you're being mean, it's that you keep repeating the same couple of words without saying a single thing could actually possibly help. Telling me I suck and telling me how I could get better are too completely different things. So again, unless you plan on clarifying or giving any suggestions leave now.

Style has nothing to do with your character probably getting skin cancer on it's arms due to too much sun tanning it seems and not enough at the chest.

Making Pixel art is Creating art with using THE LEAST AMMOUNT OF COLORS POSSIBLE

It isn't your style to make it look terribad, if you read my first post it has all of my crits in there.

I'm not telling you to use 2 colors.

I'm telling you to /stop/ using a billion and trying to cram them into a 7-pixel wide space. It's just not enough room, and it doesn't work that way.

You can cut probably half the colors in your sprite and still have it display correctly.

Correct shading =/= cel shading

you clearly have not a single clue on what you're asking, nor what style, shading, or even criticism is.

if you are just going to ignore whatever YOU dont consider wrong, then what should we do? comment on what is OK to YOU? how does than even work. really.

You know why you should cut down on the colors?

1. It will help you shade properly
2. His skintone will look even on his body


Also me saying that he looks like a girl with the tanktop on means you basically had given him boobs from overshading with too many colors.

I think as a Male he'd has Pecs rather then boobs, right?

Alright, look. Stop. I think we've gotten off on the wrong foot. I'm trying to be nice here, but so far I've gotten nothing but insults. When I first showed up the first thing I get is insults, not even a "good job, but needs more work" just straight "oh god it's horrible!" right from the beginning. When I try to ask for actual advice then everyone jumps on me and starts reporting me. For what? Not agreeing with you that I'm the worst spriter ever?

I don't think this is what you people are really like. I've looked around at the other threads here, and you don't seem to act this way to everyone else, telling them nothing except how much they suck and then having the entire forum jump on them when they don't agree. For some reason you all seem to be treating me like I'm some enemy you need to defeat, as opposed to another person who's trying to get help.

Certainly my sprites aren't that bad. I know they're certainly not perfect, but they couldn't possibly be so bad that you have absolutely nothing positive to say at all, even if it's something as simple as "well at least you put some effort into them and didn't just do a palette swap or something."

It's like you have a counter for every single criticism anyone offers. I'm not going to bother offering you any advice, because its obvious you don't plan on improving these in any way whatsoever.

at least you put some effort into them and didn't just do a palette swap or something

(02-12-2011, 07:12 PM)Knight9910 Wrote: I don't accept "too many colors" as a legitimate criticism because it's not my style. I think I get what you're talking about, but to me sprites that use the style you're talking about are ugly. I hate cell-shading, I tend to use a more realistic shading style.

The number of colors you use isn't really related to the style of shading. Your sprite is about the size of a fighting game sprite, so I'll use those to illustrate my example. Your sprite has over 32 colors. Most fighting game sprites use at most 16, and don't suffer from it. For example, look at this Ken sprite, from Capcom vs. SNK (left) and SNK vs. Capcom (right):

Both of these use under 16 colors, but the style is completely different. Capcom (left) tends to go for a cel shaded style, while SNK (right) goes for something closer to realism. If you study them closer, you'll see that one difference is that Capcom blocks out regions with their shade, and antialiases the difference, while SNK tends to make a gradient out of their shades.

The point is, you're simply using too many colors and using them inefficiently. Another thing I noticed is that you seem to get a lot of your shades by just moving the lighting up and down. You should consider getting a richer ramp, like this tutorial (which should be on this site, hint hint) illustrates: