First Mario sprites I've made in a while, I am generally new to spriting and started a month ago or so. Feedback would be great!

For being new to sprites those are pretty well made, however shading (like one of the sprites you've shown) would make them look much more professional for things like fangames, and for longer animations, more frames would do.

I think you should redo the walk cycle and make it proper

Here are some good tutorials.


(from http://www.idleworm.com/how/anm/02w/walk1.shtml)

There! All done (Or was I?)
(Sorry image got deleted)

I'd recommend having the body turn during the animation, too.

(07-25-2013, 04:40 PM)Cobra Wrote: For being new to sprites those are pretty well made, however shading (like one of the sprites you've shown) would make them look much more professional for things like fangames, and for longer animations, more frames would do.

Note the fact that nobody else said anything about this. It's not a problem.

That walking animation has okay arm and leg movement, but the body and head are a bit too stiff for how jumpy the arm and leg movement is.

Alright, I think I've got the finished product

EDIT: I looked over this again, and the body rotation looked goofy since his body is facing completely forward on a couple frames, so I tweaked it a bit. (I also trimmed back the hair a little bit)

After numerous attempts at making a Donkey Kong 94 Mario custom, I finally got one I'm (somewhat) happy with, what are your guys' thoughts on it?

I guess I'll resize it too

The head is humongous and the limbs are undefined.

the biggest thing i have to say is that these are boring; i've seen mario done in every style a thousand times for literally an entire lifetime
it's cool you want to make game sprites, but you should be more willing to do things with the design.
here's how this thread will probably break down if you keep going this way: someone will comment that the sprite could use more detailed proportions, because as it is his face is a little blurry when viewed at the small, ideal resolution. you will take their criticisms in and do that, and your next sprite will be in a similar comfort zone but with better colors, until someone is telling you 'great job"

the things is, there's really no improvement to be had here! take this, for example



this is a sprite badassbill did several years ago. it's a running animation of mario that manages to be fundamentally different, but still in keeping with what makes the character recognizeable, and is an example of several cool techniques executed in good ways.
mario's animation is smooth and has a lot of fluidity to it, there's a subtle bouncing of his features that adds a lot to the implied weight. the colors are simple and refined
so a couple of your sprites are cool - but do something different.

He's trying to practice making sprites. He can mix up the design later when he has acquired the skill to do so, but you're looking past the fact that he's trying to improve for now, so he can do that kind of thing later.
At this point in time, he's not used to spriting familar things in unfamiliar ways, so give him time.

(08-02-2013, 03:42 PM)Quotient Wrote: He's trying to practice making sprites. He can mix up the design later when he has acquired the skill to do so, but you're looking past the fact that he's trying to improve for now, so he can do that kind of thing later.
At this point in time, he's not used to spriting familar things in unfamiliar ways, so give him time.

true, but he can improve further by trying new designs and such, and even if they don't look great he can get help with them so he continue to improve his overall skill with spriting and also his skill with original designs.

(08-02-2013, 03:42 PM)Quotient Wrote: He's trying to practice making sprites. He can mix up the design later when he has acquired the skill to do so, but you're looking past the fact that he's trying to improve for now, so he can do that kind of thing later.
At this point in time, he's not used to spriting familar things in unfamiliar ways, so give him time.

Spriting unfamiliar things in different ways allows for an artist to develope his/her own style of work, so there are different ways people can improve, one being trying new things, even if you know you are bad at them, if we only did what we were good at and didn't try unfamiliar things, there really wouldn't be any progress, and telling him to do the same thing over and over isn't the best thing to do, since if he's doing something wrong it could end up being kinda being a habit, and would hurt the artist more than help in the long run. So honestly it's much better to try and do unfamilar things than to do the same hting over and over, though, I'm not saying to not fix the things wrong with the pixelart, just that don't limit one self to the same thing over and over.

really ny point was mario is boring

One thing at a time, you can't improve fully if you do everything at once.