Is it just me or do the P-balloon sprites keep getting progressively bigger with each new character sheet?

I forgot to put this in my previous post, but I noticed Lucario's legs also get really fat when he's swimming. It just looks weird.

(01-29-2015, 04:09 AM)Sketchasaurus Wrote: Is it just me or do the P-balloon sprites keep getting progressively bigger with each new character sheet?

I'll be really honest: I've been noticing it and it's dumb.


I mean, no problem if you like this kind of stuff, but what's the point of doing this kind of stuff in a (seemingly) game oriented sprite sheet? Not only it's weird, it's useless (because it increases your hitbox size too much) and really, it's written 'DEVIANTART' all over it, all in caps, bold, italic and underlined in red. It doesn't help that the pokemon also qualify for furry material but I digress.

These sprites in particular have ignored the original P-Balloon use and is now just an excuse for inflated characters in those sheets.

Basically when making a submittable sheet, do it thinking on others and its usefulness and keep those quirks to a minimum if not null.

So I wasn't the only one being bothered to see all those characters being inflated in deviantART fashion. I'm actually glad to see someone finally pointed it out.

What I find even weirder is that most (if not all) of his pokemons have P-Balloon sprites (and even few other fetish looking stuff that are really off character), yet his sheet of Mario himself doesn't has any of that, even though he was originally the character who used P-Balloons to begin with. In fact, I even looked up for the original SMW sprite sheet, and look at how Mario's P-Balloon sprite is:



He only gets a little chubby, and that's it. As Gors said, the way you make your P-Balloon sprites only ridiculously increase the hitbox. There is no need to exaggerate in them.

WHOA. I post something about Neweegee's sprites, come back a day later and THINGS happened.

Oh well, don't feel bad, Neweegee! You had the right idea with your older sheets like the Snivy and Scolipede. Just draw your newer P-balloon sprites like those and they'll be pretty functional if they're ever used in a game.

OK
I forgot to fix the size of Lucario's legs in the Swim and RunJump poses.
I also changed the P-Balloon sprite while I was at it; I'll make the size P-Balloon sprite the same size as the other sprites, so it won't break the hit boxes or look too wacky.


Here's the edit to the kick, but the fur didn't actually move for the animation, Virt. The animation before was linked to the stance where the fur moved a little.
Also I'll use DDP's P-Balloon, I have a lot of trouble making the P-Balloon sprites.



But now I'm almost done with requested sheets, so I can finally sprite what I want to again!

Yea...the Honey Queen from Super Mario Galaxy




< Tanooki Mario style floating.

The thing about the P-balloon is it always seems to just be Mario inhaling a bunch of air and inflating his stomach. With Neweegee's sprites, it's more like the balloon is inflating their skin, which is far more disturbing. It's like what Dig-Dug does to his enemies. *shudders*

Maybe I should've tried a Dig-Dug remake instead of Zelda?

OK but seriously, for some weird reason I thought that was how the P-Balloon effect was actually supposed to look, but I didn't look too closely at the SMW sprites. So now I'm making sure to use references better. I think a similar problem happened with the Ride sprites for the longest.

But now, I was gonna drop the whole Mario-Style thing to switch to a style like the one I'm using for the Zelda remake, so I can start fresh to make sure the sheets have better consistency with each other. I saw that the current style has a lot of inconsistencies(especially on the older sheets) since I left out sprites on some and eventually changed parts of the actual art style.

But before I do that, I have to finish Honey Queen's sheet, and now another sheet about items, from Super Smash Bros!



This time, I'm gonna try to make sure they actually work well with other sprites.

Some advice from me...Don't focus on keeping your sprites consistent. Keep experimenting, improving and discovering new ways of drawing characters. You are still a growing artist, so the quality of your sheets will be constantly improving. I myself have tried to make my sprites fit into a "style", but I found it very limiting to my growth as an artist. It takes most artists years to cement their own style, so there's no need to be rushing towards that goal.

Anyways, your newest batch of sprites is quite good! I'm particularly fond of how you drew the particle effects on your fire and jets. You seem to have a better knack for drawing those than I.

Also, I'd definitely second a Dig Dug remake project! A project like that would have a smaller scope than a Zelda project, so I imagine it would be easier to finish. Not to mention, Dig Dug has always been my favorite arcade game because it's the only one I'm not terrible at.

(02-02-2015, 08:23 PM)Neweegee Wrote: Maybe I should've tried a Dig-Dug remake instead of Zelda?

No. Please. No.



Also, "style" shouldn't be a main focus when learning anything. it's something that's developed over long amounts of time and is something that people come into on their own. When you limit yourself to one realm of thought or even your own way of doing things, you'll end up in a stagnant pool of self-reference and end up being a parody of yourself in many cases.  

When it comes to making sprite sheets for a particular style, one must consider all of the conventions that make it up. Even though the SMW style is kind of a mediocre hodgepodge of things at times, there's a lot more that could be done using some of the conventions it establishes. (although it's not a great reference for walk cycles by any means) 

Also, it should be noted that a sprite sheet is only useful if there's a foreseeable purpose in it:

As a hypothetical fangame/fanimation maker, would I want to make a sprite cartoon with Pokémon that are Sonic-esque anthropomorphic, or am I going to want them to be more on-model with how they look in their franchise? For some, they may want the former, but I imagine for the most part, people would prefer the latter, but it's just a thought exercise at this point.

By more consistent I mainly just meant having the most of the same animations(which was totally broken when you compare Snivy and Ivysaur's spritesheets) and sizes(Zoroark was a little too big) so that they can be used together with the other spritesheets. I don't mean to stop myself from trying to improve.

It's just when I make sheets I plan on uploading, I try to make it where they can be used with a good variety of other sprites(and gameplay) so that if someone uses them, they don't have to make them clash with other sprites(like the previous style blended at least loosely well with recolored SMB3 graphics), but if every sheet I uploaded was a testing ground and had almost completely different animations and styles, I think they wouldn't really be useful, since they couldn't be used with themselves and maybe anything else. So I mostly do all of the experimenting with sprites when I'm not making spritesheets, which is how the Zelda Remake's style was created.

I also don't mean I'm not going to change or try to improve the the style or even use the previous one again, but I wanted to try working with this now. I hope you understand what I mean.

That new lineless style looks absolutely amazing! It's a big improvement over the old sprite and the color choice is top-notch. If only New Super Mario Bros had used sprites like that!

Queen Bee is also looking pretty great. Your shading is improving with every sprite and your anti-aliasing on her stripes is super-smooth. Keep up the good work!

With due respect, Neweegee, is the shading on his hat supposed to fluctuate like that? To me, it looks mildly distracting.

On the back leg, the movement seems a bit off. They leg grows thicker and thinner as it moves. Other than that, very nice!

The hat shading looks wonky and disturbing. Other than that the sprite looks wonderful. I'm flabbergasted. It looks incredible!