I really want to improve my skills!

[Metaknight555]

I would really like to hear some critiques to help me improve my sprites. Here are a few that I've done.

This is an old sprite I made forever ago.


I made this one for a friend recently for a game he's making.


This my most recent sprite, This I made using Card Saga Wars style.

[Jamuk]

Your lineart looks very jaggy at the moment; try some anti-aliasing to smoothen it. Also, increase the contrast (i.e. the difference in light/darkness) between your shades.

[Gors]

first than learning a 'high-level' technique such as anti-aliasing, you gotta learn the very basics first.

You apparently have some basics already, as shown in those sprites. I'll comment only about the second sprite you made, as it's one of your recent ones with apparent problems.

First of all, your lineart, as Curly said, is jagged. The lines are really straight when it should be really smooth, and there are some broken parts in the line that throws me off. The gray color you used for outline on the robes/boots are lighter than it should be (the outline color shouldn't be lighter than the shade inside it) and you don't need that many colors for a sprite that size. Pixelart doesn't get better if you use a lot of colors; it gets better if you use the colors in an intelligent way, lowering the numbers of colors as many as possible. This would be what I consider basic problems.

After fixing those problems, other changes could be made, such as: choose more contrasting colors for the light gray you used for the scythe, because metallic objects suffer higher contrast between its shades than other materials such as flesh, cloth or plastic. Also hue-shifting your colors would add a nice touch here. Readability is also everything in an art media like pixelart, so be sure to represent the character better than trying to add unecessary details. This will make your sprite improve tenfold.

[Jawnsunn]

step 1 of high level sprite skill:
colors.
Mix your colors and hue shift them, and don't be afraid to use other colors like using blue and adding a hint of green there.

good luck on becoming the high level sprite skill dude/man/master

[Metaknight555]

Thank you so much for the responses guys! I will work on my anti-aliasing, and contrast.

I'm also reading through the dictionary topic, and checking out all the tutorials. Good stuff, one day I will be the master of sprites!!!

[Cobalt Blue]

step 1 of high level sprite skill:
colors.
Mix your colors and hue shift them, and don't be afraid to use other colors like using blue and adding a hint of green there.

good luck on becoming the high level sprite skill dude/man/master

step 1 of good tier criticism: explain any term you may use, taking into consideration the person you are criticizing might not be familiar with it.

provide examples, and elaborate as much as posible, in order to make your comment as useful as posible, rather than simply making it for the sake of posting -wich is as bad as simply saying "fix it"-

and most important: aim your comment towards what OP really needs, understanding at wich level OP works. you cant ask him to learn hue shifting or antialiasing when he barely understands the basics of proper shading and jagged lineart evasion.

[The Dark Angel]

Guess im the only one thats isnt critical about this...... i really suck at making sprites and you rock at making them!

[Gors]

^

yo, I have a perfect site for you, http://www.deviantart.com, you may leave here and join there instead.

tSR is not a place for mindless praise over things that clearly need work. You saying that suck at sprites is never a valid reason to say the other's works 'rock', for the lack of a better word. Being critical is not being mean or bad, means being open-mined and acknowledged that the piece has flaws and need to be fixed to be considered good. YOU ARE NOT HELPING THE OP AT ALL WITH THOSE DUMB SUGARCOATING

This being said, if you don't have anything to add, don't post at all. hth

[Metaknight555]

Thank you Qmayn! I feel like I definitely have improved with my more recent sprites, but I'm still not "there" yet you know? I want to keep getting better and better.

[Gors]

I forgot to add, praising well done work is ok, but it's not when you use dumb parameters to praise.


yet, OP, I made clear that your work has flaws and needs work. But I already like you, because you seem to be humble and knows you're still beggining. Keep practicing and listening to valuable C+C, you'll be improving a lot this way c:

[Metaknight555]

Alright guys, I wanted to show my latest sprite, not totally finished, it still needs a few edits here and there, but I wanted to see what you guys thought first. I really tried to focus on anti-aliasing, and I made it bigger so that I could add more detail. I only used three shades per color, Usually I use four.


And the image I used for reference.


I hate the way his sword turned out, but I got fed up with trying to make it look good for now. Also it kind of looks like he's missing a leg, but I was trying to make it bend back. What do you guys think?

[Cobalt Blue]

3 colors per shade is way, way too much for something asd simple as this. plus the readbility both due to the low contrast on some parts of the palette and the pose itself is quite poor. the way the sprite was designed right now(plus a light background) makes it quite hard to figure what is going on on it.

mys ugestionw ould be to first, reduce the whole palette to a single shade per color, and then(and only then) add an extra shade of color IF and ONLY IF necesary, keeping in mind that colors that are too similar will basically blend, so you should pick those who actually have a good amount of contrast between them.

do not even bother with antialiasing or even dithering(in fact, take dithering out of your head inmediately).

we need to work on the pose as well.

[Metaknight555]

More like this? The one with only 2 shades per color is on the right (also got rid of all the dithering), old one on the left. They don't seem that different, but I see what you mean by the 3rd shade being unnecessary.


Next up pose??

[Hoeloe]

Still needs more contrast in most places. The place it's immediately apparent that there is shading is on his shorts. This shouldn't be the case.

[Metaknight555]

Alright should I go lighter or darker?

Thanks everyone for putting up with me by the way.