Superjustinbros' Custom/Edited Sprites

[Superjustinbros]

Just my collections of custom and edited sprites.
Since I was asked to, I decided to restart the thread and instead showcase 90% custom sheets that don't have many, if not any re-colors, or in other words show quantity over quality. I'll begin with a rather simple one:


This is a spritesheet I created based on the idea of a Bleach-themed Pac-Man game. Ichigo is the main character, the other Soul Reapers serving as the enemies. The various oriental foods act as the bonus items that give points, while any other collectable performs an alternative action.


I also removed the downloads to the Pac-Man and Super Mario Bros. sprite sets as a good number of the sprites are repeated with different color schemes.

[Keiang]

You could cut down like 80% of these if you avoided having so many alternate palettes. Recolors really aren't worth showing. I also don't really get what some of these are supposed to be. I mean, you have blocks from some kind of breakout clone, some Mario map sprites, an unexplained Mega Man fan character.

I could probably give C+C on a sheet by sheet basis, but it'd take ages. Also, I don't really have context for most of these.

[Gors]

I have nothing to say other than this being another case of quantity over quality. The sprites aren't that useful as anyone could make it whenever they wanted, and the amount of variation is overkill.

[Garamonde]

Yeah, I wouldn't post so much stuff at once, it makes it harder for us to evaluate.

[Superjustinbros]

Hm, Now that you three bring it up, I did kind of rush all my custom sprites onto the forum rather quickly without bothering to describe what everything was edited from or did. Maybe I should've just posted one at a time and decrease the amount of sheets containing recolors so this post wouldn't contain so many, if any pallette swaps at once.

The only one I think would be worth showing at the moment are the "Bleach Pac-Man sprites", as for the most part none of the sprites are repeated with different colors nor are taken from other sources and edited in that sheet.

[Superjustinbros]

Okay, I filled up my refined Breakout/Arkanoid sheet. For anyone that wants to know, I will be titling the clone in question Otaku-Ball.



Let me know if there's any way this sheet can be improved.

[Garamonde]

Okay so, the blocks outlined in blue need the contrast raised in the lightest shade, the ones lined in green need the contrast increased in the darkest shade, and the ones in red need the contrast upped in both the lightest and darkest shades. That's all I can see ATM.

[Keiang]

There's... really not much to say. It's a bunch of rectangles.

There's some contrast issues here and there, namely with the brightest blocks (basically the bright yellow through cyan blocks' colors are all eye-bleedingly bright, so all the shades look pretty much the same, making the shading completely pointless. The arrows at the bottom are okay, but certain angles are super unclear due to how fuzzy they look. I assume you used an automatic rotation thing.

As for the SPECIAL POWER blocks, I really don't know what to say; I can't accurately say how well they get the idea across if I don't know what the basic idea is. I don't know what those arrows are for, I don't know what that gold block with the green/red lights on it is for, I don't know what the red and blue triangle blocks are, etc. I assume the switches are for turning those translucent blocks on and off though, so I guess that's something.

For something that is apparently about otakus, there really isn't much otaku culture in there. I don't see any figurines, or references to Japanese pop culture, or anything really that strikes me as OTAKU. It just looks like Breakout. I mean, I guess you could use the blocks like sprites and make little anime pictures but that'd take a huge number of blocks to look good unless you're just going with
8 bit.
At the end of the day though, it's a game about rectangles. I don't think there's any SUPER IN-DEPTH analysis we can do when the subject matter is so simple.

What I can do, however, is review the Bleachpac sprites. Which I would've reviewed earlier had I noticed you edited your post to ask about.

Okay, first, I have no idea what you're doing with the size. I get it's Pac-man, but cramming that much detail in to such a tiny space is only going to make your sprite look weird. I mean, Ichigo looks like he has an orange afro, not spiky hair. I'd try upping the size if you want to accurately represent the characters.

Secondly, your use of colors is pretty bad. The skin tone and white look almost identical, which makes things like Ichigo's face look pretty bad. On sprites with larger white areas, like Hitsugaia (I don't really follow the series, the white hair guy)'s hair, the difference is a bit more noticeable, but the issue is still there. Some shading could probably help out a lot.

I guess you were trying to do some kind of half-assed 8-bit, without understanding what the actual limitations of the style are. This is only exasperates the messy quality caused by trying to cram so much detail into a small sprite.

To be frank, your food is sprited better than the characters. I mean, the characters are recognizable to people who know about them, but only in the same way that this is recognizable as Sonic the Hedgehog.

There are more issues, but I think these are probably the core ones.

[Superjustinbros]

Okay so, the blocks outlined in blue need the contrast raised in the lightest shade, the ones lined in green need the contrast increased in the darkest shade, and the ones in red need the contrast upped in both the lightest and darkest shades. That's all I can see ATM.

Alright. I modified the blocks to make their color schemes not look so eye-grating. Let me know if there's anything else wonky about the sheet.

There's... really not much to say. It's a bunch of rectangles.

There's some contrast issues here and there, namely with the brightest blocks (basically the bright yellow through cyan blocks' colors are all eye-bleedingly bright, so all the shades look pretty much the same, making the shading completely pointless. The arrows at the bottom are okay, but certain angles are super unclear due to how fuzzy they look. I assume you used an automatic rotation thing.

As for the SPECIAL POWER blocks, I really don't know what to say; I can't accurately say how well they get the idea across if I don't know what the basic idea is. I don't know what those arrows are for, I don't know what that gold block with the green/red lights on it is for, I don't know what the red and blue triangle blocks are, etc. I assume the switches are for turning those translucent blocks on and off though, so I guess that's something.

For something that is apparently about otakus, there really isn't much otaku culture in there. I don't see any figurines, or references to Japanese pop culture, or anything really that strikes me as OTAKU. It just looks like Breakout. I mean, I guess you could use the blocks like sprites and make little anime pictures but that'd take a huge number of blocks to look good unless you're just going with
8 bit.
At the end of the day though, it's a game about rectangles. I don't think there's any SUPER IN-DEPTH analysis we can do when the subject matter is so simple.

What I can do, however, is review the Bleachpac sprites. Which I would've reviewed earlier had I noticed you edited your post to ask about.

Okay, first, I have no idea what you're doing with the size. I get it's Pac-man, but cramming that much detail in to such a tiny space is only going to make your sprite look weird. I mean, Ichigo looks like he has an orange afro, not spiky hair. I'd try upping the size if you want to accurately represent the characters.

Secondly, your use of colors is pretty bad. The skin tone and white look almost identical, which makes things like Ichigo's face look pretty bad. On sprites with larger white areas, like Hitsugaia (I don't really follow the series, the white hair guy)'s hair, the difference is a bit more noticeable, but the issue is still there. Some shading could probably help out a lot.

I guess you were trying to do some kind of half-assed 8-bit, without understanding what the actual limitations of the style are. This is only exasperates the messy quality caused by trying to cram so much detail into a small sprite.

To be frank, your food is sprited better than the characters. I mean, the characters are recognizable to people who know about them, but only in the same way that this is recognizable as Sonic the Hedgehog.

There are more issues, but I think these are probably the core ones.

In regards to Otaku-Ball, many of the level's backgrounds (at least, what I have planned) are based around something you'd see in both anime and casual Japanese life. Blocks in certain levels would be arranged to form stereotypes and cliches in Japanese culture (facial expressions being one of these), plus kanji in some instances. The game itself will be designed in 16bit.

I am soon planning on writing down what each special block's functions would be in a text file with pictures so it's easier to tell.

When it comes to Bleach Pac-Man, I don't have any plans on returning to developing the current sheet. However, since you bring up the size and shading, I'll see about making the next incarnation of the sprites be 16bit 32x32 pixel sprites, using the old sheet as skeleton references.

[Cobalt Blue]

im curious to know what does 16bit actually means to you.

[Superjustinbros]

im curious to know what does 16bit actually means to you.

Graphics with little to no pallette limitations, but still drawn to fit inside a boundary.

[Cobalt Blue]

in the spirit of not being blunt, "16bits" has basically nothing to do with that. nothing at all. in fact 8/16bit has nothing to do with amount of colors or size of sprites under any circumstance.

what you described is more of an excuse to draw small sprites with poor color choices, wich is what people usually does out of poor asumptions/ignorance as to what the genesis/snes/nes did back in the 90's.

considering you are not working on something that will run under the hardware of any of these systems, do yourself a favor and apply said restrictions (color and size) out of purely aesthetic choices. mainly so you wouldn't sound like a dumb hipster.

[Superjustinbros]

in the spirit of not being blunt, "16bits" has basically nothing to do with that. nothing at all. in fact 8/16bit has nothing to do with amount of colors or size of sprites under any circumstance.

what you described is more of an excuse to draw small sprites with poor color choices, wich is what people usually does out of poor asumptions/ignorance as to what the genesis/snes/nes did back in the 90's.

considering you are not working on something that will run under the hardware of any of these systems, do yourself a favor and apply said restrictions (color and size) out of purely aesthetic choices. mainly so you wouldn't sound like a dumb hipster.

I don't intend on creating sprites that'd run on anything but PC; In fact I didn't really stick to any form of pallette or size limitations while making the Bleach Pac-Man sprites. Why I do arrange the sprites (so closely together and all) in this way was for if I ever intended on doing a game project, the sprites would be easier to group, organize, and maintain sizes. If I did want to reduce the colors (only on a system like the NES), I could have easily, but didn't since I wanted the sprites to look retro for it to be a homage to Pac-Man, and also since some arcade games in the mid 80's did pull off rather intense color pallettes early home gaming consoles weren't capable of till the 90's.

If it'll make the scenario a little better, I'll darken the skin of the characters so they and the eyes are not so similar, and spike out Ichigo's hair. It was left circular due to the spikes in his hair being rather small in size, in contrast to a few other characters.

UPDATE: I began minor work on the sheet. I darkened the skin color and added spikes to Ichigo's hair. I also darkened the red band present on Ichigo as well.