just something i'm working on..

[recme]

is this actually a sprite thread

[Vipershark]

I liked my sprite looking like a 90's/early 2000's game instead of Pokemon #2239 of today.

That's fair, but you have to keep in mind that even back then there were a lot of games with bad sprites.
There were inexperienced and/or lazy spriters then just as there are now, and the sprites didn't look good then and they certainly don't look good now.
Bastendorf brought up Mario World as an example of pillow shading used correctly, but that's not true. Pillow shading can be found all over Mario World (and in most of the contexts it's used it it doesn't belong at all) and looks just as out of place there as it does on your sprites. If I remember correctly, SMW's light source is in the top right and Mario and many objects are shaded to reflect that. Then you have other objects which are pillow shaded or pretty much unshaded completely, and...
Graphically, it's kind of a huge pile of crap.

It might be a classic and it might have been one of the high points of spriting years ago that everyone wanted to be like, but in recent years people took the time to look at what's really going on with the graphics and realized that SMW is a really bad-looking game.
Technically speaking, of course.

Anyway, back to your sprite.

I don't really have much to say (since it's still not finished) aside from the fact that your two darkest reds are so close to each other that I couldn't tell the difference between them at first.

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is this actually a sprite thread

Either actually contribute to the thread or don't say anything.
Warned.

[Bastendorf]

Bastendorf brought up Mario World as an example of pillow shading used correctly, but that's not true. Pillow shading can be found all over Mario World (and in most of the contexts it's used it it doesn't belong at all) and looks just as out of place there as it does on your sprites. If I remember correctly, SMW's light source is in the top right and Mario and many objects are shaded to reflect that. Then you have other objects which are pillow shaded or pretty much unshaded completely, and...
Graphically, it's kind of a huge pile of crap.

You misunderstood. I never meant to suggest it was used correctly. I meant to say that it was used in that way and serves it's purpose. And I couldn't have been more wrong regardless XD. I looked at the exact sprite in mind and it was a lot worse than I remembered.
I would also tend to agree with your stance on the graphical fidelity, now that I've looked at it again. It's not as I remembered it.

Anyway, back to your sprite.
I don't really have much to say (since it's still not finished) aside from the fact that your two darkest reds are so close to each other that I couldn't tell the difference between them at first.

Since we're all trying to help Zye, I wanted to point out that I tried a hue shift to green, in Jason's greys. Not very saturated, though. I think it looks nice. That might be something to try refining, as I barely qualify to make calls on hue shifting.

Figured I'd give it a shot and see what happens.

[StarSock64]

okay it would take way too long for me to make this any decent and I'm not willing to work on it more than this but maybe it'll help anyways

um I'm planning on editing mr. space guy too later I hope

[Bastendorf]

okay it would take way too long for me to make this any decent and I'm not willing to work on it more than this but maybe it'll help anyways

um I'm planning on editing mr. space guy too later I hope

Impressive! And glossy...
Never would have thought of dong it that way. A few things wrong, though. The happy face on his hand, for one. :p

Second, his pupils aren't slitted like that.
(Older, outdated images of him.)

He has giant, round pupils to give him a child-like gaze. But I can't expect you to know that based off a tiny sprite. It would be ludicrous.

I also see you went a lot further than just recoloring him. You changed his anatomy a little bit, too. Thicker neck, less handsome chest, bulging biceps, change of the ear, a bigger jaw, a faint trail of pixels leading away from his mane....

You really went above and beyond what I was hoping for. Very well done, thank you for the example!

[zye1984]

That's fair, but you have to keep in mind that even back then there were a lot of games with bad sprites.

yup, i get that. I saw a mega man sprite somewhere using the mm8 one as a base and it looked a lot better than the original. Or at least, for the style going for it. I don't think they were going for really bright colors back then like the sprite i saw. It might look brighter and more cartoony, but i don't want that atm. So, i want to have a gritty look, i suppose. = ) Maybe i should abandon that outlook though.

I don't really have much to say (since it's still not finished) aside from the fact that your two darkest reds are so close to each other that I couldn't tell the difference between them at first.

yeah, but if i chose the lighter red as the shadow it would be too light, if i darkened the darkest any further it'd look black, and if i used the darkest where the second darkest is it would be too dark all around and defeat the purpose of having a shadowy red.

BUT, this is basically a test. I'm not sure if i'll actually use this shadowing; it doesn't have the same feel as the other sprites in super smash flash 2. (though they're all mish mashed anyway, but it still would be too dark) aaand yeah, still not finished, i'm very slow in general (I think too much) and i have no days off work for a while, so i'm not wanting to work on it when i get home. x-x

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BTW, Rhyme, i'm sorry for being a turd earlier, i was overwhelmed..i sent a mail but i dunno if that got to you.

[zye1984]

so i thought i'd express all my ideas for Jason Frudnick/Kane Gardner from Blaster Master/Meta Fight. First off, i want a mixture of most if not all the designs of him throughout the games, or rather, the suit he's wearing. (technically ALL the games feature a different character in their Japanese counterparts, but i'm mashing them all together with Jason/Kane. Kane is the japanese character for the orginal game before localization screwed up the story and made jason) Taking ideas from art scattered about, here's what i'm going for:

Armor--I want it to look like a mixture of BM1, BM: Enemy Below, and BM: Blasting Again. i am going to make it more BM1 heavy in design since that is classic and based off the Nintendo version instead of the lame-ish Genisis BM2 game and the PS1 Blasting Again game, as well as the newest; BM: Overdrive. I am, however, using BM2's jet pack. So to explain better, Heavy on BM1, BM:EB, with details from BM:BA, with aesthetics from BM2, BM:EB, and BM:BA.

Aesthetics--He'll have BM1's blaster and grenades that act like BM1's, EB's shotgun sub-weapon, Overdrive's grenade launcher for smash attack grenades, BM2's jet pack, and BA's napalm and energy..tackle? (he flies around as a wild blue energy ball, but in my version only once at an angle) Oh and bombs from Blaster Master Boy which is actually Bomber King, but i don't care! They did it i will too!

Characteristics--Hesitant to fight other people, but once he get's going he's hard to stop. Awful at jumping and jumping attacks, dominates on the ground. Slow runner, medium gravity, and strafes/side-steps for "dodge rolling." HEAVY reliance of his gun charge; the lower the faster and least powerful, the higher the more area controlled and powerful.

so here are the bits and peices on his design i plan to use:

Spoiler

the only thing i plan to use here is the idea of the backpack. the cylinders will act as his grenades by tugging them off, and the rest of it used as an energy source and jet pack. The gun is WAY too busy, but i do like the thinness if it on the barrel.

Spoiler

The basic design i'm going for, in the center. I'm using the support bar for his gun, but not that version of the gun, since it doesn't reflect the gun in-game that much. I'm using the bar because it gives some extra detail and recoil will be important in his play style. I'm using different coloration than this for the part on his chest, which is found in another pic, but you CAN see a green hue in this one just a tad. The chest piece will open and produce the napalm energy bombs. Also, and probably most important here, is the gun version on the bottom left of the top image. That's what i want to use, but with the bar as a support, and the middle handle in the inside instead of the outside to use as a pumping/charging mechanic. This gun reflects the gun in game a great deal, i feel.

Spoiler

this is basically a super simplified version of BA's suit which is below. I kinda want to use the arrow like angles on the red strip.

Spoiler

a nod to the original design, that is actually Jason in BM. I'm using the chest peice and shoulder armor.

Spoiler

This is Roddy, Jason's son, but what's important is the designs on the leg portions; I want to use that to a degree. Here is a look at the armor in 3D detail:

Spoiler

I don't want to use the HUGE shoulder armor, but a mix between the original design and this, and the leg portions as i mentioned.

sorry if this doesn't fit here, but i wanted to get what i had in mind out there. also, some pics didn't want to embed right, so i just provided the link

[zye1984]

something i'm doing just for fun. i'm sure this is frowned on here *hides* i didn't want to connect the lower most line on the shoulder armor but with it going straight it didn't look right just stopping..i had a version where it curved around as if the view was at an angle, then saw i was wrong..

[zye1984]

bang. one reason why i wanted a lot of shades. this is just a test to see how it'd look, i think it does pretty good, better on the left, it doesn't work so well with the heavy shades. i'd have to draw in more detail each bang.

[Vipershark]

something i'm doing just for fun. i'm sure this is frowned on here *hides* i didn't want to connect the lower most line on the shoulder armor but with it going straight it didn't look right just stopping..i had a version where it curved around as if the view was at an angle, then saw i was wrong..

High resolution sprites are definitely allowed here.
The only problem I can really see so far is that you seem to be basically drawing over the existing pixels, which won't really give you the look you want. (I've tried)
The shoulder, uh... ball thing... stands out in particular because it's got that really thick outline around it which conveniently happens to match the same thickness that the upscaled pixels are at as well.

Simply drawing over the existing pixels makes your sprite look like it's gone through a bad visual filter or something and looks pretty unnatural.
The only way to really fix it is to basically turn the sprite into a silhouette and then resprite it natively at the higher definition.

Unfortunately, that's a lot easier said than done since at that point you're kind of creating a new sprite anyway...

[Kelvin]

If you're gonna make small sprites big, my advice is to not enlarge a sprite and draw right on it; you'll end up making it look like you just used a scaling filter o it, and those usually look ugly. What I would do is get on Paint.NET, add a new layer above the sprite, and copy the color palette onto the above layer where you'll be working by taking color samples from the sprite.

Enlarge the sprite on the lower layer using "nearest neighbor" scaling (found in the resize window) to prevent blurring it, and on the main toolbar, make sure anti aliasing is off. Copy your palette to the clip board just in case, and then go into the brightness/contrast box and brighten the sprite just enough that it's washed out, but little enough that you can still make out shapes. If the palette you made was affected too, repaste the palette.

Check again to make absolutely sure you turned off Anti Aliasing so your sprite won't be blurry and end up with a thousand colors. Using the pencil tool, draw over the sprite from scratch, using the original sprite as a guide, but also your imagination to fill in details. It will take longer, but the end result will look fantastic.

Lemme know if you have any questions about Paint.NET. I believe the same technique can be done in Graphics Gale, but I haven't used that in a while.

[zye1984]

oh, hehe, i was going to add details and such as i go, keep the shades where they are but make them fit better in the bigger sprite. I was certainly worried it would look like a filter!

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final shading choice. he's still not completed with his leg armor, hand and gun, but this is the colorization i've chosen for 'em.

an update on the leg a shade reduce edit: i like the shiny areas and the green looses it's depth like that, i feel. = [

i was curious..should i do something different since i highly doubt super smash flash 2 will ever get any updates, let alone someone code the stuff..?

bah, i started over on this for no reason; i had thought making the rings on the shoulder a little skewed was a mistake and i restarted the whole thing b/c of it, now i find out that's what it -supposed- to be like i originally thought. anyway, i think so far she's a beaut.

[zye1984]

bleh, 4 hours and this is all i've accomplished. god i work f**king slow. and i still need to put the triangular pieces in. on the shoulder.

EDIT after a few min:
well then! that worked out!

also, sorry for just doing edits on my current posts, i read elsewhere it's not good to do that since new stuff isn't staying on top. though then again it's barely new what i post..*sigh*

also, i've thought about reducing the dark green off my jason sprite. all the other colors, other than the visor, have 3 shades plus the mutual shadow and light shades. I want to try to keep the visor with 4 shades, i want it to stand out, and i'm afraid getting rid of one would make it stand out less, at least later on.

..Sorry for not so useful updates..

Also, Midi, i don't feel comfy putting a paint program on my work's comp, that's where i'm doing the samus at. = ]

[Vipershark]

Not bad!
That's much better than I would have done, ahah

I only have one real issue, and it's that Samus' visor seems too rounded, uh

See how it's got sharp corners while yours sort of comes to a round point?
I tried to make an edit but it ended up coming out terribly so welp

[Kelvin]

The shape of the shine on the pauldron is weirdly shaped, but the detailing is very well done. Can't wait to see more!