The "Gary's Sprite Style" Experiment

[megaMasquerain]

Actually, it's not just for my sprite comic itself. It's actually everything I want to put in one style. Tried to do that in Capcom vs. Style, but that turned out to be counter productive. So yeah, the single style thing isn't just for my sprite comic.

Just... draw, then? Like I said a style isn't something you practice, like anatomy or perspective. It sneaks up on you as you draw and observe. Eventually you'll look at your art and like what you see style-wise and you'll have something. It's just as easy to change up a style, too. Style is just the way you translate what you see/think to paper.

An analogy - the basics (anatomy, composition, perspective, use of color, etc) are the flesh and bones and organs of your art. Style is the clothes and accessories. You'll want to do the basics first, and THEN you'll have a better idea of what kind of "clothes" you want.

As for traditional art: You don't have to be amazing with a pencil or paint to make sprites, yeah, but traditional art is generally the easiest way to practice the basics. Personally I like using a tablet and a drawing program like SAI (since if you already have a tablet it's cheaper than buying all sorts of hardnesses of pencils and types of erasers and tons of sketchbooks) but I'm sure someone will come in and correct me on why working traditionally is better. And, well, you can know your pixel techniques like the back of your hand, but if you don't know the basics of art the stuff you make is gonna be mediocre at best.

I'm working through that problem myself now, so I would say try and balance your pixel work with some good ol' pencil (or tablet) studies.