Pokemon TCG2 GBC Sprite Project

[Derpkip]

Forgive me for the terrible title, I'm awful at naming things.

Hello! Back in about November of 2011, a user named Starturds / Plino / Indigo Jeans created a thread on this forum with the intention of creating sprites in the style of the Japan-exclusive Pokemon game "Pokémon Card GB2: Here Comes Team GR!" which was a sequel to the original Gameboy game "Pokemon Trading Card Game." You can find the original thread from TVGR here, and another version of the thread on SmashBoards.

While I myself have never really played the TCG, I've always had a huge soft spot for the artwork. The reason they started making sprites for the sequel as opposed to the original is because the palette restrictions are a bit looser for the GBC. This means it's easier to add clearer, crisper details. I assume that's at least partially the reason, anyway.

The color limit per sprite is about 8 colors--that's the aesthetic I'm going for here, anyway--and there's technically a limit of 4 colors per 8x8 tile in the sprite, but as you're about to see, I (and apparently people from the project 10 years ago) said "fuck it," and just stuck to keeping it at 8 colors or fewer.

The project originally wanted to finish the remaining two Gen 1 sets, as well as a few of the Gen 2 sets. Eventually everyone's submissions just went all over the place and people started contributing sprites from a lot of different expansions. While it was really cool to see more modern TCG artwork in this 8-bit style, I'd like to keep things that way (as in, gen 1 and 2 expansions only) in this thread for consistency and structure's sake.

Each sprite is 64x48 pixels, has a color restriction of 8 colors, a 1 px "black" border around the inside edges, and usually a "white" border around the Pokemon itself. I've made a few examples as you can see here:


I don't mind if I'm the only one submitting sprites to this, really. Honestly I don't even have any concrete plans with making sprites like this; I just genuinely enjoy making them. If someone wants to make a game out of them, awesome. If not, no worries. However, I would still absolutely love to see if anyone here would be interested in contributing a bit, as I think it would be a lot of fun!

I have a couple of spreadsheets with the cards and original artists listed.

Gen 1 Expansions (Just Gym Heroes and Gym Challenge)
Gen 2 Expansions

Unfortunately I myself haven't really made anything within these expansions as of yet, but I do plan to once I post this thread. I've mainly just been working with original artwork that I find pretty. I think someone else on DeviantART has finished most of the sprites for Gym Heroes, and they're all listed on that spreadsheet. Sadly I had all of Starturds / Plino's sprites saved before the photobucket purge, but since then an update crashed my OS and I lost all of my data. :\ the sprites are all in JPEG and/or have a gross watermark despite them all being phenomenal, so I'm not sure if they should be remade or what. They seemed to be active on TVGR back in December, so I sent them a PM. I guess time will tell if they receive it. If they don't want me to include their sprites in the spreadsheet, I'd be happy to oblige. But until then, they'll just stay on the sheet since I don't exactly have them saved / archived anywhere else.

I also have a short tutorial made up in case anyone is interested in giving it a shot but isn't sure where to start.

Spoiler

Here's the original image we're going to use, to start off. These sprites are primarily pixel-overs, but as you'll see in a bit, don't let that fact fool you. It can be a bit tricky to compress all these details into a small space depending on how detailed the original art is. When we go to resize this down to 64x48 px--make sure to keep the aspect ratio intact when you resize it--we'll see that it can only be resized down to 64x44 or 70x48. What we need to do is trim the sides down bit by bit until we can get the aspect ratio at that sweet, sweet 64x48 canvas size. The reason why keeping the aspect ratio intact is so important is for two reasons:
First of all, you don't want the sprite to look stretched or squished.
Second, so that the Pokemon is large enough on the canvas so that you can fit more detail in. The Pokemon is the focal point of the sprite, after all.




Much better. You might want to save this image and keep it nearby as a reference, because you'll probably be needing it later on.




This is what we'll be working with. In my program, I'm able to create multiple layers and change the alpha / opacity, so it might help to have that.




Start by distinguishing the line art of the Pokemon. the Pokemon is the focal part of the piece, therefore most of your focus should be used on it. Even if there is no line art in the original art, blocking in the shapes will work fine. Whichever you prefer, as long as the end result looks to be in a similar style to the original art. You might need to compress certain details to make sure the sprite is readable. You'll probably want to frequently reference off of the original artwork, as stated before.




At this point, you can try to figure out what you want to do with limiting the palette, but I honestly just judge it as I go. I'll be combining and/or getting rid of a lot of these colors, but for now it helps me differentiate the different pixel clusters and get an idea for how I want the shading to look. Speaking of which, do your best to make the most out of dithering! It helps to blend colors.




In the games, most Pokemon in the sprite have a light-colored (whatever the palette's equivalent of white is) 1 px thick border. You usually wanna add that. I made it yellow here just so I can distinguish it from the background I'm gonna be adding.




For the background, you'll generally want to block in pixel clusters of different colors; try to mimic what you see and reference back to the artwork as needed in order to make sense out of specific details. Here, I made the ice crystals have more prominent outlines so it's clear as to what they're supposed to be.




Now, time for color reduction! We seem to have a problem: This consists of 11 colors. With the program I use, I'm able to see exactly how many colors I've used for a sprite, and I can even see exactly what those colors are. This is a hugely helpful tool to have. First of all, I combined the yellow and light orange together. One color down, 2 to go.




Second thing we can probably do is combine the dark blue and black. As a result, I also had to even out the contrast on the other blues by making them darker. I also combined the base red with the shading on the white spots too.
Last but not least, you need to make a 1px border around the edges of the canvas (or whatever your equivalent to black is in your palette, for me it's navy blue).

Finishing touches, then it's done.

Thanks for your time! When this thread was posted by Plino back in 2011, it was in the Game Dev section. I found it more appropriate to post it here as opposed to there since I don't have any concrete plans to make a game out of these. Regardless, if this is in the wrong section, please don't hesitate to redirect me. Also, I'll be working on Neo Genesis's Spinarak (#75) to start off with, as of me making this post.
If anyone would like to work on one, feel free to claim it in advance and I'll write it on the spreadsheet.  You can find very high quality card scans here on pkmncards.com. It's quite a valuable resource, especially since Pokebeach took down most of their scans, and Bulbapedia's have never been all that great.

Edit 6/2/21: I forgot to mention. In some expansions (especially gen 2 expansions), some star rarity cards have two versions: a holo and a regular one. You're free to choose whichever, especially if you think the background on a certain card deserves to be shown. This is the reason that Neo Discovery's sheet has a really off number. My apologies, I'm going to fix that. If you want to make a holo version of a card that's been done or vice versa, it's probably more efficient to just change the background of the one that already exists.