A Place for new Spriters

[Proton]

Hi, newcomer here.
I'm not new to the world of sprites itself. I can tell you this much:
I still do edits. This is because all of my attempts at custom sprites come out with varying results. Some stuff I've made I liked a lot. Others, not so much. I also don't really like to "study" sprites so much because then it feels like I'm just copying their style, at which point, why not just do edits? I would get the same effect and it'll probably look more professional, because it's based from something professional. (Just my mentality)

You should fix your mentality.

I'll take an example.
Your avatar.
You say you don't study sprites because you'd be copying their style,
yet,
it's an edit of a Pokemon sprite
still in Pokemon style.

Yeah, that's original.
Not copying a style at all.

You get pride from edits,
but making something from scratch,
something you made yourself and can claim as your own achievement,
how the hell do you not get more pride from that?

[Chutzpar]

This is because all of my attempts at custom sprites come out with varying results. Some stuff I've made I liked a lot. Others, not so much.

That is a terrible attitude to have.

If you want to improve you have to push yourself out of your comfort zone. Yes, when you do something unfamiliar your results will be hit and miss, and that's why you keep doing it until you get it.

[Cobalt Blue]

lets do this:

Guidelines for Sprite Edits:

if someone posts an edit, we'll explain him why edits are a bad thing for him/her, and how they won't help him get any merit in these boards because [long explanation here]. we'll detail him as to why they are not welcome on tsr and why we don't really appreciate them.

however, if said person refuses to understand or denies that sprite edits are bad and or discredits or any other stupid reaction people takes when their holy sprite edits are not being praised, they will be warned. if he insist on doing so, then thread gets locked.

same goes for someone who flames or attacks someone posting edits. part of helping someone improve is to actually explain them why sprite edits are a bad/not so benefical/terrible idea to do and why we won't accept them. just throwing a fuck off over someone iaint no help for anyone. if someone does that, use the REPORT button on said post and mods will take care of it [stacking flames on an idiot's thread just bumps it over thread where others do need help too]

i think i need to set a more simpler set of rules somewhere soon.

[DioShiba]

lets do this:

Guidelines for Sprite Edits:

if someone posts an edit, we'll explain him why edits are a bad thing for him/her, and how they won't help him get any merit in these boards because [long explanation here]. we'll detail him as to why they are not welcome on tsr and why we don't really appreciate them.

however, if said person refuses to understand or denies that sprite edits are bad and or discredits or any other stupid reaction people takes when their holy sprite edits are not being praised, they will be warned. if he insist on doing so, then thread gets locked.

same goes for someone who flames or attacks someone posting edits. part of helping someone improve is to actually explain them why sprite edits are a bad/not so benefical/terrible idea to do and why we won't accept them. just throwing a fuck off over someone iaint no help for anyone. if someone does that, use the REPORT button on said post and mods will take care of it [stacking flames on an idiot's thread just bumps it over thread where others do need help too]

i think i need to set a more simpler set of rules somewhere soon.

I'm pretty sure this has already been done before without it being explained.

Whenever we explain how bad edits can be I kind of get the feeling that we're saying "It sucks, do something from scratch or fuck off". most newbies or idiots have taken it like this and I'm wondering if it's doing anyone any good.

Unless we somehow can try to explain it to the poster in a more positive way, I doubt we can pull of this idea any better then we have now.

[Alpha Six]

I'd just like to chime in by saying that I first learned how to sprite by doing a shitload of edits, before I finally grasped the concepts of stuff like depth, color usage, palette creation, etc. If I hadn't started off with learning by editing I probably would have permanently quit the profession a long time ago, because I prefer to progressively learn through action, rather than reading a bunch of paragraphs.

[Koopaul]

That's how I learned as well. Which is why I don't think edits are bad for everyone.

[Cobalt Blue]

I'd just like to chime in by saying that I first learned how to sprite by doing a shitload of edits, before I finally grasped the concepts of stuff like depth, color usage, palette creation, etc. If I hadn't started off with learning by editing I probably would have permanently quit the profession a long time ago, because I prefer to progressively learn through action, rather than reading a bunch of paragraphs.

hi i did a shitload of edits then people shown me how shit they were then started to work on my own until i finally develop a proper skill. i didn't read s single paragraph in the process but instead took the general "post wip, ask for help"

your point?

[Alpha Six]

I'd just like to chime in by saying that I first learned how to sprite by doing a shitload of edits, before I finally grasped the concepts of stuff like depth, color usage, palette creation, etc. If I hadn't started off with learning by editing I probably would have permanently quit the profession a long time ago, because I prefer to progressively learn through action, rather than reading a bunch of paragraphs.

hi i did a shitload of edits then people shown me how shit they were then started to work on my own until i finally develop a proper skill. i didn't read s single paragraph in the process but instead took the general "post wip, ask for help"

your point?

hi i did a shitload of edits

This is my point, dear.

A lot of us started out on edits, which is why I don't really approve of this "edits are the devil" mentality.

And yes I do realize that people are saying that there are "edits" and then there's "talentless bullshit." I'm not arguing that, I'm just saying a lot of us started on edits and that's kind of how we got where we are today.

[tsr moderation staff]

a lot of us did start with edits, but i think we can all agree that we didn't really start showing any serious improvement until we started scratching. that is why there's so much edit hate, edits are basically a really cuddly art study period that pats you on the head and says its okay if you stay there forever because you "aren't good enough to do scratch"

which is bullshit of course, a terrible scratch will get you a lot further than a decent edit

[Alpha Six]

I don't approve of staying there forever, obviously, but it's a pretty good way to grasp how different styles work... as long as that's what you're doing it for, and not for "legitimate" art reasons.

[tsr moderation staff]

yeah, but unfortunately the "you can stay here" mentality is so pervasive on the internet that you can't really have a happy medium, you have to go all out against it or for it

[Neoriceisgood]

I think edits can be perfectly viable as a method of learning if a person genuinly tries to match the quality of the thing they're changing up, there's a reason we still recognise a difference between "shitty" edits and "good" edits.

Now the big problem with edits is that they leave out a lot of fundamental skills and are in no way commercialy viable as a product due to the base not being someone's own propery.

One thing I'm more than curious about is why we don't stimulate people to edit in ways that allow them to improve rather than just bashing the medium as a whole?

I think people strongly underestimate the advantage/importance of having a crutch to help you up while you're still learning, as I can tell you, nothing destroys motivation more than only producing utter garbage.

Next to being a pixel artist I study to be a teacher, and I'll be honest with you, I can't really handle loud classes well yet, the moment that I've got a class that doesn't listen well, the lesson pretty muchs ends as a loud, chaotic whole, where must students probably only heard 5% of what I said.

On the contrary however, I've got a few extremely quiet classes that absolutely teach me nothing about how to keep everything in order, cause they're calm and nice with minimal effort.

Do these classes teach me as much as the loud ones? No, does the fact that I can actually see my lessons pan out really well and the students enjoying them when everything's in order help me? yes, yes, yes.

When all you see is "failure" when you try to build something from the ground up due to a lack of base skill, it might as well end up killing your motivation as a whole, while in contrast, if you can use a little footstool, say an outline, say a commercial sprite, to show that you've got some skill in say, the area of colour choice, shading, whatever, this step really can help.

I think there's a reason that, whether we like admitting it or not, most of us have done edits at some point early on.

There's tons of advice I don't see a lot of people give that's much more useful than just bashing edits, I know for example that most people who can actually draw step into pixelart from a much higher level to begin with.

People who edit sprites aren't just learning pixelart, they're often people who have to learn art as a whole, and the parts they don't learn from doing edits aren't the parts that require one to do scratch sprites, they're the parts that require one to actually have artistic insight.

If your anatomy sucks your custom sprite will look bad, if your lightsourcing sucks so will your sprite.

The whole "edits suck do scratch sprites" mentality will just lead people back into that area where they're stuck doing sprites they absolutely hate, figuring out their specific problems (if they want to fix them) is, in my opinion, the only really helpful thing one can do for someone still stuck in such an early stage.

Peace out.


-quick edit-

a lot of us did start with edits, but i think we can all agree that we didn't really start showing any serious improvement until we started scratching. that is why there's so much edit hate, edits are basically a really cuddly art study period that pats you on the head and says its okay if you stay there forever because you "aren't good enough to do scratch"

which is bullshit of course, a terrible scratch will get you a lot further than a decent edit

This is quite patronizing, I could do an edit that'd be more meaningful for me for learning purposes than a scratch sprite, several ones at that, it's what people edit and how they edit it that can pose a big problem, and the fact that for us as C&C givers, the edits can hide a person's most glaring flaws in art.

I remember very clearly why I stopped doing edits, I felt like my actual skill was confined by me doing edits, I couldn't do what I wanted cause I was confined by the constraints of the sprites I used as a base, sure I improved "most" in my experience after I started doing scratch work, but I did a lot of horrible horrible scratch sprites before I did some edits that, truth to be told, were far far worse than the edits.

Working with other (commercial) sprites is not necessarily the best method, but it sure as hell gave me much more insight into what quality you can reach with pixels.

If anything I think that people should be persuaded to stop doing edits when they can obviously perfectly modify a sprite to fit in with the style they're copying, if a person can't even make an edit look good, what makes you think they'll do any with scratch spriting?

I find this complete anti-edit mentality very patronizing and more ideology-driven than based on the actual truth of things, it can be a perfectly fine tool for a person's baby steps into spriting if it's taken seriously and given serious c&c.

Now as I said before, once someone is clearly fully capable of creating edits that fit in perfectly you can argue they have nothing left to learn from edits, then they can make the next step.

[Chutzpar]

Here is a thing that I've learned from drawing that I think should be applied to everything:
There's no right way to learn and no right set of actions that will make you into a better artist.
Obviously there's things that can hold you back, but provided you've got people keeping an eye on you to make sure you're not using a tool as too much of a crutch and allowing yourself to stagnate, is that going to be such a problem?

So I'm going to take Neorice's word re: the usefulness of edits; provided you're still getting crit and pointers to make sure you're making the best use them until you're confident enough, I don't see the problem.

But, as I said earlier: remaining in your comfort zone all the time is a bad idea. It's ultimately all about balance.

[tsr moderation staff]

i dont mean to come off as a douche, i just come from a forum full of people who have been stuck doing edits for years because they're too scared to progress, and who encourage newbies to be fairly unambitious and safe. i've had this argument so many times there my views on the subject have gotten really polarized.

[Neoriceisgood]

i dont mean to come off as a douche, i just come from a forum full of people who have been stuck doing edits for years because they're too scared to progress, and who encourage newbies to be fairly unambitious and safe. i've had this argument so many times there my views on the subject have gotten really polarized.

There's a difference between allowing people to stagnate completely cause of a "yeah can't demand too much from a newbie"-mentality and not using all out force in preventing edits.

I personally think that (although I do feel that edits and similar works might need a new section of sorts that's more noob-oriented) the only big difference is that, instead of completely shooting down (and sometimes bashing) edits just for the sake of being edits, it could be more helpful to give actual critique.

Face it, most people who do edits aren't exactly good, even within the constraints of the sprite they've chosen they make plenty of mistakes that need fixes.

However unlike scratch sprites, it's much much MUCH easier for an outside viewer like us to point out glaring flaws especially because we can tell exactly what a person is going for.

The number of spriters that are just starting who can edit a sprite while having it max the original style perfectly is very very slim, we can make use of that fact.

Currently, we don't, cause we just go "pfft, don't edit /lock" in 99% of the cases.


Do I think edits (and other similarly problematic things like sprite comics) should be allowed to be posted all across the board like original artwork? not at all.

Do I think that, within a community that seems interested in hosting tons of commercial sprites and would thus seem like a natural place for people to post edits of those sprites you'd expect people to be a bit more lenient about it.

I strongly feel that most/if not all communities that people cite where people stagnate allow for edits and provide them a "well this person isn't very good let's avoid super strong C&C and it's okay if they stay bad)-mentality, which is a bigger problem than the edits themselves.

And if a person honestly doesn't want to improve? Well, nothing you can do about that.