Style Evaluation (Formerly: Non-Sonic Sprites)

[Ton]

I actually think he looks too flat now.

[LiBiYKWIM]

In my opinion, though mine not be weighted that much since this is my first post here, the changes you've made do make the sprite look better, but it also makes it appear flat and dull. The darkened blue makes the eyes seem darker then they actually are, and the shift to the darker color also makes the sprite seem not as detailed. In my experience in working with Mod Gen, with my own character, some of the gray highlights are necessary.

Look at it this way, without the highlight there the eyebrow seems almost invisible. A way to correct that is to add the next shade to the brow, but sometimes that gets messy when you're actually doing it.

I'm not saying that the highlights have to stay the same, my point is that I suggest that you use the gray highlights, but just to a less of a degree that is shown on the original sprite.

[Gaia]

But think about it when it comes to animating such sprites. I think this might be the whole reason why I have such a hard time trying to sprite in this style, as it in the end turns out inconsistant as each contributor's spriting tehniques differ from the other.

[Deebs]

I'm also worrying about how flat the sprite looks, but I thought it had to do with contrast issues with the blue. The new shade for the 'skin' tone highlight was also fairly low contrast, so I bumped them both up to see if that would help with the perceived flatness.


It could be that I'm just too used to the original, but it seems really flat, even with the adjusted colours... And I will admit that there's prolli too much going on with the original's highlights on Sonic's head, for instance. But I feel like he could at least use a highlight to define his brow a bit...

[Xeric]

Wow, that looks very flat. It definitely needs some sort of accent to lift the brow or something.

[Previous]

Just dropping in that these grey "highlights" look like silver hairclips or piercings rather than, well, highlights. Especially since they're grey and not blue.. that's prone to stick out. To me, they look just weird and nothing like highlights, thus they don't really add any volume to the thing.

I tinkered a bit but I have no idea if it's better or worse.



You can go with more contrast overall. Especially the grey is kinda low and I think you could get rid of a whole shade. By the way, aynthing wrong with white? Those grey eyes have always been bothering me.

Just so you know my fifty cents, too

[Shinbs]

That looks flat,boring and pointless.If we're going to go revamping everything all over again,it should be atleast a change that's worth making.
I like the dots,the add a lot of dept(sp?) to the sprites and make them look more 3d In my opinion,if somebody were to use the sprites and were REALLY bothered by the dots(and the dots only,not the rest of the shading and style choices)they could just remove the damn dots by themselves,like many people do.

The way it is now,it's either keeping the dots or changing the shading style entirely,because it just doesn't work without the dots as is.I'm still waiting for Gors' edit,as I believe it'll be much less minor than just getting rid of the highlights.Once Gors(or somebody else) makes a decent and actual edit,I'll see what I can do to help,but until then,I'll just say that ditching the highlights is a pretty bad move.

EDIT:I was typing before Previous posted.
That edit creeps me off a bit tbh..

[Deebs]

If you're talking about how off-white is used rather than pure white, it's due to most rips of S3&K not having a 'pure' white. It's a hold over from that as well as my own reluctance to use 'pure' blacks and 'pure' whites.

[Shinbs]

So,I was about to give the sprites a complete overhaul to see if I could help.But before doing that,I tried making something simpler first.

I tried making similiar changes to what Gors did with Mario.
The 2nd one on the bottom left uses some slightly different palettes,including for the white ones that everybody seems to hate so much.

It's still p.much the same thing,except cleaner.

[Gors]

people will probably hate this but this is what I'd do with sonic: cleaner, sharp and simple. everything else is explained in the image, including why the actual sprite has flaws.

i did away with all that jumble that was on his eye, also removed those lone black pixels on the feet.

the specs were kept, although now in a color that makes sense (blue. not gray)

tried to remove the banding/gradient in several places.

---

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I dare say that Sonic is inherently difficult to draw, since of several reasons:

1-curves on small space
2-noodle limbs that often get covered by huge hands/feet
3-having a design that works better as silhouette than a 3D model.

but by approximation, all I could do is in that image and if you're willing to use it as inspiration, go ahead. I'm not exactly fond of it either, but it's tons cleaner than your initial sprite.

[StarSock64]

Of course gors would be making a post when I was >:I



The way I shaded the spikes is really mediocre, sorry

Basically:
Clean it up
Let go of that god dang not-white gray
I shaded the arm stupid and forgot to fix it, oops
That closer hand makes no sense...I don't know what it's supposed to be doing

[Shinbs]

@Gors:
I like how you shaded his quills* but everything else seems bad IMO.It's like his eyes are melting into his muzzle,making his face look extremely deformed,and the shoes have a VERY amatuer look to them.
And the "thing that doesn't make any sense" is actually a spike on Sonic's quill.I understand you don't know Sonic's design very well,so just google Sonic and you'll see that he has a spike(similiar to his quills,but much smaller) coming out of his back.

*Even though I like the way you shaded his quills,it's still very "non genesis Sonic-y",and looks much more cartoony and like Mario inspired style,and even then,the whole sprite doesn't fit very well with your Mario either.
On the original Genesis Sonic games,the lightest blue shade was used mostly for highlight,with the other 2 blue shades being the "main" shades for the head.What you(and to some extent,SS64,but not as much as you)is use the lightest blue shade as the main color and the other 2 as outlines,which is the complete opposite of the originals,also giving the sprites a very cartoony look,which isn't what Sonic originally strived for.

As for the 4 shades of WHITE (they're not even THAT grey,srsly),it's because Sonic's sprite shared palettes with many objects in the game,and many objects were grey/white/mettalic, etc,which is why there are for shades for these colors.
I think you guys are somewhat biased,as most of you are much more used to either making Mario,or making your own thing,which leds to a somewhat unfair and innaccurate sprite of what a S3K inspired sprite should look like.

EDITust look at how you guys are kinda taking Mario as if it was the main thing,and that Sonic should match Mario,while in reality,this is a Sonic style before anything else,and that Mario is merely a very low priority "extra".

[Vipershark]

EDITust look at how you guys are kinda taking Mario as if it was the main thing,and that Sonic should match Mario,while in reality,this is a Sonic style before anything else,and that Mario is merely a very low priority "extra".

wh-what..?

we're... making edits to sonic.


edit- I'm not sure about the whole bias thing (aside from gorsal) because I don't even have a problem with the "4 shades of grey" or whatever
my problem is specifically with the dumb highlights

starsock's edit addresses this by defining the brow (with an actual blue shade) instead of using the out-of-place grey there... which honestly doesn't look like a brow at all.

[Shinbs]

EDITust look at how you guys are kinda taking Mario as if it was the main thing,and that Sonic should match Mario,while in reality,this is a Sonic style before anything else,and that Mario is merely a very low priority "extra".

wh-what..?

we're... making edits to sonic.

With Mario as reference for shading.(Again,mostly on Gors' part)

[StarSock64]

What bias

I grew up with S3&K and it was my favorite game(s) for a really long time

that doesn't make its sprite style any better

nobody's saying it should match mario, it's just that we happened to make mario first. ...we're not comparing the two, we're saying that you should do Good Sprite Techniques that we (well, gorsal, I just changed the facial proportions) happened to attempt to show in mario before. The same should apply to sonic not because of mario but to make things look, y'know, good

tl;dr mario is absolutely irrelevant to what we're saying about the sonic sprites

You don't have to make it look like mine or like gorsal's at all, you're supposed to pay attention to the principles. The sprites are all too cluttered and overshaded. Half of the shading just makes stuff look blurry and bad. It's just a mass of bad habits all over the place. If you don't like the way we did it, then adapt the principles to your own way.

I think -you're- the one with the bias because you seem incapable of suggesting anything but "b-but it's not like the originals!!" whether it's good or not. And believe it or not the not-white gray is quite gray and multiple people who aren't biased by staring at these sprites for ages are telling you it's pointless.