Mandew's sprites (needs constructive criticism)

[Mandew]

Hello.

I want to improve my spriting skills, and show a little bit of my own work!

OK so, here's the deal. I've been spriting for about 5 or 6 years, on and off. But I feel that my progress as becoming a good spriter is really slow nonetheless. That being said, I've improved a lot, but I want to keep improving is all. It's becoming quite a bit harder for me to improve the more I do it, though, so your help, encouragement and constructive criticism is very appreciated!

Anyways, here's my latest sprite sheets... A friend of mine told me to make my original characters in a style resembling Jump Ultimate Star for his sprite comic. Be aware that because those sprites are intended for comics, it only includes keyframes for now, and not whole animations.

Here ya go.

First character (his name is Mandew)
Second character (her name is Riley)
Third character (her name is Nancy; for now it's more design than anything else.)

Before anyone asks, those are totally custom, made from scratch, except for the palette. That's just the way I roll.

[recme]

Have you put your sprite next to a real JUS style sprite. Because this doesn't look remotely close to a JUS sprite.

For the first one,his torso just looks undefined and looks just like a square with arms. His hands looks like blocks with lines. Also, why does the hair constantly change through out the sprites? Same thing with the skin color and light source.

[Gors]

yeah, as Recolorme said, those aren't JUS styled at all. Actually if you showed them without ever mentioning JUS, it'd be better. But oh well

I see you have some interesting designs, but you need to work on anatomy (the limbs are noodly, some shapes are wonky and places that are really underworked, such as the hammer). I don't know about this style though so I'll let others share their opinions too.

[Cobalt Blue]

these sprites would really benefit from not recycling the same head sprite over and over. it makes the characters look like lifeless dolls.

[Marth]

JUS is a style that focuses on dynamic poses and animations. Not something one whose just starting out should attempt. It's also very restrictive in size, and people tend to clutter things when attempting the style.

Your faces seem somewhat cluttered, your animations aren't dynamic...in fact they're stale. Your shading is off and well let's be honest here, if I were to see these next to JUS styled sprites I wouldn't think these was supposed to be the same style or even an attempt. EDIT: These are also very blocky. JUS is a fluid style, your lines are working against you.

My recommendation, start with a different easier style. Actually don't even follow a style just start pixelling. You'll build skills and understanding that will then allow you to mimic popular styles.

[Mandew]

Hmm... Well, I guess I bit a little bit more than I could chew with the attempt at imitating JUS.

Normally I don't follow a style at all, and just sprite a custom style. They tend to have very silly anatomy though, as depicted here:


^ This animation is the last thing I did before those on the first post.

Let me fetch some more sheets...

Clicky
^ This is the most recent style I worked in before that one animation, and even then I'm not completely satisfied with it, but I guess it's still decent? Although, I'm aware these animations would look really off if they were actually animated; that's because I only understood to follow cross-referencing for poses recently. It was a pretty huge breakthrough back then.

Aside from that, there's not really anything I can show for reviewing. Anything older than that makes me cringe to look at it, and I've already learned a lot from those past mistakes, but I'm still not quite there yet. I'm still on the stage where I experiment with things.

I'm sure some criticism on the sprites presented on this post would be more relevant to my level than the sprites of the first post. If those two styles just don't cut it by their nature, I'll make a new one.

[Proton]

Your character is simple.
This animation shows a way of making it actually makes it look simple.

All of the black lines and little details you threw in with something-to-be-like-JUS made it overly complicated.



Granted this one is weird in some parts like the arms and the leg's spread.
Also, the hair.

It's not hair someone would have.
It's like a wild, dumb bart simpson.

Make it a little more natural or simple.



Also, just in hindsight,

why does this guy in only a shirt and jeans carry around a hammer so big?

He's not overly muscular nor outlanding enough for something out of place.

The idea of such a simple costume is not wrong,
but it's weird to implement such elements like giant hammers into something like john next door.

[Hoeloe]

I disagree with the last point about the hammer, actually. It depends very much on the context and style. I mean, Amy Rose carries a massive hammer a lot of the time.

[Gors]

I'll tell you, you do appear to have potential, you just need some north to get a good sprite.

[Cobalt Blue]

JUS is an ugly reference to follow, in any case. you're better staying the fuck away from it.

[Proton]

I disagree with the last point about the hammer, actually. It depends very much on the context and style. I mean, Amy Rose carries a massive hammer a lot of the time.

Yeah,
it does depend on the context.

In this context and style, guy with sweater and jeans with no current reason to have an outlandish hammer.
You can eve bring in contrast from the group he posted.
It looks like a typical group of kids.

Amy is a loud, pink, flamboyant anthropomorphic hedgehog.
She's the colour pink, for it is both a perfect contrasting colour to blue (since yellow, the main contrasting colour to blue, was already taken) and the colour known for girlishness.

The character is designed to stand out and grab your attention in the Sonic universe.
Along with the fact Amy is a pretty dumb character in the end.



This character is an orange, blue and brown with a sweater and jeans.
The character isn't very outlandish or memorable.
The hammer doesn't help this, as it sticks out more than the character does.

I'd admit if there was more context to the character, it might make more sense.
But with the 3 person cast posted, it comes off as if they would just be typical kids.

[Doc Melonhead]

JUS is an ugly reference to follow, in any case. you're better staying the fuck away from it.

Same could be said to ALL of Dimps Sprites.

You're better off learning how to properly animate, along with shading from a single light source, than to imitate any of the existing sprites.

[Mandew]

Some sort of progress! I made this new custom style; I'm pretty proud of the palette, shading, and forms! The animation has a little more variety on this one, with the character swaying his whole body like Mario did in SMB3, although the degree of success on that end is kind of debatable.

[Previous]

I think the far leg extends too far. Also, I'd suggest you not to band the outlines with another darker shade as it makes them look somewhat blurry.


Just a quick edit of a few parts to illustrate what I mean, but it applies to the whole sprite:

[Gors]

the excess of straight lines harm the sprite too, along with the banding (already partly adressed by Previous) and weird proportins (too bulbuous feet/hands and noodly limbs that shrink on animation.

the animation has smooth frames, but it's far from being good. The steps are uneven and anatomy changes between them so do your best to keep it constant. Despite this, you somewhat have a grasp of animation and coloring, so if you work on these points more, you could make really cool sprites in the near future.