Ashura's Alchemy Lab

[-Ash-]

Since i'm getting Dark Souls 2 soon i've made a sprite to offer tribute to the game itself. I'm a bit disappointed with the fire but I rarely do effects, so I guess its decent? Its just Elite Knight Armor next to a bonfire.

[-Ash-]

Have some sprites I did for the game Weapon Alpha, the blue haired one is unlikely of being used however the guy in purple is one of the main bosses. Any C+C is welcome.

[-Ash-]

I did this 3 hours ago after being a wake for well over the time I should of been. I don't have a name but I kinda want advice on the sword, I kinda feel like I messed something up.

[Iocus]

I like your latest sprites!

I think the sclera for the character in white and the character in black is a little too broad.

For the feral knight there, I think the "skirt" falls unnaturally. It should probably cover more of the leg, and the outline should follow better what the folds suggest.
As for the sword, I suppose you intend to make it look worn or stylize it somehow, but it really does look a little too gritty, so I think you should try to make the shades and lighting cleaner. The chest also has some slight banding you ought to clear up a little.

[Kelvin]

I like how you made it look without outlines. I've always thought that was kind of a difficult thing to do. The purple villain guy looks more like a player character with his stance, while the blue-haired guy's relaxed stance makes him look like an NPC. At least, that was my first impression before reading what you said they were.

[-Ash-]

Well I have taken your advice and I will be applying them to the sprites, but the reason Adron is in a player type state is because hes not technically a bad guy and will be just a normal NPC depending on what is happening. So today I have my second attempt at TFR style Yeah went with Adron since I find him to be my best character.

[Kelvin]

His clothes are outlined, but not his face? His skin sort of blends in with the background, so I think you should outline that too, if not for consistency then for contrast. The clothing is great, by the way.

[-Ash-]

Might as well kill 2 birds with 1 stone, still no arms on Adron most likely because I lost interest in the sprite I was working on (that happens way to often) So I made a black mage, not quite sure what to say?

EDIT: alternate brighter palette

[Iocus]

Might as well kill 2 birds with 1 stone, still no arms on Adron most likely because I lost interest in the sprite I was working on (that happens way to often) So I made a black mage, not quite sure what to say?

EDIT: alternate brighter palette

You need to be more conscious of your lightsource. In your picture, there are more than a few elements that aren't quite following the same lighting path. As always, the obligatory edit:

Left is my edit, right is yours.

At the bottom, I demonstrate this point. Your intended source is presumably the blue circle here, but the robe suggests that there is light coming from the lower left, his right arm seems to be taking in some light from the upper middle, and the hat's banding suggest the light is on itself.

I figure you wanted to make the hat look tattered, but this much detail instead makes it look messy and choppy. This is a small sprite, so you sometimes must sacrifice detail for readability. Additionally, the right arm should really capture much more light. You can hardly tell there are two shades on that arm.

That's another thing, your colors -- Contrast, more contrast! Blue and purple are inherently dark colors, so you must make their shades especially distinct to make the lighter colors stand out. Your yellow shades are also too unsaturated and pale-- give them some more red!

Finally, since you seemed to be going mostly for an outline-less style, I attempted to make that more evident.

EDIT: Yay, 100th post!

[-Ash-]

I see, I will try and keep that in mind. I think my main problem is trying to have objects on the sprite protecting shadows onto the sprite which causes it to look like I gave it multiple light sources.

But now onto 'new' things I know its just an edit of Jax...but I guess its ok for a basic enemy design.

[-Ash-]

Trying some new things, 1 is larger sprites, 2 is selective outlining, 3 is female characters and 4 is the back view. so basically everything about this is new to me so yeah I feel like I am just starting spriting from the very start. Only reason I am doing this is because I was getting bored from spriting since I realized I am doing basically the same thing over and over again. I think my main problems at the moment are perspective and selective outlining.

[Paladin]

Well, with selout you're not really anti-aliasing, just shading the outline. This means
that the outline near the lightsource should be brighter, and the outline away from the lightsource should be darker.



I made an edit, mine's on the right. Here, the shading on the outline follows the lightsource, instead of the outline being full of random pixels.
(Perspective seems pretty good by the way, but the ribbon/bow thing bugged me, so I flipped it.)

[-Ash-]

Alright, I think I get the concept now, thanks for the advice.

[-Ash-]

Now that I think I understand how selout works I then tried my hand at Ifrit. In case it wasn't obvious I am doing a pokemon rendition of a ffx summon battle.

[-Ash-]

Oh, kinda forgot I was doing this so I got distracted. What I have done isn't much nor impressive but I think I might get this done (someday) made a shiny version of ifrit mostly because I saw the dark ifrit model while looking for reference images. The very under made sprite is Seymour, still working on that. and I started working on a boss concept sprite for a zelda game. Not entirely sure why but I am not liking it so far. The idea was a StalSnapper, a giant boss in a mucky poison marshland. But really that was the peak of the idea.