Some Critique, Please.

[ClubbyBear]

I tried using that program a second ago, when I removed a color from the sprite and deleted it from the palette, it increased; is something wrong if I'm making it in Paint.Net, or does the sprite have something wrong?

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Found the problem; some of the hand wasn't fully done or something. Will continue searching.

[Vipershark]

I have no idea, man. I know for a fact you had a few shades that were only used in tiny areas and nowhere else so it's possible that you may not have removed the but I really don't know.
The base I sent on the last page is only 5 colors and the count identifies it as such.

Maybe start from there? I dunno.

[ClubbyBear]

I have no idea, man. I know for a fact you had a few shades that were only used in tiny areas and nowhere else so it's possible that you may not have removed the but I really don't know.
The base I sent on the last page is only 5 colors and the count identifies it as such.

Maybe start from there? I dunno.

Thanks for the suggestion, but I've finally found how to get rid of them. ATM it's at around 21 shades, and I'm still searching. The head itself has 7 shades, not including the other colors from the pants and sweater and transparency, so I'm working on that.

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Update; about 5 colors away from the goal of 12.

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I'm grateful at finally getting it down to 13; it caused me to have to redo the entire head, but at least it's only 1 color away from being the palette next to it.

[Vipershark]

7 colors (including the outline) plus transparency, using colors from your own palette.

You're still gonna definitely have to work on the contrast (and also the shading, I didn't fix it completely) and maybe do a bit of hue shifting but this should at least get you on the right track.

[ClubbyBear]

Well, this is getting to a point where when zoomed up close, it wouldn't look as good as if it had a bit more colors;
I mean I know you CAN get less, but I think 12 is a good balance to make it look good when the graphics are scaled up.

[Vipershark]

To be completely honest with you, when I look at these I think the one on the right with less colors looks better due to the higher contrast between the shades. Especially on the hoodie. The left one gets so dark that much of the detail seems to get lost because you can't make out the differences between shades as well. In motion, you wouldn't be able to see it at all.
Like I said, I didn't do any hue shifting and I didn't put all the shading back or anything so it can look a lot better than it does. I just pulled the colors straight from your own palette.

Though I think it's unnecessary, if you're adamant about using more than 7 colors then I think you should try going for 10 plus transparency instead.

That's three shades for the green, blue, and black for nine colors, plus the black outline to make 10.
For this sprite in particular, you really should never need more than that since your colors are close enough that you can do easy hue shifting.
I might even cut that to 9 plus transparency if I were you since there's no need for the hoodie to be that dark. You can remove a shade there.

Especially considering that the top three colors in your palette (and the second row, 3rd column) are so dark that they all look like the exact same color.

[Level 1]

I have to agree with Viper, less colors allows for the viewer to see the detail of the piece. With so many dark colors surrounding said detail, the viewer then has a harder time interpreting what you meant to showcase. Besides, sometimes less colors means less work, and in a sprite of this quality, there shouldn't be a lot of work to be put into it because Viper has literally left you with the outline for you to re-shade with a smaller color count.

[ClubbyBear]

I don't like it personally, because it seems too light. I get what you're saying, and that works great for most sprites, but with what I'm trying to create here it isn't mostly about making all the details pop out.

Also, the high contrast part is confusing to me, as the sweater on the right seems to have shades lighter than the main shadow on the left sprite.

[Vipershark]

It's not about making it light, it's about making it visible.

The shade on the hoodie is so dark that I can't see the outline around it in most places, particularly under the arm. It just looks like a large blob of black and then suddenly there's the arm.
On the pants, for example, there is supposed to be a black line running up the side of the pants, right? On yours, it just looks like a big patch of dark green that extends to the rear of the leg, while on mine the line (and thus the detail) is easily visible. Even if you're not trying to make the detail "pop out" per se, you still don't want big ol' blobs of color.

More colors might be fine in a static piece (even then, your contrast is still way too low for the amount of colors you have) but this isn't intended to be a static piece. It's one part of an animation, and at 60 frames a second you simply can't see the details in colors that dark and that close together when each pose will only be onscreen for 1/60th of a second.

Regarding the high contrast, I think you seem to be mistaking the meaning of contrast.
Contrast isn't how dark your colors get, it's about how much difference there is between your shades. As I said before, low contrast end up in your shades blending together, which makes them redundant. Higher contrast makes your shades more visible, and brings out the detail in your sprite.
This is the example in our Spriting Dictionary.

This is the exact same sprite but with different contrast levels. It's a bit exaggerated, but you get the picture. It's hard to see the darkest shade in the low contrast ball because it's so close to the above shade, while the high contrast ball is clearly defined (even if the contrast on this example is way higher than the amount you'd need on your sprite).

Your "main shadow" is simply so dark that it blends in with the outline, completely eating up all the detail. Spriting is about compromises, and this is one that you have to make.

[ClubbyBear]

Well, the stance itself won't have an animation, and I think I'll try to edit your sprite so at least instead of gray it still fits in with a new palette.

[StarSock64]

hi I made some (intentionally) crude edits to viper's edit

The shading on the head you have pretty much can't make sense (as far as I can tell) because the structure is all off. How can you know how light is hitting anything when it wouldn't make sense as a 3d object? So, I tried to alleviate that a bit. It's still not really good, but I don't have time to fiddle with it.

...I think I made that leg more diagonal than I meant to but I can't fix that right now...but I made some adjustments to the body so the head might look like it was fit on better

Also the head had tons and tons of banding so I took that out

There are a lot of other things you could do with this sprite, but I'll leave it there for now

[ClubbyBear]

He does look a bit too chubby, but I'll attempt to improve it;
Also, about the whole palette issue, I think 12 colors will work for the game because the animations won't be going as fast as you think;
I will, however, start decreasing if this changes

[ClubbyBear]

Should I expand this to other sprites, or limit it to just the bear?

[Level 1]

You can show us more, but it'd be better to finish one thing at a time.

[ClubbyBear]

Still working on deleting all of the 2 colors, so if it says there are more just ignore it.