just something i'm working on..

[zye1984]

and it's taking me forever! i've not got the jest of doing sprite work to make things go smoother, but i think i'm doing well, even if i'm going at a snail's pace. I've got some work done on a different save that has more work on this guy's gun, i'm at work atm so i don't have it. don't mind the naruto and samus, those are just for size reference, mostly.



I'f you can guess who this is i'll give you 20 kudos!

[Superjustinbros]

Jump Ultimate Stars-styled fighters?

[Vipershark]

Moved to S&PA.

[Ton]

Jason?

[Gors]

the problem we have here, is that you don't have much contrast between your gray shades. Contrast is difference between each color you are using. In this case, the guy's armor isn't well-defined as Naruto's color and details are. Comparing to Samus, though, it's somewhat similar.

One thing that remains true between Naruto and Samus, though, is the saturation of the colors. If you see their colors, you'll see that they appear more bright, lively and cartoonish. Your sprite looks gritty because of that, and looks out of place considering the style you're trying to emulate.

Finally, his feet are misplaced. Both Samus and Naruto have their feet in the same level, now your sprite has one foot placed further than the other.

[zye1984]

Jason?

Froooom? = P

---

The reasons why my gray shades are not too different is because the gray parts are actually shaded white, but i chose not to use pure white. The other sprites are mostly there for size reference, not color reference. I am not fond of the sharp changes of contrast between colors like the Naruto, and i'm more in favor of how Mega Man 8 and MMX 4-6 are. If i made the shades of gray any darker, his armor would appear gray instead of a calm white. So I'm, not emulating the style of these sprites at all, just looking to see the size difference and fit Jason in between them. Those sprites are used in the Super Smash Flash 2 (yep i know the Naruto is from that mentioned game, he just fit jason's height is all) so i'm trying to fit jason in that, hypothetically. Also, i feel both the Samus and Naruto are more "gritty" than what i'm working on, due to the the strong contrast in colors instead of smooth transitions.

EDIT: oh wait, did you mean gritty like "grr" gritty or dirty/unkempt gritty? o3o

As for his feet, i honestly don't care about making them flat and next to one another, because what i'm going for is depth in my sprite. you cannot have much depth if the sprite is flat. it's hard to see what's going on i suppose with how he's not finished, though i tried to hint at it with the shade differences. Perhaps i made it come down too far, but i don't want him having midget legs like naruto there or grandaddy long legs either.

the problem we have here, is that you don't have much contrast between your gray shades. Contrast is difference between each color you are using. In this case, the guy's armor isn't well-defined as Naruto's color and details are. Comparing to Samus, though, it's somewhat similar.

One thing that remains true between Naruto and Samus, though, is the saturation of the colors. If you see their colors, you'll see that they appear more bright, lively and cartoonish. Your sprite looks gritty because of that, and looks out of place considering the style you're trying to emulate.

Finally, his feet are misplaced. Both Samus and Naruto have their feet in the same level, now your sprite has one foot placed further than the other.

---

...though i'll try darker grays just to see if it works a little better. >3> i just don't want it looking gray. I'm trying to follow the MMX 4-6 way, but i reality, i didn't really like how the white looked gray on those games. i'm guessing why they did it that way was because they would have had to reduce the different shades of colors between regular X and an armored X, and it would have looked out of place.

[zye1984]

here's an updated version. i couldn't upload it to scraps in my deviantart account for some reason..

aaaand i can't figure out how to embed it here again.

EDIT: Thanks E-man.



so, yeah, i made the colors a little more contrasting, and moved his left leg up some, thickening the upper part of the leg for [future] depth. other details were added. i just hope i can get this sucker to move without it being too awkward.

[E-Man]

Try this! Just hit the tiny picture of the mountains and the sun on the bar that is above the area that is above your post. Once a window pops up, all you need to do is insert a valid image URL and hit OK.

Otherwise, you can just use this.

[img]URL goes here[/img]

[zye1984]

Jump Ultimate Stars-styled fighters?

sorta, i'm trying to make some higher quality sprites for super smash flash 2, and see where it goes. it'd be awesome if i could get him on there, if i even finish. it's taking me forever just to do this one spite; imagining doing 60 or 80 more feels rather daunting.

[Paladin]

Hmm... I still think you should give your shades more contrast. You shouldn't be afraid of doing so,
because high contrast is mostly what looks good.

Also, the armor seems pillow shaded.

[Garamonde]

I-It might help if somebody made an edit to actually show him how reducing colors and increasing contrast properly can still portray the style he is going for, in a cleaner way, thus is what I've tried to do here (left is mine, right is yours):



It's obviously not great or anything but as you can see, he is still clearly soft white, but doesn't use several meaningless shades to blur it up. You can also see that I've modified some other things, such as hue-shifting the palette to look more appealing (I'm sure this has been linked already, but take special note of the "Hue-Shifting" section), edited some pixels here and there to generally look neater, (poorly) attempted to clean up some of the shading, and most importantly, reduced the amount of shades and took full advantage of the few colors that are there while still trying to convey the same things.

This is just to give you ideas, of course. We STRONGLY encourage you to experiment and at least try re-shading it with a smaller, more contrasting palette on your own, because even if you think that having more colors makes it look better, it honestly doesn't; it just makes it look blurry and unprofessional.

Another advantage to having a smaller palette, is that it makes animating sprites MUCH easier, because you don't have 1,000 colors that you need to apply to one frame. Having less colors is actually more professional-looking, too, because it shows that you have the skill to make good sprites with more-limited resources, for lack of better words.

Looking forward to seeing what you can do! I could be missing something here though, haven't kept up with the thread that much. Just incorporate what we've said in your own way and we'll help you achieve sprite greatness, or something!

[zye1984]

...no thanks.

I honestly don't like how yours looks. but here, let me show you the style that i'm emulating.



as you can see, capcom used this sort of shading and had a large palette. I don't think capcom is unprofessional at all, are they?

This is a single sprite that i hope to animate fully. I'm also hoping to make the shading flow well. So lemme make this rather clear...I do not want cartoon-ish shading. if i wanted that i'd have done that. I do not like the looks of the Naruto sprite (looks like utter crap to me) and the Samus sprite (looks awkward a little) all that much.

so while i appreciate criticism, i don't want to be told to change the entirety of something i've worked on for many, many hours. perhaps i'll do another sprite in 16 bit or less, but right now THIS is what i'm working on.

sorry to be a little anal, but i'm not fond of virtually being told what i'm working on isn't good with how much time i put in it. = ( i know ya meant nothing by it, but my will to work on my projects get snuffed out easily when i'm told to restart basically..

I-It might help if somebody made an edit to actually show him how reducing colors and increasing contrast properly can still portray the style he is going for, in a cleaner way, thus is what I've tried to do here (left is mine, right is yours):



It's obviously not great or anything but as you can see, he is still clearly soft white, but doesn't use several meaningless shades to blur it up. You can also see that I've modified some other things, such as hue-shifting the palette to look more appealing (I'm sure this has been linked already, but take special note of the "Hue-Shifting" section), edited some pixels here and there to generally look neater, (poorly) attempted to clean up some of the shading, and most importantly, reduced the amount of shades and took full advantage of the few colors that are there while still trying to convey the same things.

This is just to give you ideas, of course. We STRONGLY encourage you to experiment and at least try re-shading it with a smaller, more contrasting palette on your own, because even if you think that having more colors makes it look better, it honestly doesn't; it just makes it look blurry and unprofessional.

Another advantage to having a smaller palette, is that it makes animating sprites MUCH easier, because you don't have 1,000 colors that you need to apply to one frame. Having less colors is actually more professional-looking, too, because it shows that you have the skill to make good sprites with more-limited resources, for lack of better words.

Looking forward to seeing what you can do! I could be missing something here though, haven't kept up with the thread that much. Just incorporate what we've said in your own way and we'll help you achieve sprite greatness, or something!

---

but i already increased the contrast! D = any more and the reds and greens will be black! maybe you didn't see my latest one. = )

Hmm... I still think you should give your shades more contrast. You shouldn't be afraid of doing so,
because high contrast is mostly what looks good.

Also, the armor seems pillow shaded.

[Rhyme]

but i already increased the contrast! D = any more and the reds and greens will be black! maybe you didn't see my latest one. = )

contrast doesn't mean darker exclusively, it means different/distinct


see how capcoms gets progressively bluer/darker? that's hue shifting (more specifically contrast), not simply darkening the colors

in capcoms pallete, the hue shifts from 150 (brightest 'gray'), 147, 144, 144 and it ends at 133

your pallete sits at 160 the entire time and there's no big difference aside from darkness it's all a very plain gray and on your sprite it's pretty hard to see the difference between your colors

i don't sprite so you can ignore me if you want but EH

[zye1984]

if i did that though, the visor would stand out less and it would only make a tiny difference in the grays. i don't like capcom's white anyway XP i don't want there to be a vast difference in colors when the colors are, in my mind, supposed to blend into one another, making a proper shadow. the white is blue hued on MMX cuz his base color was blue to begin with, i feel. = ]

EDIT: though i DO think the red could use it. maybe a tad on the green.

but i already increased the contrast! D = any more and the reds and greens will be black! maybe you didn't see my latest one. = )

contrast doesn't mean darker exclusively, it means different/distinct


see how capcoms gets progressively bluer/darker? that's hue shifting (more specifically contrast), not simply darkening the colors

in capcoms pallete, the hue shifts from 150 (brightest 'gray'), 147, 144, 144 and it ends at 133

your pallete sits at 160 the entire time and there's no big difference aside from darkness it's all a very plain gray and on your sprite it's pretty hard to see the difference between your colors

i don't sprite so you can ignore me if you want but EH

[Rhyme]

if i did that though, the visor would stand out less and it would only make a tiny difference in the grays. i don't like capcom's white anyway XP i don't want there to be a vast difference in colors when the colors are, in my mind, supposed to blend into one another, making a proper shadow. the white is blue hued on MMX cuz his base color was blue to begin with, i feel. = ]

that could be easily fixed by switching out the blues/reds/etc in the sprite for less 'dull' ones

overall honestly your palettes pretty dull

lazily switched to Capcoms grays
and with capcoms blues

not the best examples but i hope you can tell the difference between simply darkening and hue shifting? in yours it's VERY hard (at no zoom) to see the shading.. if you're zoomed in you can tell a lot easier but

you could also use red-gray instead, i guess, if you think it'd match more since your 'base' is mostly red (body, helmet stripe)