[WIP] FF6-style Yoshi sprite - my first sprite sheet

[Ishimaru Chiaki]

Hello everyone !

As a fan of FF6 and Yoshi, I gave myself a challenge to gimp lately : making a Final Fantasy 6 styled sprite sheet of the cute green dinosaur (and eventually his friends).

Since it's my first custom sprite, I know it isn't perfect yet and it needs to be improved, so here's why I post this here so I can have advices (even if I'm really nervous about it).

Here is the sprite sheet :

v1.0

Enlarged 4 times : link

(I based Yoshi's tent on Mog's tent - the one with the star on top)
Some poses were more difficult to make than other. Especially the "Front view with head bent forward" (5th row, 1st column), I'm not sure the head actually look bent forward compared to the rear and side view.

And I made animated GIFs to visualize the outcome (4x original size)


V2.0


And 4x size version : link

V3.0


4x size : link

Second version of Yoshi's Critical pose
Here is it


4x size link

V4.0
More in style with FF6 SNES version !

Enlarged 4 times : link

Animations (Walking front view, Walking rear view, Walking side view, Victory, Laughing, Spellcasting)


The same anims, enlarged 4 times


First extra sprites, related to Yoshi's special abilities !


Enlarged 4 times : link

For now I just did "Swallow" and "Egg Lay" poses + large egg (when Yoshi uses his Egg Shield or swallows a large enemy) + small egg.

All updates will be gathered on this post.

Thanks in advance for the advices.

ps : misstux84 is a username I use on some sites. I went close to choose it for this board but I finally decided to use my Japanese username.

[Vipershark]

Hello!
First and foremost, you'll want to check out our Spriting Dictionary.

Aside from that, you have a few issues that need addressing.

First, instead of using a white (or in your case, transparent) background, it's best to work on a background color that's desaturated and stands out well from the colors in your sprite. It's good to pick a hue that appears nowhere else in your sprite, if possible. For one, it makes it a lot easier on you when working with your sprites, and it also helps others to clearly see what is or is not part of your sheet.
One of your poses has little sweat drop effects which are basically impossible to see on the pure white.

In addition, your sprite is using pure black (0,0,0) and pure white (255,255,255), which you should avoid if possible. (Particularly because Paint and some other programs don't play well with transparency and turn it pure black, which totally screws up your sheet when people open it up.)

As far as the sprites themselves go the biggest issue you have is that your colors, the green in particular, are flat.
You need more contrast between your shades to make them stand out better. How do you achieve that?

These are the four shades that you're using for green.
Notice how their Hue (63) and Saturation (240) are constant for all four shades.
Color is three-dimensional, and your colors are only changing in one dimension, Luminosity/Brightness. You're adjusting how bright the colors are, but leaving their other properties completely unchanged. Because of this, your colors appear flat as they're quite literally one-dimensional.

To fix this, you'll have to use Hue Shifting as well as change the saturation between your shades so that they become fully three-dimensional.
When hue shifting, you generally want to keep in mind that brighter shades hue shift to warmer colors (so your brighter greens will tend to be more yellow) while your darker shades hue shift to cooler colors (so your darker greens will tend to be more blue). For saturation, you generally want your lighter shades to be less saturated while your darker shades will be more saturated.
This doesn't cover every possible situation of course, but that will generally get you on the right track for picking a better palette.

I made a quick edit to change your background color and gave the pure black and pure white a slight bluish tint so they're no longer problematic.
I also put the white shade into your palette at the bottom as well as the black from the outline.

See if you can fix your colors from here. In addition to the green, your two brightest yellows are almost indistinguishable and the brown and white color ramps need to be changed as well.
Good luck!

edit- Also, instead of putting updates in the OP, please post them in new posts instead (or at least do both) so that the most recent stuff is always at the most recent post. Thanks.

[Ishimaru Chiaki]

Hello and thanks for the advices.
Regarding pure black, I didn't notice earlier that in the original FF6 sprites, the outline were actually #181818 (a very dark grey), so I fixed this detail.

I also did other modifications, and as suggested, I changed the green palette a little bit and I added e few extra colours to add a little depth.

Regarding the tent, I FINALLY found (on a Russian site) a Mog sprite sheet that INCLUDES his tent, so I started back from Mog's original tent instead of using a recolored tent that came from a Chupon sprite sheet found on Deviantart. This way, I kept the star's original colors, while coloring the tent green.

Here is the v2


And 4x size version : link

I'm just wondering if the effect on Yoshi's nose in front view is a little too overkill or if it's just OK ...

EDIT : dang typos !!!

[Vipershark]

It's looking a lot better than before already!
You still need more contrast between your shades, though.
It's kind of difficult to see the shadows (on the side views in particular) and I can't even see the shading on the white parts without zooming in.
Also, you've still got pure white there, so you might want to get rid of that...

[Ishimaru Chiaki]

I was hesitating to replace the pure white because Mog and Umaro use pure white in their palette. But I changed it anyway for (255,255,222).

While listening to our local team hockey game (Baie-Comeau Drakkar), I worked on my sprite again and I worked on the contrasts and also on the antialiasing.

Here is the third version.


4x size : link

[Ishimaru Chiaki]

Hello,

I'm not sure if I can actually put an update in a new reply if there was no reply in the meantime ... but tonight I worked on a second version of Yoshi's Critical pose which looks more like most FF character's pose and not Mog-like pose.

Here is it


4x size link

[Kelvin]

One thing that's been bothering me is his nose. From a strictly pixel-based measurement, it's the same size on both the front and side views, but taking into account the slightly overhead projection, I feel it should appear bigger on the south-facing view. Like this:



You'll also notice I merged some of the colors to increase contrast and moved in the bottom of his nose to make the roundness more consistent.

[water dog]

I have a qualm with his front and back facing sprites. On his side view sprites, you do a very good job of making him look like a bipedal reptile, but in his front and back view, his legs are close together with no gap between, making him look like a guy in a yoshi costume.

I suggest shading his legs a darker color and pushing them more toward his hips to remedy this.

I would fix up an example for you but I am busy at the moment. I will try to come back and provide you with one though.

[Vipershark]

I was hesitating to replace the pure white because Mog and Umaro use pure white in their palette. But I changed it anyway for (255,255,222).

I was curious about whether or not there were green colors in the FF6 palette that were close to the green you picked your your Yoshi (since FF6 is sorta washed out color-wise) and I remembered something: FF6 sprites are actually pretty ugly and generally only use 2 shades per color...

I made a quick and ugly comparison using colors from the soldier and Kappa, but uh...


Yours looks a whole lot better, but it's not in style. :/

[Gors]

i think that you should give Yoshi that 'T-Rex' stance, with the arms forward instead of moving it like a human. it just looks weird...

[Ishimaru Chiaki]

@Vipershark : That's why I asked earlier if my shading was overkill or not. I want to be sure to not have really finished editing before making the other Yoshi colors (red, blue, yellow, etc.)

@Gors : About Yoshi's stance, I actually based him on the upright stance like the middle one on this pic or like the M&L Partners in Time one.
I also have to work with the 16*24 limitation.

But it might be an option to make two versions : Upright Yoshi and Brawl Yoshi.

-------------------------------------
EDIT : New version, more in style with FF6 SNES version !

Enlarged 4 times : link

Animations (Walking front view, Walking rear view, Walking side view, Victory, Laughing, Spellcasting)


The same anims, enlarged 4 times


NOTE : For now, I keep the same colours before I want to show the result before changing them to fit more with FF6's green characters (Kappa, green soldier, etc.)

-------------------------
EDIT2 : First extra sprites, related to Yoshi's special abilities !


Enlarged 4 times : link

For now I just did "Swallow" and "Egg Lay" poses + large egg (when Yoshi uses his Egg Shield or swallows a large enemy) + small egg.