DDP's Sprite Workshop

[DragonDePlatino]

Work continues on my Dwarf Fortress tileset! I've been working at it for a good week now, and progress has been spectacular. I've finished all of the race graphics and a good bit of the animal tiles. Here are all of the domestic animal tiles I finished a while ago:


Dog, cat, mule, donkey, horse
Cow, sheep, pig, goat, chicken
Cavy, duck, water buffalo, deer, goose
Yak, llama, alpaca, guineafowl, peafowl
Turkey, rabbit

As you can see, the style has changed quite a bit since it's last iteration...In order for the sprites to show up on a black background, I've eliminated black from the sprites and replaced it with dark purple. What do you guys think? Does the look work or would there be a better way to set the sprites apart from the black background?

[bokehsynapsid]

i've never actually played dwarf fort, but i've heard a lot about it, and the birdmen sprites are absolutely adorable (especially the tiny songbirds. yessss.)

[DragonDePlatino]

Eeeeeyyy! How long has it been since I posted here? 2 Weeks? I've been drawing pixel art every day, but since a lot of my projects are secrety-secrets I won't be able to share a lot of what I do. BUT...The folks over at the Dwarf Fortress forums are hosting a pixel art competition, and I thought it'd get some feedback on my entry before I send it in on the 31st!



The goal of the contest was to draw three adventurers. Each adventurer can be up to 80x80 in size, and they all have to share the same 16-color palette. After some brain-storming, I decided to draw an adventuring party of golems in CGA because the palette lacks proper skin tones. From left to right, this merry band of adventurers are Hooked Heroine, Candlestick Cleric and Barrel Brawler. The former is more or less finished but the second two need some more work before I can call them complete.

[DragonDePlatino]

OK! Final WIP before I submit this to the contest in a few hours! Any thoughts on these guys? I think I did a pretty OK job on the first two guys, but Barrel Brawler might need a little more work.

[Virt]

Having an orange in between pink and dark red is kind of weird-looking. It looks like you're working with a limited palette, though, so I don't know if you can change that at all.

[DragonDePlatino]

Yeah....that' can't be really helped...CGA is a bloody terrible palette so pulling basic things off like skin tones and browns is pretty much impossible. I was originally going to use DawnBringer's excellent 16-color palette, but I decided to challenge myself a bit and use something a lot weaker.

Oh well, at least I know to never use this palette again.

[Koh]

I'm curious what kind of custom stuff you'd make with Dawnbringer's palette. I tried using it before, but I just didn't like that the RGB values weren't multiples of 8. I'm a real stickler for that, so I rounded them off to their nearest 8, and made 248 the highest possible value. I guess you can say the SNES spoiled me, even though I only ever emulated the thing, lol.

Working with that modified Dawnbringer palette was....interesting. But I'm better off making my own shades and highlights =o.

[DragonDePlatino]

Heh. I can understand where you're coming from. As a matter of fact, the palette I'm working with on my newest project (the Dwarf Fortress graphics set) is mostly composed of colors from the 15-bit RGB colorspace. Working with multiples of 8 gives a nice contrast to your palettes.

Nevertheless, I still feel Dawnbringer 16 is the best 16-color palette ever created. It's not suitable for everything, but for a majority of things it will work very well. Take my DawnLike tileset, for example. There are also some insanely talented artists over at PixelJoint who pulled off some amazing things with the palette. All of the colors just blend so well with each other, and you can pull off these natural-looking 8-color or 10-color ramps with very little effort.

CGA, on the other hand...It's nearly impossible to pull off ramps. At best, you can only do 3-color ramps, and most look pretty terrible.

[DragonDePlatino]

(Corny 90s Commercial Announcer Voice)
From the makers of Super Mario Bros.™ and Legend of Zelda™ comes a crazy new fighting game! Duel out with your friends with 16 different popular Nintendo™ characters and prove once and for all who's got the Nintendo Power! Choose from classic characters like Link, Samus, Kirby and even some underdogs like Pit, Little Mac and Duck Hunt!

Super Smash Bros. Duel! Coming to a video store near you!



So far, I've got 16 planned characters that appeared in Nintendo games before 1990. I won't be animating these guys, but I might be taking requests for Assist Trophies if I finish the main roster. C&C is appreciated!

[Joxon]

Nice! I think that Luigis moustache could be thicker. Maybe 3 pixels of hair at the bottom right.

[DragonDePlatino]

Sure thing. It'll make him look more like Mario, but if you say so.



I also did an old-school Donkey Kong, since he didn't get his modern design until Donkey Kong Country. And like Link, I think I might actually like his old-school design more than his newer one.

[Joxon]

I ment you should give it double arch shape like this.


Oh, and perhaps make his head a bit taller or thinner.

[E-Man]

I also did an old-school Donkey Kong, since he didn't get his modern design until Donkey Kong Country.

what are you talking about that is cranky kong when he is still in his prime mate

[-Ash-]

I also did an old-school Donkey Kong, since he didn't get his modern design until Donkey Kong Country.

what are you talking about that is cranky kong when he is still in his prime mate

*Prime Ape

[DragonDePlatino]

The roster slowly grows...



Things are starting to look more like a fighting game now! With this update, all of the most important characters are out of the way. Now I'll be moving on to the more obscure 1st party characters of the NES. And once those are finished, I'll probably start taking requests for 3rd party assist trophies.

I ment you should give it double arch shape like this.
Oh, and perhaps make his head a bit taller or thinner.

Done aaand done! Also, keep in mind this is Super Smash Bros on the NES, so if anyone gives me any references, they should look like this.

what are you talking about that is cranky kong when he is still in his prime mate

Heh...But remember! The SNES didn't exist yet so this was the only Donkey Kong, along with Donkey Kong Jr. He wasn't all that cranky yet so he was just called Donkey Kong.