Smash Sprites!!!

[Super Smash Spriter]

"pillow" shaded? what is that?

[Shade]

"pillow" shaded? what is that?

http://www.vg-resource.com/thread-25474.html

Helpful ^

[Thor]

Edit: Damn, Shade beat me to linking the dictionary. Oh well! \o/

"pillow" shaded? what is that?

Pillowshading is, essentially, shading an object or entity from all sides so the lightest parts are dead-center to the viewer. It adds an overly soft look to your sprite (hence the "pillow" part of the term) and, because of the lack of a clearly defined singular lightsource, it looks rather unattractive. A fair amount of SNES games (Super Mario World is, in particular, a well-known offender) have graphics that use pillowshading. Using pillowshading is a fairly common mistake new spriters make, so it's nothing to be horribly ashamed of! However, continued practice of pillowshading is STRONGLY discouraged, as it inhibits your understanding of lighting and also usually shows laziness.

On your sprite, for example, Mario's hat and face have some very noticeable pillowshading. On the face, this is mostly caused by an overly broad shaded portion with far too many shades that don't have enough contrast between them. Contrast is, to quote the Spriting Dictionary, is

...'more difference between the colors'. The higher the contrast, the more visible the shades will be, and vice-versa. palettes with low amounts of contrast usually end being dull, while ones with high amounts of contrast end being extremely harsh. balance between the colors is the key.

Your sprite in particular leans more toward the "low contrast" example, especially on Mario's pants. The shades seem to blend together, which isn't necessarily something you want when you're spriting, as it hurts readability, tends to lead into pillowshading, and as a result, makes your sprite unattractive. However, steer clear of the high contrast example, as that hurts the eyes of the viewer. Like the Spriting Dictionary (which can be read by clicking the link I provided just before the quote) says, balance between the colours is crucial to spriting! \o/

[Gors]

here's an edit of Mario's head with proper shading (I whipped this up in 10 minutes so there are many things yet to be fixed), but you can notice i used the extra space to draw more details. I'd also use a better color palette with more hueshift.

[Natis]

Also, even though you may think you know Mario, if you create from memory it can loose some of the key details in a character. Reference images are key! Trust me on this one, I'm not a pro in any way and I am learning just like you, haha! They really do help!

One of the things that first caught my attention was Mario's nose. Close, but it isn't right. You have it going from the forehead straight into the nose as if it is one large chunk. Mario has more of a round nose. I will use Gors wonderful edit to help my point and define the nose. (Hope that's ok...)



You see I used a Mario reference image to help me see what his nose would look from the side and edited it to give it that rounded nose look.

I hope that helps! 

[Gors]

And here you have learned 3 things:

1- Shade efficiently. A good shading with volume in mind will help you convey tridimensionality better (that's the reason of shading something; it doesn't exist just because);

2- Upscaling involves adding more details the original sprite couldn't handle;

3- look for references. Don't be demotivated for having to look for references. I do that all the time, and don't focus on one source either: Natis picked an image of Mario from another game to help construct the sprite, and that's how you should work.

Happy spriting, and keep practicing

[Super Smash Spriter]

I think I got it! I will be back in 10-60 mins depending how my computer is running. Thank you all for the tips.

[Super Smash Spriter]

Ta-Da! It certainly beats the original!

[~Axis~]

Now that's what I call improvement. Mario's hands still needs work. The anatomy of his hands needs fixing. Try shading the pants too. Good job champ. You still got a ways to go.

[Super Smash Spriter]

Ok thanks! I will work on that!... (Google Search) Define... anatomy...
XD just kiddin'.

[Quirby64]

Looking better, Smash, but the shading around the left (Mario's right) shoulder is a bit odd. You could probably use less.
His shoes don't seem to look like how they should, or that's just me and my memory (too lazy to get a reference).

[Rosencrantz]

So it should also probably be noted that just because you're scaling up on the sprite, doesn't mean you need to *thoroughly* stick to the original sprite's silhouette. There's a ton of detail that is usually lost in a small-resolution image, so animators tend to do exaggerations to make sure they get the right details across!

Move the frontmost hand down a bit to make it look less lop-sided compared to the other hand, and redraw the legs so that they're a bit closer to the pelvic region (they're really spread out toward the bottom). The button furthest away from us should be rotated a bit to emphasize that Mario's stomach is round; use the Mario pic you have as a reference to help you a bit more with that. Mario's hair should be tucked underneath his hat in the back; right now you have the hair look like it's riding up the rounds of the hat. I say extend the hat's bulge a bit in the back so that the round part is past the hair.

Try to also set up your shading so that it's more consistent with Mario's round shapes. The bottom of the cheek, for instance, should ride along the curve and not flip into a convex shape like what you have there. Tone the shading down just a tad there. The hat itself looks overly shaded towards the bottom still, though this may be more a fault of the color choices rather than what you have shaded already. Play around with the shades some more, since you can get away with a smoother contrast than what you're working with right now.

When you get down to the overalls, try to shade it in a way that makes it seem like whatever's lighting up Mario's face is lighting up the rest of the clothing. His back should be darker, his front should be lighter, and shade Mario's stomach like it's a sphere.

You made some crazy progress between those two sprites, so I'm looking forward to your next iteration, sir

[Super Smash Spriter]

Thanks guys. Be sure to check out my newest attempt soon today! I'm still having trouble making a good... wait! No spoilers!

[Super Smash Spriter]

Ok, It's currently a work in progress, but here it is:

I know Fawful is mostly not shaded but that is because it's not done. I was very busy today so I didnt have a whole lot of time to work on it.

[Super Smash Spriter]

My new design for Mario. I gave his hands a touch-up and redid a bit of the shading. Cheers!