Fawful's HD Paper Mario Sprites

[Fawfulthegreat64]

I have decided to take it upon myself to upscale the resolution of some Paper Mario series sheets to the max. Examples of my work are shown below with Count Bleck and Nastasia. I'm starting with Super Paper Mario because its characters are made up of simpler shapes and because it's my personal favorite game in the series.



I submitted Nastasia to the site, but it hasn't been accepted yet. If that one is accepted I'll submit Bleck and make a new category called "Bleck's minions" or "Bleck crew" since Nastasia really isn't a boss and doesn't exactly fit under any existing categories within the Custom/Edited Mario series section. Anyway stay tuned for more.

[DragonDePlatino]

Hmmm...how exactly are you drawing these? Your line quality is giving me the impression that you're using the line tool in an image editor. If that's the case, you will get much better results if you draw these characters as vector graphics in Inkscape. That, and your graphics will be infinitely scalable.

Also, perhaps your sprite has not been accepted yet because these are just traced edits? Try doing something that requires a little more work, like downsizing graphics to pixel art levels. Enchlore is doing a project like that and he could probably use your help.

[Virt]

The curves on the corners of the outlines are a little weird. I'd suggest sharp corners on the more polygonal shapes.

[Fawfulthegreat64]

Well I don't know about vector programs. I have experimented with them in the past and they're nothing like what I'm used to. I made the lines in Photoshop by using the Pencil tool and holding Shift to click the other end of each line. For curves (I'm not sure how to make those in Photoshop) I used a circular selection and manually formed the curved edges by filling in parts of the selection, then moving the marquee and using it to delete any excess pixels. Count Bleck took me all day to do. Nastasia was a bit easier since she has far less parts.

[Ton]

I haven't accepted the sheet yet because I'm really not sure what to make of it. It's well done, but... I don't know. What do you all think?

[DragonDePlatino]

Well I don't know about vector programs. I have experimented with them in the past and they're nothing like what I'm used to. I made the lines in Photoshop by using the Pencil tool and holding Shift to click the other end of each line. For curves (I'm not sure how to make those in Photoshop) I used a circular selection and manually formed the curved edges by filling in parts of the selection, then moving the marquee and using it to delete any excess pixels. Count Bleck took me all day to do. Nastasia was a bit easier since she has far less parts.

Yeah, that's definitely a problem. When you are drawing simple-looking characters like in Super Paper Mario, Inkscape works much, much better. Photoshop works with bitmap graphics while Inkscape works with vector graphics. And there's a huge difference between the two when you scale them up and down:



Notice how the dwarf on the top looks pixellated when you resize him, but the dwarf on the bottom has nice smooth curves. Drawing vector graphics is more difficult than bitmap graphics, but once you get the hang of it resizing is never an issue. So why not learn how to draw vector graphics? If you can use the curve and line tool in MS Paint, learning how to vector isn't hard at all.

[Fawfulthegreat64]

Is it anything like the Pen tool in Photoshop? Cause I've never been able to get the hang of that thing.

I had a class where they taught some basics of Illustrator, but can't say I retained any of that information. I might try to look up a tutorial in the future though. Can I load raster images into vector programs for reference?

[Chris2Balls [:B]]

Yes, you can set a raster image as a background, may it be in Illustrator or Inkscape.
As for the tools, you're making lines and shapes made up of points. Two points = segment ; pull its handle, it becomes a curved segment (think of a Bezier curve). So you keep building your shape point after point.

[DragonDePlatino]

Ah, yes. Like Chris2Balls said, when you work with vector graphics you're working with shapes made up of line segments and points. It's a lot like 3D modelling, really, except you're working in a 2D space. Here's the first ever vector video I watched, which shows the entire process from start to finish:



It's pretty crummy "tutorial", though. You might want to watch another video if you want to learn the specifics.