Merry's forum smilies =)

[M.E.R.255]

I've made some smilies for my Nintendo forum (is still a beta in a way, so I won't give a link unless you ask me to =P) and was wondering if any of you guys would want to use any of these. =O I love sharing, so please take what you want! ^^ Maybe let me know what you think or if I should make more, I could use the motivation. =) 
Now, let's see what I got...

Yellow smilies
   
They're the generic ones, and one of them resembles an Angry Video Game Nerd.  


Shy Guy smilies (birthday gift to my friend Shyboo)
 
Also have the same expressions in these colors ^^ (the ZIP folder at the bottom of the reply)
         
I've done all these for the birthday of a girl named Shyboo, who's a big fan of Shy Guys and I just find adorable.


Chao smilies (birthday gift to sinoj961... I should have made more... =/)
    


Huzzy smilies (gift to my friend HuZTAR)

He's a fluffy fuzzball in my opinion =P


Valy smilies (gift to my friend Bouncing Beauty)
 
Argh, she's so darn cute and lively >#>


Virty smilies (gift to my best friend virtualboy2558)
 
This is my buddy's OC who's wearing a Virtualboy console as goggles (ouch, must hurt! =P) 


Virvir smilies (second gift to virtualboy2558)
 
That's his OC without goggles and... ugh... I want to hug that cute fella. >_<


ZIP folders, in case you want them. ^-^
All Shy Guy colors + expressions, including sprites to make your own: 
http://www.mediafire.com/download/1rb94d...milies.zip

All yellow, Huzzy, Valy, Virty, and Virvir expressions (no materials yet, sorry...): 
http://www.mediafire.com/download/l1rxyb...milies.zip


Hooooope you like them and can use them! =D (I'll update this reply when I have more ^^)
You can always ask me to do more, as long as you don't try ordering me around like "Hey, dude! Where are my smilies? I've asked for them 1 hours ago! "
Also don't worry, no credit required, but don't claim that you made these yourself from scratch. =O

Anyways, I spend like what? 3-4 hours on this (making the ZIP folders and all that) so I'm going to bed, sorry for not including materials for the second ZIP folder, it's 1: 30AM on my end and am supposed to be up at around 7AM. ^^; See you! =D

[puggsoy]

Just a bit of critique, the blinking looks a bit weird sometimes. Mostly the really fast, single-frame blinks, like the ones that the yellow smilies use. The slower one that the fifth Valy smiley from the left uses looks a bit better. The very quick ones just seem sort of unnecessary and strange to me.

I'm also failing to see a wink anywhere. It's a pretty standard thing on most forums:

Anyway, I don't sprite so I can't give any pixel-level critique but overall I think they look quite good.

[~Axis~]

I wish these could be used here. Other than what Puggsoy said, they look great overall.

[M.E.R.255]

@puggsoy: Thanks for your comment, critique does help improve me in my work so I do appreciate it your feedback. =D I haven't gotten any comments to these before (and the ones I did get were only positive because those people liked me ^^; ) so they may have some flaws. =)
I see your point with the blinking, though it's not so easy to pull of when the eyes of yellow smilies is 2-3 pixels tall compared to Valy's 4 pixels... that's the downside in pixel art, the tiny amount of dots you can work with. ^^; Hmm, though I guess I could still give it a try... =)
Oh, and yeah, there's still few expressions missing, like wink, wave, and stuff (for the yellow ones), kind of lacking in motivation with the lack of users wanting me to do more (with lack, I mean like 0 or so XD)

@BlueBlur97: Aww, thank you! =D You really think so? =) But that probably won't happen, I mean, by now I'm sure the users are used to the current smilies for one, and for two I'm only a user here so I won't have much to say there probably... ^^; Though if enough users were convinced about having these, then maybe that could be achieved, but I kind of doubt it (am bit negative sometimes, sorry >_<)


Hmm, to be honest, I'd love to try making some more expressions and at one point wanted to have more Nintendo characters as smilies, but like mentioned, am missing motivation to do so.
It's kind of like "What's the point when no one's going to use these anyways?"

[Virt]

The shading is kind of stark and makes it hard to tell what emotions the smilies have by just looking at them initially. The smilies we have on here are bigger with less shading in the face area, allowing you to see what expressions they have. I'd suggest toning down the contrast on the shading (specifically for the yellow generic smilies).

[M.E.R.255]

@Virt: Yeah, I kind of agree on that... It's much harder to tell the expression on this  compared to this   , though I do like that 3D-ish look mine have. ^^ Guess it has to do with opinions. ^^; Like I'm a bit afraid that making the shading brighter and stuff that it will lose the "3D-ish look" I was trying to achieve. I'm sure it can look much better with more colors, though I also tryyyyy to keep the color amount to around 64, since it does seem bit smaller in file size and makes it where 2 smilies can interact with another without losing much/any quality in one Gif. =)

But yeah, I do see your point and am glad you pointed that out for me. ^^
I did notice that problem when trying to do that one request for a user... his OC has the face a bit lower, being more in the shadows of the smilies, thus making the mouth and such really hard to see.  

Also noticed mine are pretty small in comparison to this site's emoticons, though that was kind of on purpose on my part since the last ones I used were too big...
I made these in Pixel Art (took weeks-months >_<) over a year ago, but thought they were too big and resembled my friend Bouncing Beauty too much. ^^; Was fine for private conversations, and I loved how happy these made her, but when it comes with other users, you can't just have smilies representing a person's OC or a game character when others may not like it. ^^;
         
Cute, but not fitting to something like a Nintendo forum (on my end), right? ^^; Though it's much easier to tell what expression the smiley has than on this -> 
(sigh... I made those in much more motivating times )


Hmm, but besides all that... if I were to do a few versions of the yellow smiley (different contrast, lighting) and posted it in here, could you perhaps give them a look and tell me if one of them looks better? =D
PS: I almost called you Virty! *sweat* My best friend's nickname sounds so similar to your's! =O