I Need a Few Pointers

[Mother Kojiro]

I've mostly finished my sprite sheets for Willow (NES) - I just need to put in my annotations - but since this is going to be my first upload, I'd just like someone to look at this and tell me if it's okay.  One concern I have is that some of the sheets are on the smaller side, and I'd like to know if my signature is a bit too big and overblown.  Another is whether I should put all of the monsters on one sheet or give each their own; it will be enormous in the former scenario, but there will be very small ones in the latter.  Note that the Slime sheet has not yet been annotated.  Any criticism is welcome; I know that I'm a newb!  Thanks!

[OS-PRIME]

If i were you, I'd change the background color. Black is not good like, at all.

[Mother Kojiro]

If i were you, I'd change the background color. Black is not good like, at all.

Would you suggest something high or low contrast in comparison to the game's palette?  I'm also curious as to what I should do with some of the NPCs; they look like they're outlined in black, but they use 3 colors, so it's actually transparent.  They show up against black backgrounds in the game, but if I'd fill in the black with another color, they'd probably look pretty bad; below is a prime example.  I am going to annotate them to say that they are transparent, but now, I'm not sure whether to box them in with black or another color and just let them transparent.  In the Willow one, I'm not sure what to do with the Willow entering a door; it just uses part of the walking animation and alters the palette, so I can't tell if he's fading to black or to transparent.

[DarkGrievous7145]

i would prefer something high-contrast to the sprites you're trying to rip...

another option is transparent backgrounds

[puggsoy]

I think it would be better if you removed the picture from your tag. Not only due to size, but some people may also mistake it for being part of the sheet. That said, it's not especially against the rules or anything, it's mostly just preference, so just do what you think is best.

As for the background, generally a sheet should have a coloured background, something that contrasts well and is unused in the sheet itself is best. Magenta (#FF00FF) is popular, but it can be anything that fits the bill really; redblueyellow often uses #008080, and usually use #00AE00, so it doesn't matter a great deal. Black and white are greatly discouraged, both because they're often used in the sprites themselves, and also just because they aren't very easy on the eyes. Transparent shouldn't be used unless you have anti-aliased or partly-transparent sprites, i.e. they contain pixels that aren't ripped at 100% opacity.

However, in your specific case, you do have a point for using black, at least with the NPCs. Even though the black is technically transparent, the sprites are made to be viewed against a black background. This is actually similar to the in-game battle sprites for Pokemon R/B; the white parts are actually transparent, against a white background. The difference is, Pokemon outlines the sprites in black or grey, so they can be separated from the background (and put against magenta in the sheet), while these sprites cannot since their outline is actually part of the background. You could try and estimate the outline yourself, but I personally think that could compromise the accuracy of the sprites. I think that using black is fine; it's what I did for these sprites, since I also couldn't rip them without the black background.
I'd say the same goes for the Willow sheet; again, if he only ever fades to black in-game, you can't rip it otherwise so that's how it should be sheeted. However, if he doesn't have outlines like NPCs, and you can clearly see what bits are and aren't supposed to be transparent, then maybe you should only give that single animation a black background. That is, just isolate the walking animation with a black background while giving the rest of the sheet a different coloured background.

By the way, just for future reference, it's always best if you don't scale down sheets when asking for help or suggestions, we need to be able to see all the pixels properly to give proper feedback (e.g. I couldn't properly see Willow's sprites). If they're a bit big to embed you can put them in a spoiler or just link to them.

[11th]

By the way, just for future reference, it's always best if you don't scale down sheets when asking for help or suggestions, we need to be able to see all the pixels properly to give proper feedback (e.g. I couldn't properly see Willow's sprites). If they're a bit big to embed you can put them in a spoiler or just link to them.

Sorry to step in and go a little off topic for a second, but just a quick note: They didn't resize the sheet, but Photobucket did. Thankfully, this can be fixed by adding "~original" to the end of the image URL. (ex. Full size of the Willow sheet from the OP.)

I'm not sure if there are any additional limits on original sizes, but I've tested it before and it seems to handle up to at least 4000x6000 fine.

[puggsoy]

Ah, my mistake. Photobucket generally isn't used here because of this, things like Imgur and Dropbox are usually better. In that case, when using Photobucket just make sure that you embed the full size version

[Mother Kojiro]

Thanks, everyone! Sorry for the late reply; life decided to hit pretty hard last month, but I've just uploaded some of them today. This has all been very helpful.