CaP 18 Pre-Evo - Part 7 - Sprite Submissions

[DHR-107]

Sprite submissions are now open for Volkraken's prevo!

Sprite Rules

• Sprites should be inspired by the winning design from the Art Poll. It does not need to be an exact rendition of every detail of the design; "artistic license" is granted to all spriters. However, drastic deviation from the selected art design is discouraged.
• All sprites (front and back) can have a maximum size of 96x96.
• All sprites (front and back) must have a complete, unbroken, distinguishable outline. It does not need to be a black outline, but it must be clearly distinguishable from the adjacent interior colors of the sprite
• No action effects, move effects, environment effects or additional objects can be rendered on or around the pokemon.
• Sprites must be in PNG format.
• Use 8-bit truecolor (aka 8-bit RGB) or less. This does NOT mean 256 color mode.
• Use transparent backgrounds.
• All sprites must be scratch sprites that are completely original works by the spriter. Fusions of other sprites or pixel-overs of other artist's lineart are not allowed.
• Do not alter, fuse, recolor or otherwise modify another spriter's submission unless the original artist explicitly gives permission.
• All sprites (front and back) must use roughly the same size and pose when compared to each other.

Final Submission Post

All spriters must make a final submission post conforming to the sprite rules (listed above) and the following:

• The post must have "Final Submission" (in bold) as the first line, with the sprites at the top, and any additional description or comments (if applicable) below them.
• Final submissions must contain a minimum of 4 sprites - Front Normal, Front Shiny, Back Normal, Back Shiny. If spriters choose to include gender differences (Male and Female versions of each) then 8 sprites must be submitted. Gender differences are NOT required.
• Only submit ONE PNG that contains all the submitted sprites. Please do not submit separate images for every sprite. One "cutsheet" makes it easier for mods to track submissions and ensure each complete set of sprites stay intact.
• Only make one (1) final submission post.

All legal final submissions will be included in the sprite poll.

Advice for Spriters

There are 8 possible sprites:

• Front Normal Male
• Front Normal Female
• Front Shiny Male
• Front Shiny Female
• Back Normal Male
• Back Normal Female
• Back Shiny Male
• Back Shiny Female

In most cases, spriters post a Front Normal sprite first. Once feedback comes in and the poll nears, they make the other sprites. You do not have to make different Male and Female sprites. Typically there are only minute differences between male and female sprites, but some spriters make noticeable changes between genders, which is also fine. Shiny coloring is completely up to the spriter to choose, even if the design artist posted suggested shiny coloring with their art design submission. Please look at your transparent sprites against different colored backgrounds, not just white. In Pokémon Showdown, the sprite will be displayed on multiple background colors in battle.

Please don't post sprite animations in this thread. If you'd like to animate the winning sprite, please contact the CAP moderation team.

This thread will be open until the Dex Entries start to tie up, so in about 3 or 4 days time. I will give a 24 hours warning when the time comes.

CAP 6 Pre-Evo so far:

Main Design:

Spriters are NOT obligated to use any design elements of artwork not represented in the Main Design. The only official reference artwork for this project is the Main Design and all other artwork is provided to be referenced at spriters' discretion.

Typing: Water/Fire
Abilities: Anticipation / Infiltrator / Unnerve
Stats: 60 HP / 30 Atk / 50 Def / 80 SpA / 60 SpD / 70 Spe (BST: 350)
Movepool: CaP 18 Pre-Evo - Part 5 - Move Pool Submissions

 

[Quanyails]

Ah, yet another cute mini-CAP. Well, here's the first draft of CBMeadow's design.

 

[V4LOVER]

Remade my sprite, this time much bigger and with features more profound than before.

I remember CBMeadow mentioning a little fang or two they added to the beak, so I added that in. The "standing" pose I originally intended to be just tentacles laying closer to the player's POV but turned out like this. Does he look too angry? (EDIT: Thanks CBMeadow, good to know :D)

Comments for other sprites (Updated 7/3/14)

Quanyails: Your sprite fits the BW style very well. I like the blues you chose for the lights and eyes. Two things I noticed would be that the ends of the (are they still?) barbels are as fat as at their base, and that the beak looks a lot like a bird beak (see: Spearow) rather than a squid-like one. Other than that, those are creative license issues, so if you disagree it doesn't harm your sprite in any way. Love your backsprite.
CBMeadow: Ah, the sprite of the creator. Its features are tight and close to each other, making it look cute. The light and eye color looks a bit too green. The false face looks like it was painted on, which is good for a scare factor. However, a lot of the features are triangular in nature, specifically the tentacles, the body tip at the top, and the head fins. Other than that, it's looking nice!

Anyone else stepping up to the plate?

Changes and original post

12:05 PM 7/3/14 - Added back sprite + corresponding shiny. Tweaked darkest purple color to be less drastic.
10:43 AM 7/3/14 - Added shiny front sprite using the colors on Volkraken
11:41 PM 7/2/14 - Remade sprite to look much better and be bigger.
7:21 PM 7/2/14 - First post

Original post

Due to Smogon being down and having things to do, I couldn't see which design won early enough to start a proper sprite. Oh well, was hoping Golurk would win. Congrats to CBMeadow.

Just made a quick, 10-20 minute first WIP. I tried to keep it a similar size to Dwebble, which makes it quite small and crowded with detail.

Quite a lot is bothering me about this sprite - maybe it really is the size. I'll fix it later.

 

[CBMeadow]

Here's my attempt at a sprite. I'll do a backsprite tomorrow or after probably

Any critique is very welcomed!

I love the other sprites out and absolutely can't believe I won the art poll. It is an enormous honor ;~;

EDIT: I like the new version of your sprite a lot, V4LOVER! It doesn't look too angry to me, it's an adorable sort of angry :D

 

[HeaLnDeaL]

Wow, I'm really liking all 3 of the submissions so far!

I'd also like to briefly mention that I won't be entering this sprite contest, as I have other spriting endeavors to attend to for one of my side projects (Fuji Labs). I'll still try to pay close attention to this thread, as I am really looking forward to seeing all of your finished products!

Here's some specific comments I have.
Quanyails: I think you've done a great job balancing the size of a prevo with the necessary detail. I feel that the colors on your front sprite might be a tad bit muted; I'm not sure if this is your editing program's doing or if it was intentional. Great job with the frills around the mantle; I can only imagine how hard those would be to make, and I think you made the right decision by having them larger and fewer than shown in the concept art. As always, your art is very well thought-out, even in your first draft submissions.
V4LOVER: Those eyes... great job; they're both cute and unnerving! The pose is interesting, as it looks like the front arms are trying to lift the body up as the other arms drape down on the ground. On the backsprite, I don't think I can see the front arms, and at first this struck me as odd... Given the pose, I'm not actually sure if they would be visible from the back, but it did give me a double take and made me start counting arms. Also, since you're using the same shiny palette as Volkraken, my advice to you would be to make the mid/light tones of the violet markings a bit lighter; having them show up as lighter especially on the tips of the ears might increase visibility a tad.
CBMeadow: Nice pose, and I feel it captures the concept of your winning art quite well without being completely literal to everything. I'll agree with V4LOVER that you have a lot of sharp angles in your sprite, but I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing in your case. Your sprite oddly reminds me a ton of Syclar's sprite (the prevo to Syclant); perhaps it's these very angles that make me think of the two as similar. Good job on your shading, too!

 

[DHR-107]

These sprites are looking pretty good so far! I've just put up the Pokedex Submissions thread. So you guys have at least another 36 hours or so to make up your sprites and submit them! Final Submissions are now open. Please let me know if you need more time, but be aware that I would like to get this all tied up asap! :D

 

[Quanyails]

Final Submission

Volkritter's shiny colors roughly parallel HeaL's choice of shiny colors for Volkraken, in case anyone asks. Beyond that, though, I didn't make too many changes beyond changing #000000 to #0D0B0B.

Edit: Made the purple parts brighter. The colors now aren't as close to Volkraken's shiny colors, but it's an alternative to having the problems the darker purple had.

Comments:

• V4LOVER: Yep, creative license mixed with Pokemon's aversion to thin, tapering lines made the barbels thicker and more blunted. The beak, hmm, I think was from me wanting it to be more prominent than a droopy little thing next to the eyes. The one thing that's bothering me about your sprite (Sorry!) is how angular the 'eyebrows' are. They look like two diagonal lines with a slight curve between them more than those eyebrows being contour to the roundness of the eyes. You intend that 'angriness', right? The furrowed eyebrows, the shadow between the eyes, the curve of the beak resembling a frown... interesting. :) The eyebrows are less confusing, then, even if they are still unusually geometric to me. That issue aside, I like how you really gave Volkritter a sense of shape while still having the sprite be simple enough for Game Freak's style. The real eyes are quite striking with their size and depth!
• CBMeadow: You're submitting a backsprite 'after', I suppose. From what I've seen in IRC, it looks fine. ouob Even though we talked about the colors a lot, could you shift the photophores' colors closer to blue? They look green currently. The false face your design has also looks rather unbalanced, with the left side having a larger 'tooth' than the right. I think that's a shading issue, not a shape issue, though. Finally, the mantle is striking to me as it appears boxy foremost with a drooping 'hat' on top, rather than it being more like a balloon and swelling evenly. I would taper the curve on the mantle at the left black fin.
• HeaLnDeaL: Yep, that's my choice of colors. Apparently, it's consistent more with the Volkraken sprite I made than yours. Would adding an outline to the false face, like what you did for your Volkraken sprite, make the colors pop? That would erase the inconsistency in spriting styles, too, between the two squids, even if I as a spriter have a personal aversion to that.

 

[HeaLnDeaL]

Yep, that's my choice of colors. Apparently, it's consistent more with the Volkraken sprite I made than yours. Would adding an outline to the false face, like what you did for your Volkraken sprite, make the colors pop? That would erase the inconsistency in spriting styles, too, between the two squids, even if I as a spriter have a personal aversion to that.

The outline might help a little bit, but I don't feel it is too necessary. Your base red might be a little bit less intense than V4Lovers, but in hindsight I don't think it's that big of an issue overall. Also, I actually like your prominent beak :) Also, regarding shiny colors, I think you made a fair choice, as the lighter pinkish shade helps the tips of the ears to stand out more. However, the negative is that then the spots on the arms blend in more as well. Overall though, very few shiny palettes take a lighter color and turn it into a clearly darker color, such as Volkraken did with the light blue photophores to the dark purple ones, so I can completely understand not wanting to go that dark in your sprite.

 

[V4LOVER]

Final Submission

Adjusted colors on the shiny to be lighter, bulkier "eyebrows", and a couple other tweaks.

Quanyails: Your main shiny tone suffers from the same problem I'm having, but my concern about it is the false face. It looks like the eyes were reduced to a single pixel because the color matches the body so well.

 

[DHR-107]

CBMeadow

Are you going to final Sub or not? :) If you are I can give another 24 hours, let me know asap.

EDIT: I'll leave this open for 24 more hours

 

[DHR-107]

Closing.