Embirch and Flarelm - Part 7 - Sprite Submissions
 

Hello again! Welcome to the Sprite submissions! I've been trying to give artists as much time as possible to sort out designs from the Art Thread. Please take images from that as inspiration for sprites. If anyone wants to do more sprite work for CaP, please head to and read over Wyverii's CaPmon Sprite Revamp Thread

As it so happens, Pyroak has gender differences. This revolves around the slightly longer "tufts" or Mane on the back of Pyroak's head. The shading on their legs are also slightly different, but try not to fixate on that so much. Females are the ones with slightly longer hair and the paler skin tone, whereas the males are darker and have shorter hair.




http://ivnbvn.com/pixels/embirch2.png + http://ivnbvn.com/pixels/flarelm.png

Are the two sprites we have at the moment, there are no back sprites. Please keep the images in the hide tags above when designing your sprites.

Rules for Spriting

• 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.

• Fusions of other sprites are not allowed. All sprites must be scratch sprites.

• Do not alter, fuse, recolour or otherwise modify another spriter's submission – unless the original artist explicitly gives permission.

Failure to follow these guidelines will result in the submission being disqualified and the post will be deleted.

Sprite submissions for the sprite poll will be selected by the Topic Leader, based on preference and feedback in this thread. There is no process for overturning the Topic Leader's decision. If you are not comfortable with this stipulation, then do not make a sprite submission. Do not post any complaints here or in later threads.

Additional information

There are 16 possible sprites:

Front Normal Female (One each for Embirch and Flarelm)
Front Shiny Female (One each for Embirch and Flarelm)
Back Normal Female (One each for Embirch and Flarelm)
Back Shiny Female (One each for Embirch and Flarelm)

Front Normal Male (One each for Embirch and Flarelm)
Front Shiny Male(One each for Embirch and Flarelm)
Back Normal Male(One each for Embirch and Flarelm)
Back Shiny Male(One each for Embirch and Flarelm)

In most cases, spriters submit a Front Normal sprite first. Once feedback comes in and the poll nears, they make the other sprites.

Animations are not required and will not be used as part of the final product; however, it does add to the "appeal" aspect of your submission.

Shinies are just recolors, so that’s not too tough. There's lots of people that can't scratch, that are willing to recolour your shiny, if you really don't want to do it yourself. Just ask in the submission thread and you'll get plenty of offers to help.

Please look at your transparent sprites against different coloured backgrounds, not just white.

(Shamlessly stolen from various other Sprite threads! :P)

Please get spriting! I'll leave this open a little.

EDIT:

Please use the following pictures as inspiration for your designs!

http://i.imgur.com/Ngi3l.png
Embirch

http://f.cl.ly/items/2s3l3M2L3e0T2V2...relm-color.png
Flarelm

http://img641.imageshack.us/img641/8...poraryfile.png
All right, first draft.

Made a few adjustments to Cartoons!'s original sprites; the eyes are the proper color, and I added those wood openings at the tips of the arms. If they look too clunky, I can re-cut them out. Embirch's sprite was easy to make a backsprite for, while Flarelm's was tricky due to the arm pointing out. I'm still not satisfied with it, since the back sprite's one does look small in comparison to the front sprite's.

Edit: I'll be redoing the Flarelm backsprite to make it more accurate and adding the gender difference to that, while leaving the Embirch ones without differences.

For reference, there are ample examples of 3-stage lines having just the last form with gender differences, the final 2 forms having gender differences, or all 3 forms having gender differences.

There is ample justification for any of the 3. Don't feel pressured to do any one of them because you feel it's the most flavorful.

Final Submission
http://img705.imageshack.us/img705/5...oraryfile1.png
Full Embirch sheet.

http://img820.imageshack.us/img820/6...oraryfile3.png

Alternate Flarelm back. Kadew suggested the gender difference with it being the grass skirt, since Cartoons! had that while the other art (and art submissions) are ambiguous or don't have it. I figure this respects both variations.

I have received permission from Cartoons! to edit and add backsprites to his original ones.

Comments:

http://i.imgur.com/s80aH.png

Embirch for now. I'll get to a Flarelm and shinies later. Gender differences are practically nothing in terms of difficulty, so nothing to fear from that!

CBMeadow, for me, your flesh and cannon/tail/feet/chest color choices and your eye style are both just off. Embirch looks like a zombie. The flesh tone just shouldn't be a purply-gray. It has to read primarily brown. The cannon et al color is a little too pale right now, but maybe not. I can't tell with the purple flesh tone confusing my eye. And the massive red eye is very creepy, but again, might read better with a different skin tone.

Just remember, as an EmBIRCH, it takes inspiration from trees. True, birch trees have weird coloring, but Pokemon tend to have consistent color schemes across evolutions when it makes sense, as it does here. It really should look more... alive? Rather than undead.

All that being said, I like the pose and could easily see myself voting for it with color tweaks and maybe a redesign of the eye.





EDIT: The first and last colorings both seem fine to me. Personally, I prefer the last one. Maybe a little darkening of the head leaves, maybe just different shading instead, but that's mostly it on coloring. paintseagull's coloring indeed has purple tones, but it was just reading purple way too much. It's a lot better now.

The eyes are still a little weird, but as I lack any artistic capabilities of my own, I can't really make any specific suggestions other than to suggest you not pose it wide-eyed, as it appears in the art. You are totally allowed to take the liberty of posing it with a furrowed brow or something other than a massive red blob. That should hopefully make the aesthetics a bit easier to tackle.

Ah, I tried the brown thing earlier. It just didn't work at the time. Shading seems to have helped that problem, though. The bark in paintseagull's original art just looks like it has a purple or red tone to me. As for the eye, it bothers me too, but I just can't find out how to fix it.

Some alternate colour schemes:

http://i.imgur.com/R3K9Z.pnghttp://i.imgur.com/sP2G3.pnghttp://i.imgur.com/ddr5A.pnghttp://i.imgur.com/6AhSn.pnghttp://i.imgur.com/VbMo0.png

EDIT reply to the edit: http://i.imgur.com/VbMo0.png is the current, added to the comparison list above. I put more shine and saturated the brown-red a little more.

http://i.imgur.com/6uieq.pnghttp://i.imgur.com/bA98G.png
http://i.imgur.com/CIJTg.pnghttp://i.imgur.com/sBees.png

EDIT clogging the thread with my sprites: see above
I feel Flarelm's isn't up to the same standard as Embirch's, but I really had to be careful with my colour choices here. He has red and a necessity of highlight on that red (eyes), he has skin colour, he has belly colour, he has armour colour, he has green grass colour, AND he has that yellowish cannon/foot colour. As a result a whole bunch of colours are reused and it's not nearly as smooth as the Embirch. The outlines are too light and I cannot darken them or major areas of shading will darken too, because I just don't have enough colours. The most obvious thing is the tail outline- it's the same colour as the cannon/foot base, so darkening that to a more sane colour is impossible.

Feedback or any form of colour reusing/changing tips greatly appreciated. D:

Final Submission:
http://i165.photobucket.com/albums/u...ii/embirch.png

Since the thread's got so little takers, here's an Embirch to throw in the pot.

Fantastic as always, Wyverii. The only comment I can even really make about the frontsprite is that the tail leaf's curvature is kinda funky. It almost looks like the leaf is touching the ground.

For me your backsprite's flesh tone is too dark and the lighter portion on the top of the head is awkward. Unless I'm misunderstanding the shading rules of gen 4 sprites, which I may be, I don't really get why those are issues. The cannon/hands are also a bit strange. It looks a little bit like Embirch has stubby hands coming out from the cannons, which shouldn't be the case. That being said, I love your head shape, your eye, your detail on the grass on both the skirt and head, and just the cleanliness of everything in general.


And CBMeadow, again, as I lack any knowledge of spriting myself, I can't aid you in the actual specifics of anything. But I do know that Flarelm is looking kinda gangly, and it should look a bit more built. The part that stands out most to me as funny-looking is the right leg and right arm. The perspective seems a bit off. It's stretched, which is contributing to the gangliness, I'm sure. The bottom one's coloring is actually quite good imo. But the pose needs work.

CBMeadow, I really like the Flarelm one, very dynamic pose. Might cause issues for some people though over a more neutral pose. Thankyou very much to Wyverii too for posting a sprite! I like the updated ones too Quanyails :)

SRK; We are making Gen 5 Sprites, hence the full body backs. There isn't really a reason to make Gen 4 Sprites any more. All of the prevos will be given Gen 5 Sprites from now on.

Also: I will be wanting to tie this up now as soon as I can :) I'll give you guys and gals another day or two to put sprites up/together and then I am going to call it and put up a poll. Consider this an official 48 hour (plus a few) warning!

Please make sure you make your submissions "Final"!

You misunderstand me. I'm talking about shading rules (though yes I should have said gen 5.) I know the sprites are supposed to be full-body. There is zero reason I can come up with for the top of the head not being shaded, when the rest of the body is, especially when it is soooo shaded that it is basically in shadows.

You guys now have less than 24 hours!

I'll probably send some PM's out tomorrow as it nears time (maybe a bit sooner) to make sure everything is OK to slate!

Final Submission

http://i.imgur.com/pWKr9.png

If I have the time I'll come back and do gender differences, but for now, have sunburnt Embirch and awkward toothpastey Flarelm trying desperately to go from red toned to blue toned without too much of a jump.