CAP 4 CAP 4 - Sprite Submissions

[Elevator Music]

I have to say Doug, you get the hands down really well.

I can never get it as good as you do. Mine always look like they're at just the wrong angle.

No more updates for me. I don't get enough commentary to improve. Yes, that's whiny to say, but I'm not as good a spriter as Wyverii or Doug or Cyzir. I need the help to improve. ._.

 

[CyzirVisheen]

;_;
Don't give up yet, E-M! Personally, I would give you advice, but frankly I'm horrible at that. That, and this is only the second scratched sprite I've done (First was Syclant), so I'm pretty much guesstimating.

@D-D
Wait, THEY'RE DIFFERENT COLORS!? I used the eye drop tool to take the colors off of Cartoons!' pic, and they didn't appear to be different. Perhaps that was just me. Oh well. Thanks for the touch-up job D-D, here's the latest version, hopefully the last.

Newest

compared to

and to

EDIT: Okay lightened it a bit. Should I make it even lighter, though?
EDIT2: Test Shiny One!

Ugh, gotta test some more...
EDIT3: Test Shiny Two!

The SO I HERD U LIEK MUDKIPZ version!
...
Retesting...

 

[Hazmat]

Spriters should consider how pokemon does their sprite lighting. It is a pretty rough style. Pseudo-dithertown.

 

[IceBug]

I would really like some suggestions for my sprite. Specifics would be nice, because I really want to fix it up to be a legit entry. In addition, if anybody with spriting experiece has Photoshop to do some touch ups, they are free to do so (Paint isn't a great meduim...)

 

[the_artic_one]

Made a few changes, made the head slightly smaller and moved the hands around a bit. I also changed the eyes again.

Does it still look too cluttered? I prefer to fix those sorts of issues before I shade.

 

[IceBug]

Darkened up the color scheme a bit, retextured the hands, and gave him a different expression. Any better? Please...

 

[X_Presumptuous]

I know you said this is your final version for your front sprite but I urge you to reconsider the middle of the hand you recently edited.

The fingers look very three-dimensional, yes, but now the middle of the hands/top of the palms/the dark shaded area looks very 2D. Its pointer finger is very skinny at the shaded part, and needs to be thickened by several pixels to look smoother.

The same needs to be done to the pinky, but it's difficult for me to explain where and how. It's somewhere near the joint at which it bends, that's the most specific I'm afraid I can get.

Good luck with the back sprite, hope you don't rip your brains out.

Darkened up the color scheme a bit, retextured the hands, and gave him a different expression. Any better? Please...

A big problem apparent in your sprite is the pose. It's very imposing, not quite the flavour of DLL at all. I would suggest sketching out some poses first and picking the one that looks the most right to you.

Also, never never ever NEVER ever NEVER EVER NEVER NEVERRRR save a sprite as a .jpg file, it copletely ruins the colours and makes everything look smudgy. Save it as a .png if you continue with another attempt.

 

[Cartoons!]

DJD's sprite currently has the most realistic and convincing hands, but I'm concerned if perhaps they're a little TOO convincing.

There have been a few comments in the art threads over what differentiates a Pokemon from a Digimon. Conceptually, maybe not as much, but comparing them physically, I think it's a little clearer. Agumon has a clearly defined T-Rex shaped skull, with all the appropriate bumps and ridges, and a realistic musculature applied to his body. Charmander is a series of simple, tapered cylinders stuck together. It's even more striking if you compare Greymon's biology to Charizard, who's body is essentially an egg.

Looking at how Dusknoir and Hariyama's large hands were done as sprites, the fingers are essentially fishsticks, and the flat of the hands; a single shade with only a slight highlight on the fingertips.

There are a lot of really great looking sprites in this thread, but I feel Wyverii's is still closest to the Pokemon style we're trying to emulate. It's less her choice of colors than the simplicity and clarity of her shapes that make it.

edit: btw, Elevator Music, I hope it's not tactless of me to say, but I rather like your sprite too. I must say you've improved on my original composition a lot. You clustered the three poison balls in the top right corner (grouping of similar shapes) and got rid of the unnecessary fluff that really helps frame the body and leads the eye around the design without it getting lost. Good job!

 

[Bluekikatana]

In my continuing obsession with this front sprite, I've made yet another set of changes:

I added a little more saturation to the colors to brighten it up a bit. After seeing it next to the RBY sprite, I realized it looked pretty dull color-wise.

I finally got around to reworking that top front left hand. The old version was really crummy. It was the result of all sorts of hand and elbow repositionings, and was a total mess. I started from scratch and made a complete new hand. I'm really happy with the way it turned out. It's a more aggressive position, like the pokemon is reaching out to grab something. It also looks more three-dimensional than the old one. With the perspective I'm using on this sprite, it's important for all the elements to have depth.

For those of you that are interested, here's the "worksheet" I used in reworking the hand.

It shows the old hand and the new hand, just for comparison purposes. It also shows an aborted attempt to redo the hand. I was thinking of making the fingers look like a "martial arts-ish" hand position. But, after seeing the first outline, I realized it would make the pokemon look like he was trying to hail a cab. I wisely stopped and went a different direction.

With this update, I'm feeling pretty good about the front sprites, and I'm not likely to make any major changes from here. However, feedback is still welcome.

Next up, back sprites. Ugh....

Very nice sprites. The pose is almost perfect. My only problem with them which is pretty major for me, would be the shiny coloration. They both look too mechanical. I'd like to see the shiny one look more organic, and insect like in colors (maybe a bit of green).

 

[Lusantian]

For my own reference as much as anyone else's:

#1

#2

#3

Colorings of EM's sprites

#1

#2

Alternate shiny colors:

All sprites are the last posted. I think I like EM's the best, but it's hard to choose.

[edit] added missing sprites
[edit2] added Icebug's female/shiny sprites
[edit3] sprite updates from DJD and NP
[edit4] added DJD's revamped sprite
[edit5] added NP's 3rd sprite
[edit6] updates from NP, DJD, CV
[edit7] updates from TAO/CV, new sprites from Zant/Mukkor/DJD
[edit8] new shiny colors from DJD
[edit9] update from TAO

 

[Sunday]

Thanks Lusantian, that's actually a big help even if the poll's not for a while yet.

 

[Nasty Pass]

Lusantian, you seem to have forgotten these, and the back sprite t Mr. Big Head there:

(still have EM's permission) My version of EM's poses. Will edit shinies in soon.

EDIT:

Lesson relearned: sprites with dithering are a bitch to recolor. :[

(also Sunday I'm still in the dark as to whether I can enter these with EM's permission D:)

 

[Sunday]

With EM's permission, yes. But I don't want two copies of the same sprite in there, so collaberate with him to ensure that isn't the case.

 

[Genesis of Oblivion]

Nasty Pass that is my favourite so far-other than atyroshi and DJD's sprites of course.

 

[Majesano]

oh my goodness so many beautiful artworks T-T
my favorites, in no particular order are:
DougJustDoug
Elevator Music
Zantimoniou
CyzirVisheen
Wyverii
and a Flygon 's as well.

Keep up the great work guys =D

 

[tennisace]

Nasty Pass that is my favourite so far-other than atyroshi and DJD's sprites of course.

I have a problem with Nasty Pass submitting that. He didn't make it, he just re-shaded and recolored that. Almost anyone could do that. Thats like taking a painting and making a few new strokes here and there, then calling it your own. Sunday touched upon this issue very briefly, but it's really important. They look exactly the same. I don't think Sunday should allow this in.

 

[Elevator Music]

Well, part of the reason that they look a lot alike is because I used his shading to help me reshade mine. That makes a huge difference. Otherwise, they wouldn't look half as similar.

And I would disagree with your analogy slightly. It would be like taking the canvas with the pencil marks on it that had the outlines down and coloring it the way you would.

I gave him my permission to use them, but it's up to Sunday if they are allowed in the poll. I coun't care either way.


EDIT- Though I am curious as to why Genesis likes NP's version but doesn't really mention mine, considering they are so alike.

 

[Lusantian]

I wasn't sure if Nasty Pass's recoloring were legal submissions or not, so I left them out... I suppose I'll just add them under his section.

 

[IceBug]

A big problem apparent in your sprite is the pose. It's very imposing, not quite the flavour of DLL at all. I would suggest sketching out some poses first and picking the one that looks the most right to you.

Also, never never ever NEVER ever NEVER EVER NEVER NEVERRRR save a sprite as a .jpg file, it copletely ruins the colours and makes everything look smudgy. Save it as a .png if you continue with another attempt.

Thank you for your comments. I now have 1 for the pose, and 1 against, and Diamond Dust who just blatently said it sucked. If I get a few more comments on the sprite favoring a different pose, I might do it. I was actually trying for a different pose, one with more of a "standing right under it" feel. Also, thanks for answering my .jpg question, though after saving it as a .png, it seemed to slash up the right eye a bit. Guess I'll work on it more.

I think I'm going to do shiny coloring and female sprites for this, just in case I run out of time on an entry with a different pose...

 

[IceBug]

Male/female and shiny update.

 

[DougJustDoug]

I know I said I wasn't going to change the front sprites, but the feedback from Cartoons and X-Presumptuous made a lot of sense. So, I revised the front sprites yet again (version 9, ugh...):

After hearing the feedback, I went back to Cartoons original design and looked at the hands. I realized that in my quest to make good detailed hands, I made the new hand too human-proportional. In Cartoons design, the hands are very articulated (much more so than most pokemon with hands), but they are still somewhat fat and squishy, like many cartoon character hands. The lower front hands in my sprite have "cartoony" dimensions, but with the recent update to the top front left hand, it lost its "cartoony-ness". On top of that, I was in the middle of revising the top front right hand to look more like the top front left!

Even if I liked the realism of the new hands, they were not consistent with the other hands in the drawing. So, I decided to make the top front hands a little fatter, and I softened up the edges in some of the finger joints. I think the result is very good. Overall, all the hands in the drawing are more consistent internally and are more true to Cartoons' original design.

For those of you that have been following my travails with this sprite, you know that I have focused a lot on the hands. I think that feature is the thing that really sets the design of this pokemon apart from the rest. Hands are the most useful part of the body, therefore lots of hands makes perfect sense for a "pure utility pokemon". So I have invested most of my time trying to make the hands really stand out on this sprite. Here's the progression of the top front hands of this sprite through the many versions I have made:

Some of you may be getting sick of all my progress posts on this sprite. If so, I apologize. I'm posting lots of detail and explanation, since I see a lot of posts in this thread from people that appear to be learning how to sprite. While my sprite may not be the best, it might be helpful for others to see how this sprite develops over time. Besides, this thread is going to be open for quite a while longer -- so what else do we have to talk about, other than sprites in progress?

 

[ParadOxymoron]

DougJustDoug, I think that last change you made finally got the sprite to the point where it can join the ranks of Wyverii and CyzirVisheen as good, professional-looking sprites. Keep up the good work!

(Although I still stand by what I said about different facial expressions between the genders being wonky, and agree with X_Presumptuous that the male should be smiling and that the differences should end at horn size, et cetera.)

 

[darkie]

That finger i mentioned before is still off. :( That's the only thing keeping your sprite from being my favorite.

 

[Nasty Pass]

Okay, so I changed some of the colors on mine, and removed the sludge (he looked poison enough without it) to hopefully make it easier to differentiate mine from EM's.

Also, tennis, I don't intend to call it all my own. EM will still get credit for making the outline and some of the pallet.

 

[DougJustDoug]

That finger i mentioned before is still off. :( That's the only thing keeping your sprite from being my favorite.

Damn! I actually fixed that during the latest revision, but must have dropped the changes somewhere along the way. I've got some misplaced black pixels right there at the connection of the joint of the pinky finger of the front left hand on the ground. It's making the finger look dislocated, whereas it's supposed to look like the pokemon is pressing the fingers into the ground, thus causing its knuckles to raise up a bit. I'll fix those pixels again and post it with my next update, which will hopefully include the first draft of back sprites.

Thanks for the reminder!