The VG Resource

Set 1:



This is my first set so dont expect something awesome..

Uhhh....

No. Just... no.

Learn to draw first, then try pixel art.

(01-23-2012, 05:43 PM)Hoeloe Wrote: [ -> ]Uhhh....

No. Just... no.

Learn to draw first, then try pixel art.

i'm glad you took the time and consideration to give constructive criticism and advice without resorting to being a generally unhelpful, unproductive and probably unskilled piece of shit. keep it up!

(01-23-2012, 05:58 PM)Captain Wrote: [ -> ]

(01-23-2012, 05:43 PM)Hoeloe Wrote: [ -> ]Uhhh....

No. Just... no.

Learn to draw first, then try pixel art.

i'm glad you took the time and consideration to give constructive criticism and advice without resorting to being a generally unhelpful, unproductive and probably unskilled piece of shit. keep it up!

That was a beautiful post.

(01-23-2012, 05:58 PM)Captain Wrote: [ -> ]i'm glad you took the time and consideration to give constructive criticism and advice without resorting to being a generally unhelpful, unproductive and probably unskilled piece of shit. keep it up!

But how is this helpful, productive and in any way involves skill?

You could have contributed to the thread too, Shawn.
You do pixel work yourself, and are easily able to be beneficial to OP's work.
Even a terrible negative post is saying "there's something wrong with this sprite," despite it being barely useful.




The majority of your problems come simply from everything.
With shading, you've got a weird light source. It comes from the bottom (see: body of Leevo and Loggo), but also the top (see: leaves of Leevo and Loggo). With Drivigo (what does that mean, exactly? The other 2 are leaf and log, but what is Drivigo?) however, you've got a single light source to his left, which is better. The left leg of Drivigo can have a darker brown, which would show depth, making the leg look rounder.

Your palette is lacking and boring, and you are able to use more than 2 browns, especially since you want a wooden texture. You could easily push 4 shades of brown, 1 of which for making the outline less black.
The leaves have little contrast between the shades of green, which looks bad, and in small spaces (like the leaves), does look gradient-esque.

The designs themselves, are arguably "pokemon-esque." The style may just not fit.

There's also weird issues with them, like the legs on Leevo look awkwardly spaced out, the tail is weirdly stiff and why his mouth goes into his leg would be impossible on a skull.

Loogo would not be able to balance with all his legs leaning in the same position, his tail is a twig, and he has no character at all.

Drivigo's arms, as far as I'm aware, are supposed to be branches, but they look really

dumb.
They're awkward and just look too goofy for an evolution of a serious "fakemon."
The main leaf also confuses me. It starts out huge on Leevo, is then tiny on Loggo and Drivigo ends it with having one in between. It's supposed to follow steps in changing, ie. evolving, which is something these sprites need to do desperately.



Read this, http://www.spriters-resource.com/communi...?tid=13868
and see if you can find little techniques and tricks you don't know about.

I feel that the first and third stages could do with a redrawing, but I will leave that to people better with lineart/anatomy than myself.
The second one has a mostly log-like shape, though, it is primarily the shading that I felt needed work, here is an example of wood shading, it definately isn't spectacular, but it may be something to use as a reference for your own design if you feel like using it.

EDIT: I also quickly redrew the leaf.

EDIT: At the time of writing, the last post was by Gensu. It takes a while to write this much spiel.

Okay then. Here we go. I was a little preoccupied while posting, so I didn't give much detail, but if you want it, here you are:

I'm not going to comment on the designs other than saying they are bland and uninteresting, I'll talk solely about the sprites from this point onwards:

First of all, your poses. You seem to have no concept of shape, support and balance. Even if these are your own designs, you need to have some idea as to how anatomy is built in order to avoid things looking awkward and unbalanced. Your first one doesn't have enough leg to really comment on this, but the other two do. For the second one, the legs are slanted forwards, making it look like it's about to keel over backwards. Pay attention to where the centre of mass of things is, and you may be able to avoid this. For the third one, Not only does it look incredibly bottom heavy, but it's pose is very stiff and awkward, like it's been frozen in carbonite rather than standing. Aside from technical issues, all of your poses are dull and boring (let along in the wrong plane. I'm assuming you're aiming for Pokemon style sprites, and in that case, they should be facing down to the right, not straight forwards or straight to the side).

Secondly, your lineart. I'll be blunt, it's horrible. Your lines are not smooth, and you have a poor understanding of shape, form and consistency. Let's take the first sprite as a case in point. The tail changes width at least 3 times in that short space, and it appears to do so arbitrarily, making it look ugly and awkward. The leaves (or what I assume are leaves) in these sprites do not look anything like leaves. Leaves are not generally circular. If you want to sprite something, I suggest you look at reference images (here, bark and leaves, to get the texture you want).

Thirdly, your colour choices. Dear. God. Are those MS Paint default? No, just no. The saturation is WAY too high, making the colours burn into your eyes. Your contrast is far too low on the leaves, making the shading almost pointless, too (not that it isn't already, I'll get to that in a minute). Again, try looking at real world objects and seeing how light affects them. Take a look at techniques like hue shifting, too. As for the colour on the outlines, again, no. You have no idea how to effectively build an outline. Again using Pokemon sprites as a reference, they use a technique called sel-out, which means actually shading the outline in accordance with how much light is available to it. I suggest you look it up.

Fouthly and finally, your shading. It's dreadful. The purpose of shading is to build volume and add depth to your sprite. Your shading does none of this, and I will explain why. You shade along the edges of objects, completely arbitrarily. This does nothing but make your sprite look ugly and unprofessional. Choose a single light source (for Pokemon, this is usually the top left), and then try to shade as though all light is coming from that direction. Darker colours should be further from that lightsource, and lighter colours closer to it. You can and should also use shading to do a lot of the jobs you've tried to use the outline for. Using a black outline to define fine shapes (such as the veins on the leaves) is a poor decision, because it invariably looks messy. Instead, you can add a little shading to suggest a slight change on the surface of the leaf, which looks a lot neater, cleaner and, in all respects, better. However, remember that lightsource! Your shading has been applied solely because you think you should add shading. Before doing something, think about why you are doing it. If you don't know, find out, first.

Basically, these sprites are beyond saving. There is so much wrong with them. However, this doesn't mean you can't succeed. Like everything, it takes a lot of practice.

P.S. I apologise for the harshness of my previous post. I am pretty knackered right now.

is OP even aware of this thread?

ok heres the new drivigo i mean treeveego i hope this one looks better than the old one




P.S. Thank you Sir Zadaben for coloring loggo

That's barely any better. It still has no real pose, and, while the shading is a little better, it still has no defined lightsource.

EDIT: Even with that edit, it's STILL not any better. I recommend you look at Sudowoodo for reference, since they are basically the same thing.

I feel like you should try something organic rather than a tree. Basic shading knowledge has to come before textures.

Also, does this have any kind of theme besides just being a tree? Pokemon usually have more thought put into them than that. It might help guide your design if you have something to follow. Try getting ideas from other pokemon, and check out what kind of shapes their bodies use.
Keep trying!

its pronounced aqua-cleemex


Aquaclimex is a Water/Bug type pokemon

I suggest you practice drawing some existing Pokemon first. I don't mean just recolouring, I mean drawing from scratch. That way, perhaps you'll get a better understanding of how the sprites are built up, and how they are designed and created, before you start on your own designs.

Here is a new one, i'm not gonna name him yet though...

Where to start, where to start?

it's a worm, alright.

It looks like you're doing a lot of things but you are not really aware what you're doing and why. Here's the obligatory link to our Spriting Dictionary, but let me explain a few things right here.

• Contrast
You're using many green shades, but they all somehow look the same and are hardly distinguishable. This makes having so many colours completely pointless! You should bring more difference to your shades - make the darker greens darker and the brighter greens brighter! Also, you should only use about three greens here, not six (and I didn't even cound the outline colours). To make your greens more different from eachother, you can also make the brighter greens a tiny bit more yellow and the darker ones slightly more blue (-> hue shifting).

• Outline Colouring
The colouring of those outlines appears to be random rather than planned. You have black outline pixels on the highlighted parts and brighter outlines where it's shaded; darker pixels randomly placed amongst brighter ones - that's not how it should be! If you're using coloured outlines (instead of only using a single colour for the whole outline), the brightness should adjust with the fill: Highlighted parts get brihter outlines, shaded parts get darker outlines. Take your lightsource into account!
Which brings us to the next point...

• Shading & Lightsource
When making a sprite, you should decide where the source of light is before you start shading. Most of your worm is shaded with light coming from the top-left, however the brown strand at the back of the head is shaded with light coming from below. Instead, the light should be coming from the top-left, too!
Another issue with the shading is that you're banding a lot. This means that you are following the shape of the outline with a darker colour. This way, your shading only makes the outline look blurry, but it does not show the viewer the volume and depth of the object - which is why shading is applied! Instead of simply tracing the outline, you should try to follow the three-dimensional shape instead!

Furthermore, let me quickly mention that the lineart is rather jaggy and could be smoother. I should probably make an edit to illuttrate some of these points better...
Lastly, we've got the overall shape - it's a worm, yes. But it also is a worm with a big head, while the part on the ground is rather short - the way you posed it makes it look as if it would fall over any second because the big head isn't properly supported by the body. The part going upwards would also have to lean back a bit to properly support the weight.

I know this is lots and lots of things at once, so I'd suggest you to go through them one by one.

I hope this helps somewhat: