The VG Resource

I figured it would be nice if I created a topic where I could receive more opinions in regards to my spritesheets before I actually submit them... so... here we go.

Some of you might have already checked out this topic, where I basically submit my custom (Mario-themed) spritesheets. I'm rather pleased with pretty much all the sheets I have showcased over there... however, I actually received some critiques about one of them - the Sworm spritesheet, to be more precise:



I was wondering if anyone has some suggestions on how to make these sprites look more polished. Thanks, in advance.

I love the animation, but the red needs more contrast. I'm glad you decided to post in sprite discussion before submitting :>

In the second to the last frame, the mouth looks too messy. You probably rotated it, but it could do with cleaning up.

Thanks for the criticism, guys. I have just adjusted the contrast on the red, as well as I have done some cleaning up in the second-to-last frame (though I'm not sure whether some more tweaks on its mouth would be needed or not...).

Here's how the sprites turned out after my tweaks/edits:



Some feedback would be nice.

Just clean up some of the black lines inside the sprite, and you will be fine.

I think I see what you mean - I've just done what you suggested and it is actually looking much better:



Haven't deleted ALL the black lines inside the sprites, though, since it would make the sprites look kind of odd if I deleted everything.

Nevertheless, I really appreciate your help, CeeY - thanks so much for every single suggestion you provided.

looks great, i think it's ready to be submitted.

What happened, why is there gray in his mouth all of a sudden?
Are those motion blurs?

also, you didn't really rotate his head. You inclinated it with that weird MS Paint feature.

Kilgore Trout: Uh... yeah, I attempted to give its mouth some motion blurs. Not sure if it has turned out nice, though... feel free to let me know if it hasn't.

*Gorsal*: Precisely. I don't think MS Paint has one of these nifty rotating features, and every time I try to actually rotate the sprites in any other image-editing program, they come out with more colors than they were supposed to have.

Oh hey Broozer.

The sprites are awesome, I love them, the animations seem smooth, colors are used well, and you kept the design of the original character perfectly intact. I always hated worm-like creatures, since their shape makes it hard to animate.

Also if you need a good program for stuff like rotating (Or spriting in general, I use it for adjusting colors and such), you can try GraphicsGale, you can animate in it (I think its for the premium version though, I forget), rotate stuff, and mess with colors pretty easily.

I think you should take out the motion blur since that kind of motion blur suggests an opening animation, when it is actually a closing animation.
I use GraphicsGale for rotating shit, but you shouldn't rely on it heavily.

Anyway, I think after you fix that certain frame, maybe you could also fix the other blurry frames, namely 5,6, and 7. Just clean them up.

Optional: I think his re-entry into the soil needs more anticipation. You know how when you punch, you pull back your arm first? That's anticipation, and I think the animation will benefit from this.

Great job, overall.

Sonikku: You look familiar...

On topic though, thanks for the suggestion - I have just tried out the program you and Kilgore suggested, and it works like a charm. I so will be using this for my next creations.

Kilgore: Were you referring to the animation frames where starts to make itself into the ground? If so, I just did some cleaning up in them:



As for your suggestion... I think people could easily create some sort of "anticipation" animation for these guys by using the frames where the sprite looks taller before using the actual digging animation frames. I appreciate the suggestion, though.