03-04-2021, 05:34 AM
(03-03-2021, 10:46 PM)DioShiba Wrote: Personally, I think your choices in color are fine, and that's actually a very redeeming quality for your Mario sprites. but you should be shifting your focus on the anatomy of mario. I kind of feel like his legs are really stiff and some of the frames are also inconsistent with this.
I'm under the impression that this is something you don't do often or haven't practiced alot in, and that's fine. But in the long haul if this is something that you would like to improve on then you may need to fix those and look up a few references to help out with that.
That isn't to say these are awful, because as I said the color choices are fine and from the looks of it I think you have a knack for that as far as the positives for them. What would be nice to know is the process in how you're drawing these before going over them to where they are now because that would give me a better idea of what you could be doing better in your approach.
Thank you for your commentary on my work.
To start off with, the colors I use for Mario are taken from his official 3D renders from recent years. This wasn't always the case, though; when I first made these sprites his colors were based around the default colors provided in MS Paint, but sometime in 2018 I overhauled the sprites. You can see the original sprites in the last update.
You are correct in assuming that I don't sprite often. I had taken up spriting in 2017, but wasn't seriously into it as I was focused on other projects. By 2019, I had largely moved away from spriting up until the middle of 2020, when I made a few more sprites. In fact, that's one of the reasons why I began to actually use my TSR account, because I wanted to get back in the swing of things.
Now, as for the process of these sprites... it's strange, since this sprite sheet reflects over 3 years of on and off work (and it shows). Initially, I made many of my original sprites by basically making the finished product as I went, and then going back to touch it up. For more recent sprites, however, I use the shape tool in MS Paint to either form the basis for the sprites or to give and idea of the proportions of the thing I am spriting.
In the case of the recent sprites of Mario, however, I would take the base pose for running, which has Mario's head and torso, and draw outlines of Mario's one of his arms or legs, and then color and shade it. I have used references to create the running sprites, specifically using running sprites from New Super Mario Bros, and I think this decision has a role in the anatomy problems that you described, since Mario's sprites in the game are made from a 3D model converted into a 2D sprite, which causes the sprite to have an uneven appearance. This, I feel, leads to anatomy inconsistency with the running sprites, particularly with the third frame. Here, Mario's left arm is very short, and his legs being a bit too wide.
Looking back on these sprites as a whole, I have noticed other anatomy problems with Mario's sprites, namely that the size of his arms is inconsistent, with his arms being very short in his idle sprites and longer in his carrying and holding sprites.
I hope that my rambling has given you an idea on how these sprites are made, and I hope to receive your reply.