Spriting -- the basics

Started by The Niche, May 19, 2010, 02:32:04 pm

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The Niche

May 19, 2010, 02:32:04 pm Last Edit: May 22, 2010, 11:37:22 am by The Niche
To use an often misused statement, I will be brief. There isn't enough spriters round here. Recently, I became a competent spriter, so I figure that I should share the basis.

Step 1: The battler

Ok, outline it in black. Get a shape, you know?

Then fill it in. Start off by taking a very dark shade of the colour you're using and replacing all the black in the area with it.

Then get a colour a little bit further up the scale and bucket fill the area. This will be your main shade.

Now, outline an area, covering most of the area you're concentrating on. The main shade should only be visible at the edges (in most cases. But you'll have to work it out for yourself, since this is too general a subject for me to talk about shadows in detail (Actually, it's just another reason for you to practice. But don't tell anyone, ok?)).

Get a colour slightly further up the slider and use it to highlight the place. You'll have to decide for yourself where the highlights should be, cos I don't know where your light source is.

Finally, get the extreme of your colour, at the very top of the slider and use it to highlight your highlights. Then, fill in the rest of the battler using the same technique (different colours, obviously.)

Save it as your battler and move on to step 2.

Step 2: Resizing

Should be obvious. Select all of your image and resize it down to the size of your sprite. Then, touch up your sprite, making sure that unless you're working with black, there is no black in the image (trust me, it looks much better.) Save it as your character sprite. Proceed.


Step 3: Copying

Copy the sprite four times to make the down facing sprite. Tweak it a little so that it appears to be moving (there are some sprites where it may be worthwhile to just clone them exactly, but you've got to have fluff for that). The up facing sprite is the same thing with hair where the face is (usually, use your judgement), but you might want to consider doing a battler for the side as well. It's easy enough to create the second reel of side sprites as all you have to do is flip them around (individually. Flipping them all just creates more work for you.)


Notes: As this is a sprite that I'm going to be using, I did tweak the colours slightly, just in case you notice any problems. Also, there's probably going to be a better version of this sprite going in EWIII, since it isn't one of my best.

And that's about it. Pat yourself on the back and get some air  :D
Level me down, I'm trying to become the anti-blizz!
Quote from: winkio on June 15, 2011, 07:30:23 pm
Ah, excellent.  You liked my amusing sideshow, yes?  I'm just a simple fool, my wit entertains the wise, and my wisdom fools the fools.



I'm like the bible, widely hated and beautifully quotable.

Dropbox is this way, not any other way!

Lethal-Yarn

Is there any way you can do step by step picture examples since it sorta sounds confusing to me.

The Niche

 I'll try, but the problem is that we're dealing with an extremely general topic. But spriting is largely about shading and getting the shape right. I'll stick up some pictures of a sprite I'm working on at the minute later on.
Level me down, I'm trying to become the anti-blizz!
Quote from: winkio on June 15, 2011, 07:30:23 pm
Ah, excellent.  You liked my amusing sideshow, yes?  I'm just a simple fool, my wit entertains the wise, and my wisdom fools the fools.



I'm like the bible, widely hated and beautifully quotable.

Dropbox is this way, not any other way!

Fantasist

Nice go on the basics Niche. *levels up*
But, um, don't you mean Characters or Charactersets when you say battlers? Because reading the tute, that's what it sounds like to me.
Do you like ambient/electronic music? Then you should promote a talented artist! Help out here. (I'm serious. Just listen to his work at least!)


The best of freeware reviews: Gizmo's Freeware Reviews




The Niche

No, I mean battlers. It's much easier to do a custom battler and then resize it then it is to do a sprite from scratch.
Level me down, I'm trying to become the anti-blizz!
Quote from: winkio on June 15, 2011, 07:30:23 pm
Ah, excellent.  You liked my amusing sideshow, yes?  I'm just a simple fool, my wit entertains the wise, and my wisdom fools the fools.



I'm like the bible, widely hated and beautifully quotable.

Dropbox is this way, not any other way!

Fantasist

So you mean original character sprites and not RMXP=style? Good!
Well then, I'll restate what Lethal-Yarn said: Get some pictures in that post and it'll be nice :)
Do you like ambient/electronic music? Then you should promote a talented artist! Help out here. (I'm serious. Just listen to his work at least!)


The best of freeware reviews: Gizmo's Freeware Reviews




The Niche

Will do. I need to do out an evolution for cottofly, so I guess this'll be my encouragement :D
Level me down, I'm trying to become the anti-blizz!
Quote from: winkio on June 15, 2011, 07:30:23 pm
Ah, excellent.  You liked my amusing sideshow, yes?  I'm just a simple fool, my wit entertains the wise, and my wisdom fools the fools.



I'm like the bible, widely hated and beautifully quotable.

Dropbox is this way, not any other way!

SBR*

May 21, 2010, 02:48:17 pm #7 Last Edit: May 21, 2010, 02:49:31 pm by SBR*
Hmm, I will try it when I'm home. But yeah, some pictures would be nice :P.

EDIT: Oh yeah, level up!

The Niche

Yeah, working on the pictures now. Just to give you a teaser, it's a sprite of the evolution of serpulus. Named Stratagon.
Level me down, I'm trying to become the anti-blizz!
Quote from: winkio on June 15, 2011, 07:30:23 pm
Ah, excellent.  You liked my amusing sideshow, yes?  I'm just a simple fool, my wit entertains the wise, and my wisdom fools the fools.



I'm like the bible, widely hated and beautifully quotable.

Dropbox is this way, not any other way!