Alright Mandew, show us what you got!

[Mandew]

As you might or might not know, I'm a custom spriter. I sprite in entirely new styles, entirely from scratch! But I'm always seeking to improve, and I thought "this might be the place!".

So uh. Yeah!

Gonna list some styles and some sheets for you to look at.

Important: These sprites are NOT for use unless permission is sought and granted. Most of these are my own characters! Some of these are characters of people I know from other communities (and they will be marked when it is the case)! If you want my sprites, you should ask me to make new ones from scratch! Just send me a PM is it is the case. The point of these sprites is so I can get feedback and criticism, so there!

Note: Most of these will be sidescroller sprites, but I can also make 3/4 top-down sprites, so don't hesitate to ask.

Old Style: Curious Customs 2.0

Spoiler

Mandew (my character)
Waddlebob (Waddlebob's character; based off a Bob-omb)
Another of my characters, this one named Alex
MasterGodzilla (character of MasterGodzilla, this character is based off a crossover between Master Chief and Godzilla)

Current Style: NEW (weird name for a style...)

Spoiler

Mandew
- Basic Set
- Panic Set
Riley (my character)
- Basic Set
-Jumper Set
Nancy (my other character)
- Basic Set
- Dash Set
Generic M (a template character)
- Basic Set
Jenso (character of Jenso Man, which originally was a Mario recolor)
- Basic Set

Tell me what you think!

 

[Jason]

These look pretty good style wise (Although some of them look a little too.. squared), but you seem to be using way too many colours and not enough contrast in them.

 

[mawk]

Your shading, colour use, and form have improved really drastically from your first drafts. A game done in this colourful, low-contrast style could be very appealing.

The walk cycle on Mandew's sprite seems a little odd, though, just because in the second-to-last frame it looks like you're switching the left and right feet in terms of shading. I would assume that the right foot, being the closest to the camera (and light source) would remain highlighted even when it's at its furthest-back position.

 

[Venetia]

The newer set is LEAGUES better than the older set. However as a person with shitty vision, I can honestly say that a lot of the details on the sprites inside the outlines are really hard to make out. I had to squint and lean in to the monitor to make them out. It might be a good idea to make the hard, black outlines a little more of a brown or indigo instead, and add a LITTLE more contrast to the rest, so the outlines don't stand out quite so harshly against the rest of the sprite, and so the details are easier to discern. I remember this being a problem with the DS games of those Mario RPGs (where I assume you got the idea), and your sprites are even lower contrast than theirs.

Also one thing I should note is that it's always easy for people to make skin that is beige, but without the presence of red in the darker shades, the characters look like lifeless androids or something.
A good sprite of a living human/humanoid is to blend from beige -> ruddy, from light -> dark, instead of blending beige -> dark beige.

 

[Mandew]

Hey, thanks for the advice! I tried correcting the palette and I must say, it might be looking a lot better than before. I played with the saturation quite a bit, and decided to have it maxed for the highlight shades.

Anyways, enough rambling, here have a comparison.


(Left: Old Palette - Right: New Palette)

And some sheets with the new palette for good measure.

Spoiler

To be perfectly honest, I never had as useful feedback as you guys just gave me. You guys are great!

 

[Venetia]

Yes that looks quite a bit better, and much easier for my eyes to make out.

 

[Mandew]

I've been off for a few days working on tilesets and backgrounds.

There are example of things that can be done with the tileset. The three examples use a different palette, but the same tileset nonetheless. It's a foresty kind of tileset.

For the third image, I took the background of the second image and gave it another palette too. These canopies are totally clouds now!

What's that? Why are these cherry blossoms flying in the sky? I don't know, it's just a silly idea.

The actual background backgrounds are simple drawings instead of actual spriting effort in order to economize time but still look purdy. I added a blur effect to them so it would look out of the focus.

The tileset is also the first time I sprite anything outside of MS Paint, due to reasons of wanting to control the palette effectively. There are 64 8x8 tiles in the tileset, but they are assembled into currently 49 24x24 tiles.