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1st of all, you need to work on the hold of the swords. They are simply... too big. Also, don't use pure black on your icons unless it's a small part of the shading.
And on a side note, get an Alundra pic that support the size of your sig.
The only time I used 'pure black' was for the outline, so I don't see how that's a problem. I'll adjust the size of the hold as appropriate next time I make something.
The swords have handles that are way to big (as has already been mentioned), or they have bulky hand guards, or they look round.
Your Bow & Arrow is bad because you made the bow out of lines even though bows are rounded.
It should look more like this (it was made quickly, but it should get the point across): http://i64.photobucket.com/albums/h163/ ... Sample.jpg[/img]
And I would like to know, is the Yellow Cross a Cross, or a Sword? Either way, it needs a bit of shading.
I suggest keeping your handles half the size of your blades, or two pixels thick (diagonally), depending on the size of the blade.
You should avoid using pure black as an outline, unless you're going for a deliberately cartoony style like in Earthbound or Mario & Luigi. It just looks out of place, otherwise. For outlines, use a colour palette and outline your sprites with a colour one shade darker than the adjacent fill colour -- the rules differ on this according to style, but it's a good rule of thumb.
Also, never gradient-shade things unless they're perfect cylinders or something. In this case, you've shaded swords -- objects with flat planes which really only need a couple different shades to get the look they need -- to look like oddly coloured stakes with guards.
Let me just google swords real quick to see how they're shaded.
See how the flat of the blade peaks in the middle and tapers out to either end? This is where you should pay attention to light sources. Most swords are bladed a little like this one -- that is, with a peak in the center that thins out to either side. Now, you'll notice that one half of the blade is darker than the other! This is because the light source is on the other side, and so that half of the blade is cast in shadow. Except for that strange reflection on the right side which I guess is a camera, you should more or less follow the way light acts on this sword -- you'll only really need two shades of colour to begin with, a brighter one for the side that's facing your light source and a darker one for the side that isn't. After you've shaded out the halves, you're free to add reflections or whatever else you like.
Also, watch out how you sprite the hilts on your swords. For one thing, yes, they're too thick -- either those blades are tiny, or you'd need loooong fingers to hold the swords. For another, they're the exact same colour and shape on either end of the guard! Don't tell me that it's bladed on both ends! That'd hurt!
Again, just look at the hilt on the example sword. When spriting a sword, take into consideration how big it is, and make a hilt that more or less fits that scale -- with heavy swords having a longer hilt for two-handed grip. Also, give it a different colour from the bare steel of the blade so that it's easier on the hands -- black or dark brown are pretty standard colours for a hilt's grip, but you can use practically any colour you like if you're making a showier weapon.
Also I suggest against using crazy colours for the metal portion of a sword unless you have a special reason for it. Steel is the most typical weapon for swordmaking, and you'd be hard-pressed to find a metal that much prettier than that which is actually useful for making anything but bullion. Grays can look pretty, and they're good practice for shading, anyway. There's a dozen palette sites under Helpful Resource and Tutorial Links in either Resource Analysis or Tutorials -- they'll give you a quick and easy bunch of shades of mostly any colour you need, and it'll make spriting a lot easier -- the end result will probably be a bit prettier, too.
I think that's everything I could think of. Good luck with your second batch!
My suggestion here would be too look at some of the already made ones to get a refference. Break open the RTP icons and look at those close up, they're not bad for a first try though.
My suggestion here would be too look at some of the already made ones to get a refference. Break open the RTP icons and look at those close up, they're not bad for a first try though.
Oh where to begin. Lets start with the fact that you have the wrong icon for your topic, these are not battlers. Secondly use a tutorial or something because they aren't very good. The bow is like, really cheap 1 minute stuff. And those took you two days? I could make icons way better than that in 1 or less. What I'm getting at is practice, never give up, and take some tutorials.
I love how you made a flamey comment and tried to put possitive spin on it. I'll try and find some useful tutorals but a tutorial on general spriting will help with the basics here...
These are... way bad. Did you use any ref what-so-ever? Lemme make a list of what need to be done, which has probably been said already.
1- No outlines, especially not with black. It's ugly, it's annoying.
Just use a darkened tone of the area on the edge.
2- REFERENCE.
No sword has a handle that thick, and it looks as if the Knife's handle suppourts only 2 fingers.
3- Bow an arrow?
What the hell is it? Stickman doing yoga?
My biggest advice, google a picture and examine it.
Also, make your Icons around 128x128 or so. Not only does this help with detail, the shrunken down partial blur always looks good. Good luck.
As you can see I changed quite a bit.
- Never use the same outline on the whole picture, allways choose on that fits the color.
- Also use shading in your outline.
- Use more shading.
- Try to avoid using custom paint colors.
- Never make the size of the hold as big as the sword, at least not on a common sword.
I know the example isn't perfect but at least it shows more like a sword. Good luck on them!
Is that the maximum size you have to work on an icon? I'm assuming so but I don't use RMXP/VX yet so I dunno.
I agree with Chimmy Rays huge post. Anyway, I'll try to offer some critiques. First, I'd suggest that instead of using these weird color backgrounds, to work in a neutral middle grey. RGB values all of 128. I find it best to check contrasts and stuff with that rather than white, black or other colors.
Speaking of contrasts, I'd make the colors different enough from each other. If you zoom out, you want to still tell that there's more than 1 color. My personal favorite style is Secret of Mana/Seiken Densetsu 3 type of stuff, so you could take a look at their icons so you see how they did their shading. Careful with making colors too saturated!
For the handles, try making the end of it more rounded, so it doesn't look as sharp.
I tried editting these things so you see what I mean.
