General Pixel Art Discussion Thread

Yes, by using the magnifying glass and clicking 8x, or scrolling up, depending on whether or not your on XP/pre-XP or Vista/post-XP, respectively.

It's easy to edit sprites with Paint, in my opinion. Especially if you're just doing a recolor.

Also, whatever you do, DO NOT save your sprites as jpeg. It ruins the quality.

Merged Pikachewy's thread with the General Pixel Art Discussion thread.

O.o So much tools & suggestions... Thanks evryone!

Yes I found that MS Paint is a good one~ =D

Pikachewy said:

O.o So much tools & suggestions... Thanks evryone!

Yes I found that MS Paint is a good one~ =D

Click to expand...

Just remember, practice practice, and practice some more. And don't be shy in changing your approach to spriting to improve your skills. Experiment, try new things. If you don't, your skills won't develop because you'd be practicing amateur techniques.

Experimentation is how I learned, and comparing my first sprites to my last... I'm even shocked.

I love ms paint for the basic structure of the pokemon,
but I switch to gimp for colouring.

I really suck at shading, and lately I've been adding opaque layers of black to add shading.
does anyone else do that? because I think it's a weird method :/

A few questions and opinions about spriting

Hi guys,

I would have some questions about spriting, hope you can help to answer my curiosities.

1. Do you usually use Microsoft Paint, or do you use other image editing programmes as well, like Adobe Photoshop and GIMP?

2. Usually, what are the ages of spriters and are they usually gamers?

3. Other than Pokemon, what games are common targets for spriters?

4. What do you think is the most popular form of spriting? (Recolors, splicing, scratches etc.)

1) I use Photoshop for anything involving animation but Paint.NET is also fine if don't have PS handy and don't need to animate a sprite.

2) I am 19 and have great interest in fighting gam​es and the 2D art and animation that go into then.

3) Fighting gam​es and oth​er arcade genres such as side-scrolling shooters and brawlers are often targeted, due to being popular during the pinnacle of 2D ga​mes and the golden age of sprites in gener​al. Meanwhile Sonic the Hedgehog sprites are popular for people to make poorly drawn fursonas out of.

4) Recolours and Fusions are the most popular because almost anyone can crank them out regardless of skill level.

Moving thread to the one for questions.

Let's hope nothing screws up.

Logiedan said:

I used to use MS Paint but the recent upgrade of it from Windows 7 drawn me away. Now I just use Photoshop for my pixel art and animations, though I do want more tools or features that support pixel art. ):

Click to expand...

Read this.
I uploaded a file on Deviantart with MS paint 6.0...
It's what I use, because I also have windows 7.
This is the windows XP version. Pm me if you want the link :D

Kalala said:

Read this.
I uploaded a file on Deviantart with MS paint 6.0...
It's what I use, because I also have windows 7.
This is the windows XP version. Pm me if you want the link :D

Click to expand...

I'm too use to Photoshop now, also that it supports transparency. But thanks for the invitation. XD

(More of this madness. Tell me off if I'm breaking the rules, ok?)

Pocket Spriter #9: Sunday Sprites and Monday Mornings

Who's that in the sky? Is it a Pidgey? Is it a Drifloon? Is it an egg-salad sandwich? No, it's Medical Meccanica and Involuntary Twitch (me) with Pocket Spriter, v9.0!

Starting at 6pm Eastern Standard Time on Sunday, May 1st (tomorrow) and ending whenever people feel like going to bed, we will be making sprites, discussing fakemon, and all sorts of the fun things we usually do.

Times and panels are subject to change.

Hosted by Twitch:

6:00 - 7:00 Antidote Tips: We look into making everyone's favorite status users (barring Grass), Poison-types!
7:00 - 8:00 Rox in the Box: How do you convincingly make an inanimate object into a Pokemon? From Magnemite to Vanilluxe, we'll take a peek at inanimate object-mon throughout the generations then make our own!
8:00 - 9:00 Sprite Critique: Everyone's favorite! Grab a sprite you want critique on and Twitch will expertly edit it for you!

Hosted by MM:

9:00 - 10:00 My Neighbor Snorlax: Pop-culture Pokemon? Pokemon based on your favorite characters? You betcha! We look at how to successfully make one in this panel.
10:00 - 11:00 Rivalries: Zangoose vs Seviper! Nidoking and Nidoqueen! Magmortar and Electivire! We take a look at famous "rivalries" in Pokemon and make one.
11:00 - whenever Happy Hour: par-taaaaay

As always the link is http://www.livestream.com/pocketspriter/ Be there!

I got a Question. I've been expanding out of OW sprites and into other areas, like Trainer Sprites, VS Sprites, actual Pokemon. So yeah, to my question. OW Sprites can pretty much be made Pixel by Pixel, while those others, as I see it, can't. You have to make the outline, and that's very hard to, well for me anyway.

What I've been doing as of now is drawing an outline, scanning it in, and then treating it as a pixel over. I also have a tablet and have been thinking about using that instead ... Any idea how well a tablet works in MS Paint (or any other free, similar program)?

That's the process used in most professional sprite production (Including our very own overworked artists at Game Freak!), and how I produce sprites.

MS Paint doesn't have much of the tools necessary to be able to draw well using a tablet. You're better off looking at more feature-filled programs such as Paint.NET and GIMP, which while not expressively designed for graphics tablets feature layering, adjustable brush size/anti-alias and better quality image resizing which will suffice for drawing outlines and basic detail before shrinking the image down.

Has anyone?

Has anyone created a fakedex full of original amalgamons? (originals made from the parts of existing mon's so we all know what i'm talking about) Hah.

I searched but got nothing hah.
And if not what would everyone think if someone were to create one and use it for a hack?
Obviously they'd be beyond recognition of their original parts. The lazy persons path to spriting :P

Plumpyfoof said:

Has anyone created a fakedex full of original amalgamons? (originals made from the parts of existing mon's so we all know what i'm talking about) Hah.

I searched but got nothing hah.
And if not what would everyone think if someone were to create one and use it for a hack?
Obviously they'd be beyond recognition of their original parts. The lazy persons path to spriting :P

Click to expand...

this sounds like it belongs here. merged to this thread.

Amalgamations are a pretty unique way to creating fakemon. The only thing I would like if someone were to create an amalgamon is if they didn't allow a person to recognize which parts they used from official sprites.

Sorry for making useless threads hah.

I was just thinking because I'm fairly decent at taking small parts of official sprites and blending quite a few of them together to make something unrecognisable, I just wanted to know if people would be into that or is it 'cheating'?

Well, I myself sometimes cheat and use original Pokémon sprites for bases for things such as claws and feet which I suck at drawing, but yeah, normally I manage to disguise it pretty well. For all we know, some really convincing fakedexes may be made of amalgamons, but people tend not to admit it as it seems more "professional" if you say it's scratch or whatever.

I'd like to say it's the exact opposite of professional, but there's always artists in one medium or another that can be defined as 'professionals' who try to get away with selling work that has been directly traced and copied from other sources.

ms paint and photoshop does the job