Graphics: The BW High Resolution Sprite Project / Gallery (Kanto)

Hi SassySnivy,

I looked at your HD sprites gallery as well as your tutorial. Nice work. 😍
The only avenue for improvement that I will give you is to see if you can give more texture to your sprites, notably on the shadow transitions (with dithering for example). I even see you made some high res sprites in Gen 1 and Gen 2 style.

I had done an HD Arcanine last year

This is one of the few that I have done. (There is also his unofficial Mega for my fangame which was done on a 192x192 basis).

And yes: you DEFINITELY may use these! In fact, I would love it if you do. You can use them for anything, be it sprite edits, to put on a website, personal use, in a fan game, whatever! All I ask for is a little credit.

Click to expand...

Thanks you very much for your sharing.
I don't know if there are all the sprites (your gallery has almost 1000), but it's nice to see such sharing.
I would love to see this on an "HD" version of Pokémon Essentials.

Amras Anárion said:

Hi SassySnivy,

I looked at your HD sprites gallery as well as your tutorial. Nice work. 😍
The only avenue for improvement that I will give you is to see if you can give more texture to your sprites, notably on the shadow transitions (with dithering for example). I even see you made some high res sprites in Gen 1 and Gen 2 style.

I had done an HD Arcanine last year

This is one of the few that I have done. (There is also his unofficial Mega for my fangame which was done on a 192x192 basis).


Thanks you very much for your sharing.
I don't know if there are all the sprites (your gallery has almost 1000), but it's nice to see such sharing.
I would love to see this on an "HD" version of Pokémon Essentials.

Click to expand...

Thanks, I appreciate the feedback! Unfortunately though I mostly just follow the original shading of the original sprite to keep the style and overall look intact. Plus I use dithering in the sprites when it's called for or already used. Dithering is something you should use sparingly anyway, since it can make pixel art look very rough if done in excess. Also, BW's shading style uses dithering very sparingly and goes for a pretty minimalistic Shading style--as opposed to Gen 4--so it was easier for them to animate the sprites more efficiently. If you wanna see lots of dithering, there's definitely a lot of that in my gen 2 hi-res ones! c;

Oh pffth sorry I forgot to respond to the rest of this LOL, it's been a strange day

That Arcanine is a great start! The fur feels a little unpolished though, as there's a lot of wobbly lines. To be fair though fur is a pain LOL
Sorry I can't go into more detail or articulate my point better, I'm a very "show don't tell" person so putting these things into words isn't my forté ; v ;

I think the actual number is close to 500; I really have no idea why DA says I'm at almost 1000 when I haven't even submitted that many deviations. I blame Eclipse xD And omg yeah ofc! I mean as long as people don't rely on me to finish it 100% of the way LOL, I love seeing my work get used! My art is all stuff I enjoy making, but still things I secretly hope someone will be able to make use of someday! :D

I can understand this desire to texture in a minimalist way if the animation of these sprites was planned. (But the Lugia of your tutorial is exceptional, because I see that you even manually put anti-aliasing) This requires transcribing all the transition zones in the animation. Particularly in case of rotation where a checkerboard of pixels (dithering zone) can turn into random lines. In short, the texture has a good probability of being altered.

About the fur texture, it is indeed complicated since it generates shadows in the form of lines. Ideally, the light transitions should be more zigzags than a regular line if the coat is frizzy. This is what I wanted to transcribe on the yellow fur of the Arcanine, while the orange fur remains smooth.

I blame Eclipse too: drop of two-thirds of my audience on Deviantart.

Amras Anárion said:

I can understand this desire to texture in a minimalist way if the animation of these sprites was planned. (But the Lugia of your tutorial is exceptional, because I see that you even manually put anti-aliasing) This requires transcribing all the transition zones in the animation. Particularly in case of rotation where a checkerboard of pixels (dithering zone) can turn into random lines. In short, the texture has a good probability of being altered.

About the fur texture, it is indeed complicated since it generates shadows in the form of lines. Ideally, the light transitions should be more zigzags than a regular line if the coat is frizzy. This is what I wanted to transcribe on the yellow fur of the Arcanine, while the orange fur remains smooth.

I blame Eclipse too: drop of two-thirds of my audience on Deviantart.

Click to expand...

Oooh, I think I see what you're saying, and that's a really good observation! With Lugia it happened mainly because, firstly: it's gigantic. XD secondly, one of my biggest goals is to make the sprites look smooth, but also really crisp.
Huh, interesting. I guess it would make sense if someone who animated these would want to use the same animation method as BW, but honestly I think with the higher resolution, doing that would end up looking pretty off. Whenever I was making the animated Snivy, Oshawott, and Servine Hi-Res sprites, I just redrew all the key frames and added transition frames and animate them by hand in order to make them look smooth. I make these for other people but at the end of the day, I think I just end up making them in regards to how I would handle things if I had to, say, animate them, but I think that's a pretty normal bias for artists.

I guess where our approaches differ, for the most part, is this: I think you're approaching this from a much more technical position, while I've been making these with a much more artistic vision in mind. Not saying either approach is wrong (not at all!), but that since our approaches to it so fundamentally different then we might have to call an agree to disagree thing here, hahah. This, honestly, might be one reason why I just kinda wanted to move this project to the art boards but I'm too lazy to just ask someone akdnxkjdjjc

I can understand that with our favorite Legendary, we offer him all the little care.
For example, a Phoenix Rising fan had sprite their Mega Ho-Oh: 25 colors. The fanartist was very inspired.

You should not be afraid of technical constraints or indications. You yourself of the first post (under spoiler), you listed a whole list of rules to follow to enter the project (aka: "Oh man, sounds a little intimidating!") but you made it clear that you shouldn't be afraid. 😄

• It's not animated? No problem. An HD sprite is well worth a non-animated standard resolution sprite. It can very well be done later. It makes sense that the priority is already to have all the sprited Pokémon.
• I plan to use a 256 pixel canvas to anticipate Mega forms? The 200% ratio to Gen 5 is unchanged, it's just a quick work of resizing the canvas. The sprite itself remains intact (no work on it).
• A sprite does not satisfy the QC? This work can still serve as a basis for an improved version.
In the end, I join you on this point: drawing should remain a pleasure. It is a non-profit domain, there is no time constraint. But common passion and dedication makes it possible to achieve great things like your PokeCommunity High Resolution Sprite Project. ☺️