[Showcase] Watch me learn spriting via trial and error

I'm gonna preface this by saying that I have never sprited seriously in the past and have just started doing so literally a few days ago with the help of YouTube tutorials and other tutorials, like ones found on this website. So, you guys will have the luxury of watching me learn how to sprite from the ground up and likely failing hilariously several times while doing so. Please note that this isn't a resource thread (read: donut steeeeel), although I don't know why anyone would want to use work from someone who has no experience with spriting.

The spriting style I am trying to learn is 64x64 spriting heavily based on the Gen 3 style. I am probably in the minority here, but I actually prefer the Gen 3 sprites to the Gen 4 and 5 sprites. I appreciate the organic look of the Gen 3 sprites and I think that the Gen 4 sprites look somewhat two-dimensional by comparison. But that's just me, and like I said before, I know very little about spriting and art in general.

Since I decided that I wanted to learn how to sprite on July 11, 2018, I have tentatively completed a total of 8 sprites for 7 different Pokemon. All of these were either revamps of Gen 2 sprites using FRLG/RSE palettes or pixel-overs of official Sugimori art.

I have still never made significant progress on a single scratch sprite; I am hoping that I can create a few viable scratch sprites once I learn enough about outlining and shading via revamps and sprite-overs.

And with that, here are all of the sprites I've worked on so far in chronological order:

#1 and #2 - ANIMON - GS PROTOTYPE REVAMP (REGULAR AND SHINY) - JUL. 11, 2018


I used the FRLG Ditto palette to create these.

#3 - DRAGONITE - SILVER REVAMP - JUL. 12, 2018


I heavily relied on the RSE Dragonite palette to create this. Some of the outlining and shading is a bit weird; I'm bad with odd poses like this one.

#4 - ELECTRODE - SILVER REVAMP - JULY 14, 2018


This one was actually easy for me to grasp since Electrode has a really simple design.

#5 - CLEFABLE - SUGIMORI PIXEL OVER - JULY 14, 2018


It actually doesn't look much like the official Sugimori art and the outlining could be a bit better, but I think I could have done worse.

#6 - QWILFISH EVOLUTION GS PROTOTYPE REVAMP - JULY 14, 2018


The official sprites from the 1997 GS Demo were kinda odd-looking, so I didn't really know how to color this, particularly the lips, so I just used Qwilfish's colors as a vantage point.

#7 - LAPRAS CRYSTAL SPRITE REVAMP - JULY 16, 2018


I'm pretty happy with how this one turned out.

#8 - TAUROS - SUGIMORI PIXEL OVER - JULY 16, 2018


I resized down a little too much with this one, I'm afraid. And yes, I did take the tails straight from the FRLG sprite after destroying the original ones.

Thanks for reading/watching and please offer help, especially with shading and outlining.

Dude that's better than anything I can do!

SlowbroMusicyo said:

Dude that's better than anything I can do!

Click to expand...

Thank you; I try to reap as many small victories as I can when I'm learning to sprite, since expecting really good results from the very beginning is a bad habit of mine, and it causes me to get discouraged.

Here is one new sprite with two retouches of ones I've already posted:


After I initially created this sprite (I think it was my second revamp ever), I realized that something was horribly wrong with it, but I couldn't exactly figure out exactly what was wrong due to my inexperience with spriting. I now realize that it was pretty poorly shaded, and I've fixed the shading a bit as a result. These are both updated versions of the sprite in the OP, but with a few outlining differences between them.


This is still very much a WIP, but I feel as if it's competent enough to the point where it warrants being posted. The Space World Pokemon are aggravating to deal with since they don't use real Gen 2 shading due to the games still being for the original Gameboy -- they use the same shading as the Gen 1 RGBY sprites.


Someone was nice enough to let me know that the shell on the original sprite needed less dithering and more actual shading, so I applied some more shading to the shell. Everything else is unchanged from the original post.

Really like the bellsprout!

Thank you; the Bellsprout alternate evo was really annoying to make, but I think it could have turned out worse.





Here are my first scratch sprites ever. I would say that each of them are roughly 50 percent done. The Wynaut alternate evolution needs its outlining fixed (around the shadow part) and the Parasect evolution needs an outlining redo, accenting, and some shading fixes. I honestly don't know how to shade, dither, or outline original sprites since I've only done revamps before and I haven't really picked up on any patterns (except for the direction of the light source being the top left).

The scratch sprites look really good so far! One thing I did notice on the first one was the black outline. It's a bit harsh with the coloration of it's actual body, but they look completely great to me! I really love the Wobbufett evolution! Is it supposed to be a punching bag? it is so cute.

Thank you; it's always reassuring to hear that I am making progress.

The Wobbuffet split evo is, indeed, supposed to be a Psychic/Fighting punching bag. Its name is Wythowe ("why though"), continuing the dialogue with Wynaut and Wobbuffet (Japanese name translates to something like, "that's the way it is").

I have also worked on reoutlining and shading the Parasect evolution; stay tuned for an update on it, as well as a few other revamps that will be up soon.