Dragonfree
Teh Spwriter. :3
- 1,290
- Posts
- 20
- Years
- Age 35
- Iceland
- Seen Nov 4, 2023
Note: All the comments here are just what went through my head when I looked at the sprite. For the most part they're overly picky and some of the connections I make are likely to convince you that I belong in a mental hospital. Don't mind that.
The winners were not calculated from any numerical score - I did not go through the comments and count how many things I could pick on in it. I just took the entries that I found in the end to be the best, and put them first, second and third.
*image removed*
The Rapidash-unicorn's horn is way too thick at the base and casts no shadow. The outlines on the mane are monocolored, which is not a good idea - when you start out with fire and want to change it to something that's not fire, just recoloring it won't do. (I might note that monocolor outlines are technically fine, but only if you keep that style consistent in the whole sprite.) The Ponyta-unicorn's outlines are extremely light in some places (shadowed spots, no less) but very dark in others, which gives it a very odd look. The middle color you used looks too green. The Ponyta's shading is also rather awkward - when you turn around the shading on something, you need to redo it from scratch, not redo some parts and just replace the shading with highlighting and highlighting with shading in other parts. The outlines on the ball on the Ponyta's tail are monocolored, too. They could also really have a bit more in the way of a mane, both of them - right now they just seem to have mohawks. Nice touch to use the Tauros tails, though - most people would just have colored it white, edited the fire and horn, and called it a day.
shadowfuse
It looks pretty nice. The shading is a little odd - when I look at it I can't help thinking it's made of plastic. I think this is because it's a little pillow-shaded in a way - the highlights sometimes don't reach quite to the outline while sometimes they do. The shape is hard to make out where it coils around itself - even if I squint, I'm not quite sure exactly how that is going to work out anatomically. o.o Other than that, you have monocolor outlines on some parts and shaded ones on others, making for an inconsistent style, and the outline shape could be a lot smoother in many places - it's a little shaky. Nice, but not perfect.
AssassinX
Okay, I think the image quality screwed this one up a bit. At least that's what I suspect from seeing some of the things that are wrong with it - there is practically no shading on the head crest from the Noctowl, for example, there are random light pixels on the left wing (our right), and a couple of random pixels on the legs. The beak's shading looks reversed and doesn't make much sense. In addition to that, there are extra pixels on the tail that should have been erased (I'm suspecting, without actually looking at the original Tauros sprite, that you've got the remains of the other tails on there too), and the right wing (our left) looks much smaller than the other. In general the shape just looks rather awkward, and the head looks oddly attached. The wings seem much too small for a creature of that size.
AnDrOmAn
All right, that's some pretty darn awkward shading there. Why do you have a highlight under the lower jaw, exactly where it should be shadowed? The head looks detached from the body because of the dark shading on it that suddenly goes missing when you connect to the body. In general it's shaded and highlighted in strange places. The horns/spikes/claws that you added all have monocolored outlines.
UmbreonMaster
It's not too bad, but the form is a little hard to make out. I can see the lion and goat heads, but can't really make anything sensible out of the third. (Some sort of a dragon?) The wings' form looks very strange, but most importantly, it's the same wing twice. That is by far the worst mistake you made in this whole sprite. The wings would be seen from different angles, and thus they'll never look like exact copies of each other. It's very hard to see where Tone wing ends and the other begins, too, just below the thumb claw there... you could have at least made the shading on the back wing prominently darker. The shape is a little shaky and the front legs look kinda rubbery-like in their form. Some of the shading has inconsistent light sources - look at how the left front leg (our right) looks like the light is coming from the left, but the green head/dragon is shaded like the light is coming from the viewer.
Shadow Wolf
I like your choice of colors - you went for a kind of realistic look to the shades, which came out pretty good. Now, let's see... the wings look very oddly attached and ridiculously long considering the actual size of the real wing material. In general it gives me a "That would never fly in a million years" impression... The left wing (our right) is attached too far back, too - I don't think you could keep very good balance with wings attached to your hip. Also, the thumb claws on the wings look odd - why do they have blue highlighting and red shading? o.O The face is kinda strange - I can't tell if the brown line at the bottom is supposed to be a nose, a mouth or something else (a mustache? XD). The shape of the body looks funny, although that might partially just be a stylistic thing.
Silverwing
Very nice! Okay, two problems. Firstly, the dark "line" of shadow on the body near the hind leg looks very weird. It doesn't make sense to me, at the very least. Not as a line like that. Secondly, I don't know why the heck that dragon would have its tail right between its wings - it makes much more sense if it's behind both of them, because right now it's holding its tail very impractically. o-o Looks like a mistake, but I'm sorry if it isn't. And that's just about it, I think. Well, a personal qualm I have is that I think you used too many colors in it, but that's just me. Oh, wait! It looks like you reversed the shading on the top two "fingers" of the wing nearer to us.
Snapple
Okay, the first thing I thought when I saw it was "It's wearing a wig." Sure, the reference picture looks a little like that too, but at least it resembles a mane and it's the second thing I think of. No matter how often I look at your sprite, it won't stop looking like a wig. x-x The claws look extremely strange - they remind me more of it squashing some yellow spiders under its feet. (Eh, I think I'm getting tired. o_O) Maybe make them a bit less "sticking out". The light source seems a little inconsistent - on the body it looks like the light source is kinda coming from very near the viewer, but then on the head the light seems to be coming from high up in the far left. Also, the left (our right) front leg really bothers me. That line is just too diagonal.
MysticaLugia
It looks very good, but ouch, watch your light sources. You've got really bright light in the back (or at least it looks so much like a light source I really can't help thinking of it that way), and it's still shaded like the main light source is somewhere above? Other than that, it's very nicely done. Anatomy-wise, the head shape is a little weird and could be bigger, we seem to be looking at the legs from very strange angles, and the shoulder bothers me somehow. Also, the lower wings look attached at completely different points at its back.
Lil Chikarita
It looks very cute, but lacks detail and resembles an ordinary paint drawing more than pixel art. The shading doesn't make a lot of sense at all, nor does the anatomy. There is no real texture to the fur. Some parts (like the whites of the eyes, the white inside of the middle head's ear and the collar) have no shading at all. You seem to specifically highlight under the chin when it should be the exact opposite.
KougaWolf
Okay... the first thing that stabs me in the eye is the wing. It's upside-down. Yeah, I know the sprite is looking downwards, but turning the wing upside-down makes matters worse and you should definitely not have done it. Now, the pose looks extremely awkward - it looks like it's playing some freaky game of Twister. (Translation: when the right front leg is stretched right, it's not a good idea at all to lift the left leg off the ground, and an even worse one to start extending it leftward after lifting it off the ground, if by some miracle you managed not to have fallen over already.) The left (our right) back leg looks awkward - it's adding a joint that just isn't supposed to be there. The outline added to the wing where you chopped it off looks rushed and unnatural, and in general the wing is not well shaded at all. There is a monocolored line separating the neck from the mane. What exactly is going on at its backside? I'm seeing something brown that looks like feathers, but they don't make a lot of sense there. o.O Overall it's way too monotonous in color - we really don't need the exact same shades of brown on the whole thing.
krow
Okay, the shading on some parts of this looks just fine - the beak, the eyes, the ears - but why is the rest of it pillow-shaded? It looks unrealistic, and in fact I'd say it looks just plain bad. :/ Sorry, but that shading is really not doing it for me. Other than that, you have a major shading problem in the fact that you love to make all the parallel "lines" of one color that lie together the exact same length. The result? The affected areas look divided into many "boxes". Well, that's a bit hard to explain, so I'll give you a visual example. I see all those red boxes when looking at your sprite and don't need a red outline to see it - you shouldn't either.
aocom
Mmm, juicy detail. @_@ You can almost taste the featheryness just from looking at it. The way it's shaded is just godly. Nice creativity in it as well - it's not just a bird on fire. Great flamelike pattern for the fire - not realistic, sure, but it looks awesome. If I were to nitpick, it would mostly be that it has this huge trail of fire after it, but doesn't really get highlighted by it. o.o
The winners:
1st place: aocom
2nd place: Silverwing
3rd place: MysticaLugia
Congratulations to the June winners!
The winners were not calculated from any numerical score - I did not go through the comments and count how many things I could pick on in it. I just took the entries that I found in the end to be the best, and put them first, second and third.
*image removed*
The Rapidash-unicorn's horn is way too thick at the base and casts no shadow. The outlines on the mane are monocolored, which is not a good idea - when you start out with fire and want to change it to something that's not fire, just recoloring it won't do. (I might note that monocolor outlines are technically fine, but only if you keep that style consistent in the whole sprite.) The Ponyta-unicorn's outlines are extremely light in some places (shadowed spots, no less) but very dark in others, which gives it a very odd look. The middle color you used looks too green. The Ponyta's shading is also rather awkward - when you turn around the shading on something, you need to redo it from scratch, not redo some parts and just replace the shading with highlighting and highlighting with shading in other parts. The outlines on the ball on the Ponyta's tail are monocolored, too. They could also really have a bit more in the way of a mane, both of them - right now they just seem to have mohawks. Nice touch to use the Tauros tails, though - most people would just have colored it white, edited the fire and horn, and called it a day.
shadowfuse
It looks pretty nice. The shading is a little odd - when I look at it I can't help thinking it's made of plastic. I think this is because it's a little pillow-shaded in a way - the highlights sometimes don't reach quite to the outline while sometimes they do. The shape is hard to make out where it coils around itself - even if I squint, I'm not quite sure exactly how that is going to work out anatomically. o.o Other than that, you have monocolor outlines on some parts and shaded ones on others, making for an inconsistent style, and the outline shape could be a lot smoother in many places - it's a little shaky. Nice, but not perfect.
AssassinX
Okay, I think the image quality screwed this one up a bit. At least that's what I suspect from seeing some of the things that are wrong with it - there is practically no shading on the head crest from the Noctowl, for example, there are random light pixels on the left wing (our right), and a couple of random pixels on the legs. The beak's shading looks reversed and doesn't make much sense. In addition to that, there are extra pixels on the tail that should have been erased (I'm suspecting, without actually looking at the original Tauros sprite, that you've got the remains of the other tails on there too), and the right wing (our left) looks much smaller than the other. In general the shape just looks rather awkward, and the head looks oddly attached. The wings seem much too small for a creature of that size.
AnDrOmAn
All right, that's some pretty darn awkward shading there. Why do you have a highlight under the lower jaw, exactly where it should be shadowed? The head looks detached from the body because of the dark shading on it that suddenly goes missing when you connect to the body. In general it's shaded and highlighted in strange places. The horns/spikes/claws that you added all have monocolored outlines.
UmbreonMaster
It's not too bad, but the form is a little hard to make out. I can see the lion and goat heads, but can't really make anything sensible out of the third. (Some sort of a dragon?) The wings' form looks very strange, but most importantly, it's the same wing twice. That is by far the worst mistake you made in this whole sprite. The wings would be seen from different angles, and thus they'll never look like exact copies of each other. It's very hard to see where Tone wing ends and the other begins, too, just below the thumb claw there... you could have at least made the shading on the back wing prominently darker. The shape is a little shaky and the front legs look kinda rubbery-like in their form. Some of the shading has inconsistent light sources - look at how the left front leg (our right) looks like the light is coming from the left, but the green head/dragon is shaded like the light is coming from the viewer.
Shadow Wolf
I like your choice of colors - you went for a kind of realistic look to the shades, which came out pretty good. Now, let's see... the wings look very oddly attached and ridiculously long considering the actual size of the real wing material. In general it gives me a "That would never fly in a million years" impression... The left wing (our right) is attached too far back, too - I don't think you could keep very good balance with wings attached to your hip. Also, the thumb claws on the wings look odd - why do they have blue highlighting and red shading? o.O The face is kinda strange - I can't tell if the brown line at the bottom is supposed to be a nose, a mouth or something else (a mustache? XD). The shape of the body looks funny, although that might partially just be a stylistic thing.
Silverwing
Very nice! Okay, two problems. Firstly, the dark "line" of shadow on the body near the hind leg looks very weird. It doesn't make sense to me, at the very least. Not as a line like that. Secondly, I don't know why the heck that dragon would have its tail right between its wings - it makes much more sense if it's behind both of them, because right now it's holding its tail very impractically. o-o Looks like a mistake, but I'm sorry if it isn't. And that's just about it, I think. Well, a personal qualm I have is that I think you used too many colors in it, but that's just me. Oh, wait! It looks like you reversed the shading on the top two "fingers" of the wing nearer to us.
Snapple
Okay, the first thing I thought when I saw it was "It's wearing a wig." Sure, the reference picture looks a little like that too, but at least it resembles a mane and it's the second thing I think of. No matter how often I look at your sprite, it won't stop looking like a wig. x-x The claws look extremely strange - they remind me more of it squashing some yellow spiders under its feet. (Eh, I think I'm getting tired. o_O) Maybe make them a bit less "sticking out". The light source seems a little inconsistent - on the body it looks like the light source is kinda coming from very near the viewer, but then on the head the light seems to be coming from high up in the far left. Also, the left (our right) front leg really bothers me. That line is just too diagonal.
MysticaLugia
It looks very good, but ouch, watch your light sources. You've got really bright light in the back (or at least it looks so much like a light source I really can't help thinking of it that way), and it's still shaded like the main light source is somewhere above? Other than that, it's very nicely done. Anatomy-wise, the head shape is a little weird and could be bigger, we seem to be looking at the legs from very strange angles, and the shoulder bothers me somehow. Also, the lower wings look attached at completely different points at its back.
Lil Chikarita
It looks very cute, but lacks detail and resembles an ordinary paint drawing more than pixel art. The shading doesn't make a lot of sense at all, nor does the anatomy. There is no real texture to the fur. Some parts (like the whites of the eyes, the white inside of the middle head's ear and the collar) have no shading at all. You seem to specifically highlight under the chin when it should be the exact opposite.
KougaWolf
Okay... the first thing that stabs me in the eye is the wing. It's upside-down. Yeah, I know the sprite is looking downwards, but turning the wing upside-down makes matters worse and you should definitely not have done it. Now, the pose looks extremely awkward - it looks like it's playing some freaky game of Twister. (Translation: when the right front leg is stretched right, it's not a good idea at all to lift the left leg off the ground, and an even worse one to start extending it leftward after lifting it off the ground, if by some miracle you managed not to have fallen over already.) The left (our right) back leg looks awkward - it's adding a joint that just isn't supposed to be there. The outline added to the wing where you chopped it off looks rushed and unnatural, and in general the wing is not well shaded at all. There is a monocolored line separating the neck from the mane. What exactly is going on at its backside? I'm seeing something brown that looks like feathers, but they don't make a lot of sense there. o.O Overall it's way too monotonous in color - we really don't need the exact same shades of brown on the whole thing.
krow
Okay, the shading on some parts of this looks just fine - the beak, the eyes, the ears - but why is the rest of it pillow-shaded? It looks unrealistic, and in fact I'd say it looks just plain bad. :/ Sorry, but that shading is really not doing it for me. Other than that, you have a major shading problem in the fact that you love to make all the parallel "lines" of one color that lie together the exact same length. The result? The affected areas look divided into many "boxes". Well, that's a bit hard to explain, so I'll give you a visual example. I see all those red boxes when looking at your sprite and don't need a red outline to see it - you shouldn't either.
aocom
Mmm, juicy detail. @_@ You can almost taste the featheryness just from looking at it. The way it's shaded is just godly. Nice creativity in it as well - it's not just a bird on fire. Great flamelike pattern for the fire - not realistic, sure, but it looks awesome. If I were to nitpick, it would mostly be that it has this huge trail of fire after it, but doesn't really get highlighted by it. o.o
The winners:
1st place: aocom
2nd place: Silverwing
3rd place: MysticaLugia
Congratulations to the June winners!
Last edited:
