Spriting advices ?

[Cherry202]

Hello, i am planning to do a game, so i originally wanted to make fakemons, but then the fact i had 0 experience kicked in ahah, (my last try was a bit, disgusting if i had to judge it myself XD

(so yeah), i cant seem to really capture the "essence" of official pokemon sprites. I can't seem to find any good tutorial on the web, so any advice would help
(overall pixel art and making a pokemon sprite, i have the app, but skills are missing :')

 

[Muffyang]

It's easiest to learn by doing, look at official sprites and if applicable mash them up for early less-elaborate edits.

 

[Cherry202]

It's easiest to learn by doing, look at official sprites and if applicable mash them up for early less-elaborate edits.

I heard about that, but i kinda wanted to try doing my own things, but i guess it would be doing easier thing before.
Do you think regional forms are also a good inbeetween (since they use the forms are existing pokemons) ?

 

[Jelly]

If you don't want to make a mashup of existing sprite, at least keep sprites similar to what you plan to do next to your fakemon project for reference. For instance, the Fakemon you showed has a head similar to Comfey (well its sprite is not official but close enough) and an elongated body like, for instance, Eelectross or Dragonair. As for the flowers, you may take the ones on Spring Sawsbuck as a reference.
Observe how sprites make use of each pixel to render a certain shape and try to replicate it.
I also suggest to take colors from those sprites to help you have a better chromatic harmony. You may change the hue a bit, but having a solid starting point to build from truly helps especially at first.

Another advice, if you can, sketch the Fakemon's pose by free hand before creating the sprite. Once you drew it, put it on a layer beneath with decreased opacity and trace the pixelated sprite on another layer. This should already help a little with figuring how certain line curves are translated into pixels.

 

[nomists]

Ran across this Pokemon-sprite specific guide:

Spriting Guide

www.dragonflycave.com

Some general personalized advice:
1. I'd recommend just learning to draw in general. You seem to have an issue conceptualizing 3d objects in your mind. As a result, your sprite looks flat, as though a similar object (let's say a snake) was looking directly at you and you just shoved a pane of glass on it and forced it to be flat. As a result, I'd say try to practice imaging what an object looks like in 3d at different angles in your mind. It may not seem obvious, but becoming a good drawer will lay the groundwork for you to become good at spriting. Try to draw objects in your room or at school if you're bored (if you're in school) and pay attention to how the light reflects off surfaces and what parts of the surface are darker than others. And then, try to figure out why certain parts of surfaces are darker or lighter.
2. Dark outlines. Dark outlines make sprites look so much better in general, with the exception of some tilesets. Try using a one-pixel black outline as much as you can, and then play with other darker colors to give the image more depth.
3. Practice, practice, practice! The more you do it, the better you get. After you finish a piece of art, don't touch it for a bit, do something else, and then come back to it. Also, save your old crappy versions for comparison so you can see how you improve. This also can help you see what still looks wrong when you look at two versions of the same image.
4. It's a good idea to use the official sprites of what style you're trying to imitate as reference. You don't want to copy them exactly, but you want to imitate the style (i.e. How does the art style do hair? What colors does it use? How does it position its lighting?)


Anyway, hope this helps! I am also someone who is in the thick of getting better at spriting.