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Gym Leader Devil's Gym Shenanigans

Gym Leader Devil

True Master of the Dark-type (suck it Piers)
AKA
So many names
Another round of practice yields fruit, and I need quality inspectors to make sure said fruit ain't rotten. So, today's project was Mr. J, the Ace of Knaves himself:

28k3cy1.png


I personally like what I managed to do here, despite the small size making it nigh impossible to put a playing card in his hand (trust me, I spent a solid hour trying) the way I wanted. So, anyone got any critiques to offer?

Edit: Ok for some reason this came out ridiculously tiny, despite coming from the same sprite sheets I've been using all along. Dunno what's up with that. Scaling worked out decently well though, it might even be an improvement with regards to the lapel flower.

Edit the second: The Joker looks plenty amused as always up there, but the post looked lonely without a Harley in need of revving :monster: And of course, Harle needs her babies.

2lwlso7.png
 
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Gym Leader Devil

True Master of the Dark-type (suck it Piers)
AKA
So many names
Alright, today I got asked for requests from a friend just to get a character or person to try and make. From Sue Sylvester, I received a request for Gohan circa the Cell Games. She forgot to say if she wanted normal, SS, or SS2, and by the time she DID I was already working and didn't notice. So, I just made all three :wackymonster:

Normal:

6ifpg7.png


Super Saiyan:

2dimtk6.png


And by far the hardest to get even sorta right, Super Saiyan 2:

wjtb2v.png



Overall these weren't so hard, except redoing the hair over and over to get it just so. I started with a generic Black Belt trainer sprite, turned his gi into a Piccolo/Gohan style purple thing, changed the obi, added the wristbands, reshaped and colored the feet to make their weird elf-shoe things they wear, etc. The head is from a totally different sprite, and as stated a LOT of changes went into the hair on all three.
 

Gym Leader Devil

True Master of the Dark-type (suck it Piers)
AKA
So many names
I been looking for the right parts to make this one ever since I started on Joker up there. So, here is Batman:

al0lfn.png


Hardest part of this was the cloak, everything else was just minor reshaping and recoloring. Oh, and the cowl wasn't simple, though hardly difficult.

Edit: Altered the color on the arm-blades a bit, they didn't show up worth crap on black backgrounds.
 
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Gym Leader Devil

True Master of the Dark-type (suck it Piers)
AKA
So many names
Just finished these for Tiff, in keeping with our current name theme. Unlike my own current sig, I wasn't too lazy to make a Little Sister sprite myself :monster:

First, the Little Sister on her own:

2zhdzrm.png



Then with Pokemon:

8yvoy9.png


Hope ya like this Little Sis :D
 
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Gym Leader Devil

True Master of the Dark-type (suck it Piers)
AKA
So many names
Yay for more request, just finished this one for Sami, who wanted Serah Farron:

34y8gm0.jpg


Not bad if I do say so myself, though her pink transparent scarf thing is hard to see.

And here she is with her Pokemon:

10mj18k.png
 

Gym Leader Devil

True Master of the Dark-type (suck it Piers)
AKA
So many names
Got another one here I just did for fun. Dante's Awakening era Dante:

etuyva.png


Fairly simple recolor and edit of the same base character Brooke used to make my trainer (when I'm out of my Big Daddy suit of course). Re arranged one of the arms and used a totally different head to get it somewhat Dante-ish. That big ol manic grin had to be added too, and the hair reshaped (and its still not perfect). Also added on his leather harness, and changed the shirt into bare skin and abs. Then stuck Rebellion (or the best substitute I could find) on his back and reshaped his hands a bit to put Ebony and Ivory in them. Last but not least, I remembered to tear one of his sleeves off :monster:
 

Kai Schulen

... ... ...▼
AKA
Trainer Red
In the age of my youth (pratically when I was just a baby)(When I say baby, I mean I was like 15, 16 years old) I once upon a time hung around sprite comics and their forums and was a former amateur (and I emphasis amateur) sprite artist and editor who never really went beyond minor editting and recoloring. But I lurked around enough sprite critiques and looked through a lot of sprite tutorials to sorta know what I'm talking about! Sorta. Kinda. :sadpanda:
Ok, just made this for pure editing practice.

2nhm5oo.png


The Master Sword and Hylian Shield aren't my work, I just put them in for completion's sake. Everything else, I made by way of taking apart five different sprites, recoloring the pieces and slimming them down as needed, and putting them together to make a Pokemon sprite version of Link.

Anyway, someone let me know what they think of this, and don't be gentle if there is something wrong. Like I said, it was for practice (though I'd happily use this if someone liked it and wanted a Link with Pokemon sprite for some reason).

And like it or not, I hereby dub him Link, the Hero of Mons. :awesome:

Edit: Made some changes already based on some good criticisms I've gotten, so I put the edited version here and leave the original for comparison.

2uh2szn.png

Hmmm. Well, first things first, mixing sprite bittages/styles is a huge no-no. I'd say that you should take out the shield and sword and try making one from scratch if you could, but that'd be asking for the impossible. XD; Pokemon trainer sprites also don't offer much in the way of swords and shields in the game, much less anything that resembles either, but perhaps you can edit the shield and sword to make it look less like 64 bit and more like 32 bit? Or maybe just omit the two entirely until you build up the skills to make a better fitting shield and sword.

What also feels off is that there needs to be more shading overall. Like Link's tights for instance -- I know that his tights are white, but there's too much white in his tights. Add in some more grey for shading especially around his knees, shins, groin. There needs to be some darker greens for shading on his tunic and hat. Also, I'm not quite sure but there seems to be a few stray pixels on Link's hat but it could just be my screen acting weirdly again. But if there are stray pixel lines, you should fix that up some, because it makes it look like his hat is shiny. His belt needs a little extra shading too. His boots also need to be fixed up some: The foot that's not under the shield only needs a little extra shading, but the other foot that is under the shield needs darker shading. (Or it could be the other way around. I don't exactly remember which trainer sprite you're using as a base for Link and it'd be helpful if I could see for a comparison.)

Also, Link seems a bit too tall in comparison to other trainer sprites, so perhaps you should make him a bit shorter by a few pixels?

And finally, add an outline to Link - a grey outline around his tights, a darkish green outline around his hat and tunic, a brown outline around his boots and belt. Not a full outline though! If you look at most Trainer sprites they have this outline thing going on, but it's never a full body outline. It's very noticeable around areas that have the lightest hue, and only there in the darkest of areas to emphasis the shadows.

On that note, most sprite artists would avoid using white at all and instead opt for a very, very light grey that's a few shades away from white. The same goes for the color black. Black and white are only used as extremes.

Another round of practice yields fruit, and I need quality inspectors to make sure said fruit ain't rotten. So, today's project was Mr. J, the Ace of Knaves himself:

28k3cy1.png


I personally like what I managed to do here, despite the small size making it nigh impossible to put a playing card in his hand (trust me, I spent a solid hour trying) the way I wanted. So, anyone got any critiques to offer?

Edit: Ok for some reason this came out ridiculously tiny, despite coming from the same sprite sheets I've been using all along. Dunno what's up with that. Scaling worked out decently well though, it might even be an improvement with regards to the lapel flower.

Edit the second: The Joker looks plenty amused as always up there, but the post looked lonely without a Harley in need of revving :monster: And of course, Harle needs her babies.

2lwlso7.png

Something about Joker's face seems a bit off and blurry, like the sprite has been resized? The red on his mouth seems a little too large, but if you make it one pixel smaller it'll look too small on his face. I'm not really sure what to say that can fix that, but maybe it looks off too me because the sprite looks like it has been oversized. The purple coloring of his suit overall needs a little more variation in terms of shading, (like the darks should be a little darker) but all in all the base coloring is good.

Harley's looks alright too me, but the black parts of her suit is too dark. Earlier I said that you should avoid using too much black, so you should go for a dark shade of grey instead, like what the Team Rocket Grunts are wearing. (Only using black to emphasis the darkest of dark colors.) Also, the white cuffs on her hands don't seem to match very well with each other: The one that's petting the Mightyena seems too blurry whereas the white needs a little more shading. (like light grey.)
Alright, today I got asked for requests from a friend just to get a character or person to try and make. From Sue Sylvester, I received a request for Gohan circa the Cell Games. She forgot to say if she wanted normal, SS, or SS2, and by the time she DID I was already working and didn't notice. So, I just made all three :wackymonster:

Normal:

6ifpg7.png


Super Saiyan:

2dimtk6.png


And by far the hardest to get even sorta right, Super Saiyan 2:

wjtb2v.png



Overall these weren't so hard, except redoing the hair over and over to get it just so. I started with a generic Black Belt trainer sprite, turned his gi into a Piccolo/Gohan style purple thing, changed the obi, added the wristbands, reshaped and colored the feet to make their weird elf-shoe things they wear, etc. The head is from a totally different sprite, and as stated a LOT of changes went into the hair on all three.
Normal Gohan's hair looks alright, but the Super Saiyan hairs need to be fixed up some. Again, don't use black for shadows -- use a darker shade of yellow instead.

His outfit, particularly around his legs need some darker shading -- A little shading around the front leg, but there needs to be some darker shading for the leg in the back. There seems to be extra stray light pixels there too, so you should get rid of those too (cause those are throwing me off XD). Also, there seems to be a pixel off by his thigh that's in the front. A little shading around his torso wouldn't hurt either.

I been looking for the right parts to make this one ever since I started on Joker up there. So, here is Batman:

al0lfn.png


Hardest part of this was the cloak, everything else was just minor reshaping and recoloring. Oh, and the cowl wasn't simple, though hardly difficult.

Edit: Altered the color on the arm-blades a bit, they didn't show up worth crap on black backgrounds.
All, in all, this sprite looks all right to me -- maybe get rid of the black lines up there on his cowl to make it look more consistent? The torso needs the slightest bit of extra shading there, but I like how you did his abs there. The right arm looks a bit off there though and I'm not too sure how to go about fixing it. The shading around his legs and groin look a bit off...but his left leg looks alright to me. His right leg however, needs a a better outline around his thigh or otherwise it looks like it's blending in with the cape. Maybe if you add in an outline to his right thigh, the legs might look better overall?

The cape however

looks awesome to me. :awesome:

Also, after look around a bit, I found this Pokemon Trainer spriting guide that has some decent tips as to making custom trainer sprites:

http://pokemon.livejournal.com/138050.html

By the by, which program are you using for spriting? I find that using MSpaint and photoshop are best to use.
 
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Gym Leader Devil

True Master of the Dark-type (suck it Piers)
AKA
So many names
Red, thanks for the tips. I just finished Dante, so gonna take a bit of a break, but I'll keep this in mind and have a look at that link for sure. Glad to see some advice coming in :D

Edit: Oh, and I think I already mentioned to ya elsewhere, but I use GIMP2 for my edits.
 
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Gym Leader Devil

True Master of the Dark-type (suck it Piers)
AKA
So many names
Been a bit since I posted in here, but I figured I'd show off a couple of recent projects I did. First up, Ryu has expressed some interest in joining us in the TLS Pokemon League as a Fighting-type specialist. So as usual I did some work on a sprite for him:

3sk7r.jpg


Apparently, when not training and accepting challenges at his Gym (which is still under construction, will post it here soon :monster:) he occupies himself as a Ninja-Pirate (or is it Pirate-Ninja?). Tis an edit of Koga's HG/SS sprite. He wanted the stupidly long scarf with the ragged edge, the fuller hair and the recolor, along with the Aura around his extended hand. The eye-patch was my idea :awesome:

Secondly, just for fun my girl asked me to do one of her trainer with her varied team, rather than her Grass-team:

34ijsig.png


Yeah, pretty robust group there. They've managed to kick my ass a few times, especially that damn Swanna by the name of Mytho. The Lilligant, Laura, would probably be a handful as well if not for my love of Flamethrower. And I like her holding the wooden heart staff there. Tis appropriate for a Grass-specialist, I think, gonna add that to her Grass-trainer sprite too later.

Edit: A quick joke I made after noticing the shape of Clicky's outstretched hand led to this:

5evp1z.jpg


She laughed, and so should you :awesomonster:
 
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Read over what Trainer Red said and the thing I'd agree most with is the shading. Your stuff seems to lack it and without shading everything is very... cardboard cut out? If you recolour pants for example, look where the shading is in the first place. Try to recolour based on colour palettes. Look at the difference between the main colour and the shade colours, then when you chose your new colour, pick a colour that's similar in distance on the colour palette.
 

Gym Leader Devil

True Master of the Dark-type (suck it Piers)
AKA
So many names
Read over what Trainer Red said and the thing I'd agree most with is the shading. Your stuff seems to lack it and without shading everything is very... cardboard cut out?

Ouch. That bad?

If you recolour pants for example, look where the shading is in the first place. Try to recolour based on colour palettes. Look at the difference between the main colour and the shade colours, then when you chose your new colour, pick a colour that's similar in distance on the colour palette.

Thats... exactly what I try to do. I look at the shading on the existing sprite and just alter the colors that are already present. I attempt to get to match the contrast and such that was already present in the new colors. So for straight recolors, I dunno what I'm doing wrong. For more major alterations, its more a matter of not having the existing pixels in place to guide me.
 
I think the main problem is the colours you use seem to really contrast, so where one colour ends and the next begins it's a very obvious line. I can't really give any good advice though except to keep trying to make things even better. The advice about not using black for outlines is also good and ties in with the obvious line thing.
 

Gym Leader Devil

True Master of the Dark-type (suck it Piers)
AKA
So many names
Hmmm. Ok, got an idea of what's what here. Its why sprites like Batman or Ryu's looks more consistently good than some of the others, like Link's. When I change the colors, I shouldn't be trying to match things so much. That doesn't quite work with regards to preserving the appearance of cloth or skin on the sprites.
 
Ryu's does look really good I should have mentioned that too. I'm not sure what changes you made but whatever you did that one's the right track. :)
 

Ryushikaze

Deus Admiral Parsimonious, PHD, DDS, MD, JD, OBE
AKA
Tim, Ryu
Ryu's does look really good I should have mentioned that too. I'm not sure what changes you made but whatever you did that one's the right track. :)

Secret to GLD's success- be hectored by Ryu each step of the way.
 

Kai Schulen

... ... ...▼
AKA
Trainer Red
Ryu's sprite does look good, especially the scarf. :monster:

But the Aura needs to be shaded better -- at first glance it really looks like you only picked two shades of blue, a light and a dark and it was only until I zoomed in really close did I notice a third shade of blue. The two dark blue colors are really too similar to each other and it really gives off the impression that the Aura is all, to borrow a phrase from Brooke, cardboard cut out. You need to pick a better shade of blue so that at least one of the two dark shades of blue stands out from each other.

Also, I'm going to guess that you're doing the anime version of Aura? Cause the Aura Riley's got in Platinum looks much different from what you gave Ryu there.
 

Gym Leader Devil

True Master of the Dark-type (suck it Piers)
AKA
So many names
@Brooke: I thought the scarf was the most cardboardy part of Ryu's sprite, so hearing you say its especially good makes me feel loads better about it :monster:

@Ryu: Having the person I'm making sprites for involved in the process is extremely helpful in getting it how they want it. Stop feeling all special, it'd be true for anyone (except you knew what you were talking about so it was extra helpful so fuck you and your specialness). :awesome:

@Red: Ryu just requested an aura around the hand, no specific version was used as a model. I decided to throw the steam/tendril thing in cause it didn't stand out much as it was and Ryu wasn't opposed to the idea. As for the colors, I think its another "looks good on white, not as good on black" thing. On a lighter background (like the default tinypic upload background) the third shade of blue stands out more. Was thinking of adjusting it already, will definitely look into it now.

Edit: So I lightened the innermost ring of color in Ryu's hand aura, and it didn't seem quite right still. Now it stood out too much. So I added a little red in to give it juuuust a touch of purple and now I think it works better.

o8a239.png
 
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Okay now I'm going to feel bad because I was referring more to the body and the action magic he's doing (which is why I said I wasn't sure which parts you had done). The hand magic looks amazing. However, the scarf definitely suffers from the shading issue. The black outline on it is probably the main culprit.
 

Gym Leader Devil

True Master of the Dark-type (suck it Piers)
AKA
So many names
Don't feel bad. I don't know where I got the idea you were complimenting the scarf specifically out of that post, I really don't. I can't take too much credit for the aura either, the shape of the hand was just about perfect for that (the steam-like effect was all me though).

On the subject of black outlines: I use the same outline as the existing sprite. The scarf was much shorter originally, as you know, but it already used black outlines in the places I used black outlines. I used different colors where they used different colors, in this case darker red than the main body of the scarf (which I brightened from its original color as well).

And then the shading... now, I agree a different shade for the parts of the scarf doing the impossible wind blowing thing would probably be a good idea. But, I wonder about the first bit, which was the whole scarf originally. There was no shading on that part of the sprite, it was a solid color. What keeps that from being flat, cardboard cutout looking?
 
I tried editing it myself. Not having the inner outline black does help, but there's also a lot of... sharp edges I'll call them. That's something else I'm noticing a bit with your sprites. Edges are very pronounced where they aren't suppose to be and they aren't smoothed out like you see in the actual original sprites. This is part shading, but also part where you make your turns and is noticeable in the scarf.


It's a problem I originally had too and probably most noticeable with the Telran sprite I did. His hair doesn't blend together at all and the points really stick out as not organic.

I wish I had better advice but the truth is my personal skills have gotten better but I don't think another Telran would be free from that same issue. It's also why I deal with the smaller sprites. They are a lot easier to customize with less noticeable issues because everything is so small a lot of the time it's just mashing the right colours together. I don't need to worry about fine details (like my Fang and Vanille) and just had to give them the right palette so you kind of imagine that little sprite has more to it than what's there.

Even my edits on bigger sprites are just recolourings, because I wouldn't be brave enough to venture out past that.
 

Gym Leader Devil

True Master of the Dark-type (suck it Piers)
AKA
So many names
Ok, I been using Ryu's sprite to work on some of my issues since it had a localized problem in the scarf. Something specific to focus on on an otherwise decent edit. So I brought up the original "complete" edit, copied it and set up a side by side to work on so I could see the differences as I worked. I'm finding doing it side by side really helps me pick out what has changed and what still needs to change, think I might start doing this with all my sprite edits from now on :monster:

So, having already fixed the colors on the hand aura up some, I had three main goals here based on suggestions you folk have been kind enough to give me. Clean up the lines so they're not as sharp and angular, make it overall less jagged. That's still somewhat a work in progress in places, but I'm seeing some definite improvements there. Blend in different shades of color to give the thing some depth. And also differentiate the individual tails on the scarf for the same reason. I think it looks a lot better there in the side by side comparison, but I wanna get some outside opinions on that.

Anyway, here's the side by side thus far:

243eukj.png


Just a reminder, before you comment on how impossible the way the scarf is blowing is, Ryu specifically requested that it be "stupidly long" with impossible movement :monster: Thing has been a pain in my ass to get in any way right, but I'm glad he asked for it. Going over it again and again and again has been excellent practice.
 
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Great job! You can really see an improvement especially now that they are two seperate scarfs. tbh, was it always meant to be two? Because before it looked more like one with a shadow underneath and I think that was one of the main problems. Edges are much smoother too. :) There's still a couple rough spots but what you've been doing is in the right direction. The end of the bottom scarf though, where it bends, is really smooth so whatever you've done there try to do for the other spots.
 

Gym Leader Devil

True Master of the Dark-type (suck it Piers)
AKA
So many names
I always considered it that way, its a single length of cloth but the way its wound around both ends are streaming out in the same direction. I'm not totally sure if its supposed to be that way on Koga's original sprite, but that's what I was trying for. Ryu suggested having them separate a bit more so it'd be more obvious, I think with the original its a case of me seeing it because its what I was looking for, whereas now its obvious to everyone else :monster:

I'm not sure how much more I can smooth it out, we are working with tiny squares after all :doh: Its one of the reasons I suggested the tattered ends when we were plotting this out, the tattered ends make it easier to rationalize whatever rough edges are left on it as being tattered or worn themselves :awesome: Well, that was part of the idea anyway, whether it actually works or not is up for debate.
 
Look at the way things are smooth with original pkmn spites on all the edges. Shirts, pants, even hair is always smooth no matter the shape. That's why I pointed to the turn at the end, it's very smooth there and looks professional. The other parts can be smoothed out without taking away from the twists and turns. Like the part before the big split on the new one, it looks like chunks have been taken out of the scarf. The missing pixels serve no purpose because the scarf shouldn't be missing parts there.

The top scarf gets a lot thinner than the bottom too. Not sure if it's meant to be a perspective thing but if it is then you'd need to incorporate more shading. So it might just be easier to make them similar in size.

I'm not sure how much more I can smooth it out, we are working with tiny squares after all

This is your limitation that you always have to remember with sprite work. Sometimes you can't do everything you'd want to do because you only have a limited amount of pixels to work with. It's why I used the example with the Fang and Vanille sprites, which is even less than these. You need to work with the limitation. If you try to push it too far things just look unprofessional even though you were trying to do something really unique.

Simple and smooth will always look way more impressive than complicated and jagged.

For some inspiration: http://shampie.deviantart.com/gallery/26587248

This gallery is really amazing and shows a lot of the things I'm pointing out.
 
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