The Pixel Art Thread

[Debitt]

Hi there everyone! I thought it would be fun to start a bit of a pixel art tutorial thread where we can help each other out with the basics of doll making, spriting, etc. I'm not by any means the expert at what I do but I'm fairly well versed in the different aspects of pixel art, so I'll do my best to answer your questions. If you're curious about my "qualifications", they are as follows:

Spriting: I've have the most experience spriting, especially with the Toki Meki Memorial and Final Fantasy sprites, so I'm open to almost any question you may have here.

Blinkies: Another field I've have my share of experience in. Not as much as with spriting, but...yeah

KiSS dolls: I'm still learning how to do these. You should probably take your techinical questions to Google or another member, but I can give you a few pointers when it comes to drawing/making bases for your KiSS dolls.

Doll making: I've never done this myself, but I'm sure it isn't a far leap from making KiSS doll bases or spriting.

A Few General Pointers For Beginners
- No matter how many times people have said "MS Paint sucks and is obsolete" I'll still always say its your best choice for most pixel work. (except for KiSS dolls, in which case I would recommend a mixture of Paint and Photoshop/PSP) It's a simple program that's easy to figure out, and you can pull up a grid of 1x1 semi-transparent squares for easy drawing. The color palette is also simple, which makes projects that require a 256 color bitmap easier to work with.

- Most pixel work is going to take A LONG TIME. It's called pixel art, which means you go pixel by pixel. It requires patience! PATIENCE!

- As with any other work you do on the computer SAVE OFTEN. Especially if you're prone to doing things that are in the realm of SHEER STUPIDITY, like I am.

[Fsiphskilm]

Sounds painfull. DO y

[Debitt]

Yep! My FFI sprite sheets died along with my other computer a while back, but I still have some others I've done.

The first four were done using Tokimeki Memorial sprite bases, and the last one was done using Ragnarok Online sprites (which was a challenge. o_o; And which was also why I didn't add any...female anatomy to the sitting figure in the image.)

[ShiroiHikari]

O_O Oi, you're good at this *noddle* I lovelove pixel art~ I've done some myself but I suck at it XP Thanks for making this thread!

Oh, and I concur that Paint is good when you're working with pixels. The grid helps a lot ^^ Also, in PS, the dodge, burn, and smudge tools are your friends.

[RoyalWing]

mspaint is good, no matter what people say!~ i usually do the drawing pixel in paint, and then i colour it in paint shop pro, or animation shop (usually the latter because it lets you optimize without screwing up colour. ^-^)

[glitch1501]

i think pixel art is cool
i found some cool sheets of naruto and some of the final fantasys

[Debitt]

Yep, I try to stay away from PSP or Photoshop, mainly because I'm a color junkie, and I always end up using colors that don't work out with the format I save my pixelwork in. ^^;

[glitch1501]

here is the last one, remember, i did not make any of these

[Debitt]

Glitch, the Naruto sprite sheets are official, I believe, but the FF one definitely isn't. If you didn't make it, you may want to take it down. (sorry if I sound rude or pushy, but I know many artists, including myself, don't like to have their work posted without proper credit.)

[glitch1501]

those final fantasy sprites are public domain, so i think im safe on that one
got it from
http://panelmonkey.org/index.php?theme=1&content=true
in the public domain section

[Debitt]

Ah, okay, just checking.

[Kireihana]

Lol Sasuke's shorts look funny on one of those sheets...

I have not the patience for pixel art.






Well, that depends. Sprite re-coloring isn't so bad. But I've seen pixel art where someone duplicated a photo pixel by pixel.. on an oekaki! (I watched the animation. Freeeeaky.)

[Straylight]

I'd love to learn a bit of this stuff.. are there any good tutorial websites out there? I use photoshop 7.

[ShiroiHikari]

I remember Erenan...I'd like to see his work ^^

[Debitt]

http://www.bobandgeorge.com/Other/Guides/Spriting.html - A quick tutorial on color replacement in MS Paint by the guys who do the webcomic, Bob and George. Good for you lazy people like me. ^.~

http://tsugumo.swoo.net/tutorial/ - A really in depth tutorial on backgrounds and sprites, that mainly focuses on FF2 and Street Fighter styled sprites. Doesn't focus on any certain program, so I'm sure this can be used in Photoshop

http://members.lycos.co.uk/oix/basic/basic.html - Quick step by step tutorial that has some good pointers on shading and lightsourse in your sprites. Photoshop oriented, I believe, since layers and such are mentioned.

I'm working on my own tutorial as well at the moment, using Inu-Yasha: A Feudal Fairy Tale game sprites, so when I'm done with that, I'll post a link up here, <ego>so you can all learn Kokoro style spriting! </ego>

[Straylight]

Thanks for the links. I'm gonna learn how to do this properly now. ^_^

[glitch1501]

i was gonna post bob and george, didnt know if anyone else knew

thanks for the others

[Fsiphskilm]

OOOOOhhh [u]Pixel a

[ShiroiHikari]

A good site to look at art (when it comes back online) is http://primadonna.fiyaa.com.

Oh, Bob and George...lol, cool.

[Debitt]

Ironically, Primadonna's webmistress sent me my first Tokimeki sprite bases....two years ago upon request.

[Debitt]

I use to do that a lot with the Sims furniture. Just spend hours per day changing the Gifs in Paint so My bookcases matched my wallpaper that's sad.

I think we all lost three months of our lives to the Sims at one point in time or another.

[RefractedAhav]

I know what sprites are... but what are dolls and KiSS dolls?

[ShiroiHikari]

Hmmm...all the dolls I've seen are basically like bigger, more detailed sprites...dunno what KiSS dolls are though. Anyway, a lot of places have doll bases that are left blank, and you can "dress them up" however you want, sorta like paper dolls I guess.

[madphilb]

Ohhh.. the odd world of KISS Dolls.... I can't remember exactly what KISS stands for (and I'm too lazy to officially look it up)... but it's K___ Set System, it's basically a modern version of Paper Dolls, and it hails from the land of Japan.

There are several inhancements that have been done to the "format" that include some scripting and whatnot, I've seen some fancy stuff done with it (FKISS).

Like Anime there are a variety of stuff, and like much fan-art type stuff, you run into your share of, well, bad stuff. At the very least many of the "dolls" are anitomically correct.

However they are pretty cool, far too much fun playing dress-up than a guy should ever have

"The Big Kiss" page is one of the best sources for it, but the author had to setup his page on a subscription service (however he does have links and some dolls for free on his site).

[Debitt]

Yeah, kiss (I think the K stands for something like Kisake) dolls are basically really big sprites that you can play dress up with. ^.~

[RefractedAhav]

are dolls to big to used in an rpg?

[Debitt]

An RPG on the RPG Maker games? (either PC or PS) ...I would probably have to say yes. I've never sprited for an actual game before, but the dolls I've seen around are in fact bigger than the sprites used in FIGHTING games like Street Fighter and Inu Yasha. So I'd stick to the smaller sprites for an RPG if I were you.

[HikariChan]

dolls...sprites...???

[HikariChan]

Arnt these beautiful!!!!!!!






KingdomHearts:dance:

[RefractedAhav]

dolls...sprites...???

have you ever played a sega, nintendo, super nintendo or game boy (this includes all the game boys) game before? If you have then you have seen sprites. Sprites are the characters in the game. A few examples are Link, Mario, Yoshi, Sonic, etc. I hope this helps.

p.s. I think objects that the player or MOBs interact with on the screen are also sprites. Some one please correct me if I'm wrong.