Post by Gale on Sept 20, 2007 18:08:18 GMT
All right. I've noticed a lot of new members here want to help, and many of them seem to be into spriting, but are only just getting started. So, I decided that I'd help out some of the new members with a tutorial for making sprites. In later versions, I'll have images to help guide you. For now, it's just text, because I don't have too much time.
Well, here goes nothing:
Gale's Spriting Tutorial Version 1.0
1) Getting started
If you're new to spriting and want to get to a decent level, don't just open up Paint and start drawing. The very first thing you should do is get accustomed to whatever program you've decided you'll be using. For example, if you want to use Photoshop, make sure you know how Photoshop works. If you want to stick to MSPaint, that's fine. Just know that if you made a mistake three actions ago, you won't be able to undo it, whereas a program like Photoshop or GIMP will allow about 20 steps back. For this reason, especially if you're new to spriting, you should consider using one of these programs:
-The GIMP (which can be downloaded for free and legally at gimp.org/ )
-Photoshop (which is hella-expensive, but worth the money if you're really into graphics editing)
2) Practice on other people's works
When you think you've got a good grasp of how your graphics program works, go find some finished, professional sprites, and open them up in your program. Here, you can start playing around with the tools a little bit. I would suggest you primarily use the pencil with a 1x1 pixel brush size. That means you'll be drawing pixel by pixel. This is the best strategy for spriting, because your works will look the least sloppy this way.
Once you've got your brush size, start playing around with the sprites. Get creative and mesh two things together. In order to do this, you can use the selection tools to select a portion of an image. Once selected, you can do all kinds of things with that piece of the image, similarly to what you might do with a document in Microsoft Word. You can copy, paste, and cut; or click and drag the image portion where you want it to be. This is the strategy for making splice-Pokemon.
If when you're finished putting two pieces together, don't give up. Take your pencil tool (that should be set to 1x1 pixel) and start to edit the pieces so that they flow together naturally. Keep playing with it until it looks right. Then you should color the parts so that they are all an appropriate color for the image as a whole. If you put Mew's tail on Treecko and you don't want a random pink tail coming out of its back, you could color it so that it matches the rest of the sprite. When you're recoloring parts of Pokemon, be careful. If you're observant, I'm sure you noticed that there are different shades of each color present on each Pokemon. This is called shading, and it is used to give a two-dimensional image a three-dimensional quality to the person observing it. As you're coloring, use the corresponding shade of each color so it matches (You'll get a better idea of this when the images are here). Don't guess the colors when you're doing this either. Use the color picker tool (the symbol usually looks like an eyedropper in most programs) to select the color you need to use. Repeat the same process with a lot of sprites, or you could start mixing more and more together. Keep in mind not to make it a jumbled mess of Pokemon limbs, but make sure you get some practice, and take note of how everything is drawn.
3) Add to other people's works
Now you're a pro at splice-Pokemon. At this point, you're still not really at the level of a decent spriter yet, but hopefully you will be by the end of this tutorial. The next step requires a little more skill, so make sure you've practice up significantly (this is different for everyone, and depends on an individual's natural artistic talent).
Start adding your own ideas to a professional sprite. Once again, I suggest you use a 1x1 pixel pencil tool for this. Using the features you observed from the previous step, try to recreate the styles and ideas that are used in the creation of Pokemon. Edit Zubat's head and give it eyes, for example. When you give it eyes, be careful to follow the same artistic style as other Pokemons' eyes. Perhaps you would use Golbat's eyes as a reference. However, this time, the object isn't to copy-paste the eyes there (which probably wouldn't work anyway, due to the angles of the sprites). This is when you draw the eyes yourself. Zoom in to a comfortable magnification so that you can tell where you're going to place a single pixel at a time. At the same time, also zoom in on your reference. Take into account up close at how each pixel is oriented, and try to translate that onto your own image. Periodically, you'll want to zoom out and check your work to see if you're doing a decent job. This will help you get it right more often. If you're not, play around with it until it looks good from a normal magnification.
You'll notice that I haven't really told you to color yet. When it's eyes you're working with, it's a special case, and you're usually going to be coloring as you go. However, let's say you're adding legs or wings instead. You're going to want to make a black outline pixel by pixel first, and then go back and color. If you need help picturing the image, fill it with the lightest shade of color that is on the Pokemon you're editing. From there, you'll finish it up, and shade when you're done.
And we're back to shading. There are a few important things to consider when you're shading a sprite. One, in a typical modern game that uses sprites, there tend to be three to four shades of any color used in the image. Two, you're probably going to be using the same shades of color that are in the sprite you're editing. I would recommend that, especially if this is your first time doing this. Three, you're going to need to consider something called the light source. The light source, as its name says, is the source from which the light in an image is coming. Understanding light source is important because it will help you avoid something many spriters call "pillow shading," which makes things appear to have no texture whatsoever. To determine the light source, look closely at the different shades of color on the image you're editing. The lightest shades will typically be on one side, while the darker shades will be on the other, with one or two middles shades between them. Depending on the shape of the body of the sprite you're making, you'll have to make adjustments to make it look like those shapes are actually three-dimensional and there. For that, I can't tell you to do anything but to practice. The best way to learn it is to observe. That's why I'm telling you to look closely. Again, while you're shading your new Pokemon part, zoom out occasionally to make sure you're coloring correctly. When you're done shading your new part, zoom out again, and use what you learned in step two to make the new part flow smoothly onto the sprite.
4) Create your own
This is the fun part. Here's where you really get to exercise your creativity. The best advice I can give you here is to challenge yourself. If there's one thing you noticed you weren't too great at before, now's your chance to start practicing and change that.
The first thing you need to do is decide what you're going to be making. If you go without any direction, it'll probably come out poorly. Let's say we want to make a cute, little round Pokemon. Create the basic body shape. In this example, we'll draw a relatively circular body.
Once you've got your body shape, go ahead and start adding the Pokemon's features as you see fit. Keep in mind that Pokemon battle sprites face to the bottom left when you're drawing. In the example I'll draw for you when I update this, I'll be adding long, flat feet and hands. It'll also have a small face and maybe some sort of head crest. While you're drawing, make sure to zoom in and out to check your work and make sure it looks at least somewhat natural to your idea.
The body is drawn. Now you color, using the skills you picked up from the previous steps. First, fill with the lightest shade of the color you'll be using. Let's say we want a red Pokemon. For red, let's take a light, almost pink shade of red and fill the sprite. The light source for battle sprites, if you've noticed or have prior knowledge, comes from the top left of the screen. When you're shading, make sure the lighter shades appear toward the top left of the Pokemon, and that the darkest shades of red appear toward the bottom right. Another aspect of spriting you might consider during this step is something called anti-aliasing. Anti-aliasing is something that's used on outlines to give a drawing a more real-life sort of quality. To do this, use a very dark shade of the color you're using to fill the body, and color the outline in the places where the sprite would be receiving the most light. Some black in the outline is okay if you're anti-aliasing. Continue shading and zooming in and out until you've got a decent-looking Pokemon. Keep all of the Pokemon's anatomy in mind when you're shading. If it has an arm that blocks the light, make sure you make a shadow as it should look.
----------------------------
All right, that should be enough to get you started. Once I have images up, this will be a little easier to follow. For now, it's just a lot of words. I hope this helps anyone who wants to learn how to sprite, or how to sprite better.
Well, here goes nothing:
Gale's Spriting Tutorial Version 1.0
1) Getting started
If you're new to spriting and want to get to a decent level, don't just open up Paint and start drawing. The very first thing you should do is get accustomed to whatever program you've decided you'll be using. For example, if you want to use Photoshop, make sure you know how Photoshop works. If you want to stick to MSPaint, that's fine. Just know that if you made a mistake three actions ago, you won't be able to undo it, whereas a program like Photoshop or GIMP will allow about 20 steps back. For this reason, especially if you're new to spriting, you should consider using one of these programs:
-The GIMP (which can be downloaded for free and legally at gimp.org/ )
-Photoshop (which is hella-expensive, but worth the money if you're really into graphics editing)
2) Practice on other people's works
When you think you've got a good grasp of how your graphics program works, go find some finished, professional sprites, and open them up in your program. Here, you can start playing around with the tools a little bit. I would suggest you primarily use the pencil with a 1x1 pixel brush size. That means you'll be drawing pixel by pixel. This is the best strategy for spriting, because your works will look the least sloppy this way.
Once you've got your brush size, start playing around with the sprites. Get creative and mesh two things together. In order to do this, you can use the selection tools to select a portion of an image. Once selected, you can do all kinds of things with that piece of the image, similarly to what you might do with a document in Microsoft Word. You can copy, paste, and cut; or click and drag the image portion where you want it to be. This is the strategy for making splice-Pokemon.
If when you're finished putting two pieces together, don't give up. Take your pencil tool (that should be set to 1x1 pixel) and start to edit the pieces so that they flow together naturally. Keep playing with it until it looks right. Then you should color the parts so that they are all an appropriate color for the image as a whole. If you put Mew's tail on Treecko and you don't want a random pink tail coming out of its back, you could color it so that it matches the rest of the sprite. When you're recoloring parts of Pokemon, be careful. If you're observant, I'm sure you noticed that there are different shades of each color present on each Pokemon. This is called shading, and it is used to give a two-dimensional image a three-dimensional quality to the person observing it. As you're coloring, use the corresponding shade of each color so it matches (You'll get a better idea of this when the images are here). Don't guess the colors when you're doing this either. Use the color picker tool (the symbol usually looks like an eyedropper in most programs) to select the color you need to use. Repeat the same process with a lot of sprites, or you could start mixing more and more together. Keep in mind not to make it a jumbled mess of Pokemon limbs, but make sure you get some practice, and take note of how everything is drawn.
3) Add to other people's works
Now you're a pro at splice-Pokemon. At this point, you're still not really at the level of a decent spriter yet, but hopefully you will be by the end of this tutorial. The next step requires a little more skill, so make sure you've practice up significantly (this is different for everyone, and depends on an individual's natural artistic talent).
Start adding your own ideas to a professional sprite. Once again, I suggest you use a 1x1 pixel pencil tool for this. Using the features you observed from the previous step, try to recreate the styles and ideas that are used in the creation of Pokemon. Edit Zubat's head and give it eyes, for example. When you give it eyes, be careful to follow the same artistic style as other Pokemons' eyes. Perhaps you would use Golbat's eyes as a reference. However, this time, the object isn't to copy-paste the eyes there (which probably wouldn't work anyway, due to the angles of the sprites). This is when you draw the eyes yourself. Zoom in to a comfortable magnification so that you can tell where you're going to place a single pixel at a time. At the same time, also zoom in on your reference. Take into account up close at how each pixel is oriented, and try to translate that onto your own image. Periodically, you'll want to zoom out and check your work to see if you're doing a decent job. This will help you get it right more often. If you're not, play around with it until it looks good from a normal magnification.
You'll notice that I haven't really told you to color yet. When it's eyes you're working with, it's a special case, and you're usually going to be coloring as you go. However, let's say you're adding legs or wings instead. You're going to want to make a black outline pixel by pixel first, and then go back and color. If you need help picturing the image, fill it with the lightest shade of color that is on the Pokemon you're editing. From there, you'll finish it up, and shade when you're done.
And we're back to shading. There are a few important things to consider when you're shading a sprite. One, in a typical modern game that uses sprites, there tend to be three to four shades of any color used in the image. Two, you're probably going to be using the same shades of color that are in the sprite you're editing. I would recommend that, especially if this is your first time doing this. Three, you're going to need to consider something called the light source. The light source, as its name says, is the source from which the light in an image is coming. Understanding light source is important because it will help you avoid something many spriters call "pillow shading," which makes things appear to have no texture whatsoever. To determine the light source, look closely at the different shades of color on the image you're editing. The lightest shades will typically be on one side, while the darker shades will be on the other, with one or two middles shades between them. Depending on the shape of the body of the sprite you're making, you'll have to make adjustments to make it look like those shapes are actually three-dimensional and there. For that, I can't tell you to do anything but to practice. The best way to learn it is to observe. That's why I'm telling you to look closely. Again, while you're shading your new Pokemon part, zoom out occasionally to make sure you're coloring correctly. When you're done shading your new part, zoom out again, and use what you learned in step two to make the new part flow smoothly onto the sprite.
4) Create your own
This is the fun part. Here's where you really get to exercise your creativity. The best advice I can give you here is to challenge yourself. If there's one thing you noticed you weren't too great at before, now's your chance to start practicing and change that.
The first thing you need to do is decide what you're going to be making. If you go without any direction, it'll probably come out poorly. Let's say we want to make a cute, little round Pokemon. Create the basic body shape. In this example, we'll draw a relatively circular body.
Once you've got your body shape, go ahead and start adding the Pokemon's features as you see fit. Keep in mind that Pokemon battle sprites face to the bottom left when you're drawing. In the example I'll draw for you when I update this, I'll be adding long, flat feet and hands. It'll also have a small face and maybe some sort of head crest. While you're drawing, make sure to zoom in and out to check your work and make sure it looks at least somewhat natural to your idea.
The body is drawn. Now you color, using the skills you picked up from the previous steps. First, fill with the lightest shade of the color you'll be using. Let's say we want a red Pokemon. For red, let's take a light, almost pink shade of red and fill the sprite. The light source for battle sprites, if you've noticed or have prior knowledge, comes from the top left of the screen. When you're shading, make sure the lighter shades appear toward the top left of the Pokemon, and that the darkest shades of red appear toward the bottom right. Another aspect of spriting you might consider during this step is something called anti-aliasing. Anti-aliasing is something that's used on outlines to give a drawing a more real-life sort of quality. To do this, use a very dark shade of the color you're using to fill the body, and color the outline in the places where the sprite would be receiving the most light. Some black in the outline is okay if you're anti-aliasing. Continue shading and zooming in and out until you've got a decent-looking Pokemon. Keep all of the Pokemon's anatomy in mind when you're shading. If it has an arm that blocks the light, make sure you make a shadow as it should look.
----------------------------
All right, that should be enough to get you started. Once I have images up, this will be a little easier to follow. For now, it's just a lot of words. I hope this helps anyone who wants to learn how to sprite, or how to sprite better.
