PXFIRE Sprite Art Competition

[Noblejanobii]

Welcome to the Sprite Art Competition!

Thank you all for coming! I look forward to seeing all your sprite art skills! I'm NobleJanobii and I'll be your judge for the Sprite Art Competition. So, I know you must be curious, what are my plans? Well, I'll be hosting three events. The first two events will last one week each while the final event will last two weeks. What are the events? You'll just have to wait and see!

I plan to grade based on four criteria-
1. First Impression: (A+ to F-) When it comes to sprites while attention to detail is key more often than not unless you're using high res sprites many people will make their judgement on your sprite based on their first glance at it. Therefore, it is important to wow me right off with your design. And while not necessarily doing so may not be bad in the long run, just remember first impressions are always important.
2. How well the instructions/theme are followed: (A+ to F-) While I won't give out any details when it comes to the second and final events, the first event, which is listed below, is a recolor challenge. How well you follow the instructions when it comes to doing the recolors, either by following the color schemes or making the sprite look smooth enough that it appears you followed the color scheme, is very important. Recolors, fusions, retypes, and all forms of spriting require a great attention to detail, therefore following my set instructions and theme is the key to success.
3. Coherency, Incorporation, and Quality: (A+ to F-) Upon breaking it down, how clean and crisp and just good over all does it look? Did you execute techniques effectively, such as making sure your colors had contrast, keeping the lines clean, use proper anti-aliasing, etc? Detail is a large factor into good looking sprites so when I zoom in on Photoshop and start looking at your sprite pixel by pixel, how does your sprite hold up?
4. Creativity of design: (A+ to F-) This will of course be taken on a case by case basis, but the more creative the design of the sprite is the more points it will get. If I can tell that the creator was really going for a certain design or style that was different from the original base then they're going to get more points. Now of course, for recolors, this can only go so far, but I assure you this category will play a far more important role in the second and final events.

Got it? Good! Now before I get to the first event, here's a few rules to follow!
1. ALWAYS save as PNG for the sake of this thread. If you send your entry as a JPEG, I'll most likely give you a heads-up...since it honestly would not be cool to get a low score just because the image is gunky.
2. All artwork needs to be made by YOU. No direct art theft, and no collaborated works.
3. Your entry must NOT have been made beforehand! All entries need to be created in response specifically to the week's WAR prompt.
4. Please refrain from resizing your entries in any way. There's no need to do so, unless you also provide the original version.
5. You may use high res sprites like those provided in the high resolution project thread, however, do note that this will severally limit the amount of pokémon you will be able to use in future events. While this may not seem like a big deal, it will hinder how well you creativity can shine through in the long run.
6. You can only send in ONE entry per week. You can always change your entry at ANY time...as long as it's before the cut-off date!
7. Some great resources are: The PXR Spriting Encyclopedia, PLDH.net which has all available sprites for pokémon up through Gen 5, PokéCommunity's Gen 6 sprite resource, Smogon's Gen 6 sprite project, and Smogon's Gen 7 sprite project. All of the sprite resources listed are free to use, however you are allowed to use your own sprite or sprites made by others so long as you have the proper permissions. Proof of permission is required.
8. Feel free to ask ANY question that concerns you in this thread! You never know; someone else may be wondering the same thing.
9. Complaints of any kind in this thread are highly frowned upon. I will be doing my best to be as unbiased as possible when it comes to judging these sprites and have laid out my criteria as plainly as possible. If you have a problem with something, take it up with me personally and do not post it here. This is supposed to be a fun environment and I do not want your negativity over a possible issue on my end or yours to ruin the fun for everyone else.
10. Most of all have fun! I hope you guys enjoy the events as much as I do (I've been working to create examples for you so technically I'm participating too haha) so don't hold back and do you best on these sprites!

Now for the event! The first event will be...


The Instructions: Pick three pokémon, a first stagger, a second stagger, and a final stagger and swap color palettes! It doesn't matter who gets what color palette as long as each pokémon ends up with a new color palette and no two pokémon have the same color palette.

My Examples for you:
First Stage:
Second Stage:
Final Stage:
Granted they're not my best, but they're examples nonetheless! So get spriting!

Your form-
Username:
Team:
First stage sprite: (link to the picture or the picture itself, please state the pokémon and what it is being recolored as)
Second stage sprite: (link to the picture or the picture itself, please state the pokémon and what it is being recolored as)
Final stage sprite: (link to the picture or the picture itself, please state the pokémon and what it is being recolored as)
Additional comments:

[Pokemon Trainer Sarah]

Username: Pokemon Trainer Sarah
Team: Gracidea Order
First stage sprite: (original at bottom; recoloured as Aurorus)
Second stage sprite: (original at bottom; recolored as Tyrunt)
Final stage sprite: (original at bottom; recolored as Hakamo-o)
Additional comments: DINOSAURS! This was fun. Tyrunt was the most difficult as Aurorus has a lot of colours! So I ended up going with a sort of gradient effect. I spent the longest on Tyrunt, but Aurorus is my favourite of this lot. Kommo-o totally looks like it could be an evo of Tyrunt. XD I started off using Archen instead of Tyrunt but Archen ALSO has a lot of colours that are very bright and it just didn't look good. xD The sprites I used are from the Smogon sprite projects. :)

[Coru]

Username: Coru
Team: Prankster Platoon
First stage sprite: Ponyta [Recoloured as Spiritomb]
Second stage sprite: Ivysaur [recoloured as Ponyta]
Final stage sprite: Spiritomb [Recoloured as Ivysaur]
Additional comments: This was really fun. A little more interesting trying to do it on Photoshop because I have a Mac so can't use paint which was super annoying. I think the one that worked the best was Ivysaur. Tried to find palettes which worked well for the other Pokemon but not sure about the Spiritomb, looks too christmassy lol. All these sprites used were the BW sprites. I had to create extra shades for some Pokemon as the palettes for some colours didn't have enough shades.

[azura evley]

Username: azura evley
Team: Gracidea Order
First stage sprite: jira swap.png jiraji ---> latias
Second stage sprite: lati swap.png Latias ---> Shaymin
Final stage sprite: shay swap.png shaymin ---> jiraji
Additional comments: Well that was fun!

[Noblejanobii]

All right guys! Thanks for your entries! I'm technically on vacation right now but I'll try to have these graded soon, like Monday-ish. Of course you are still allowed to submit stuff until later today, I am just going to be on the road for most of the day so I thought better to get the challenge up early rather than late. In the meantime, here's your next challenge!

Fuuuussssiooon HA!

This week's challenge is a fusion sprite challenge! Take any three pokémon and fuse them together! This is where the coherency, incorporation, and quality categories really come to play so make sure to take extra effort that you can see the representation from all three pokémon. Also bonus points can be awarded if you use the same three pokémon as the first challenge.

My example for your:


Your form:
Username:
Team:
Names of the three pokémon fused:
The fusion sprite:

[Caite-chan]

Username: Caite-chan
Team: Steel Scavengers
First stage sprite: As a Politoad
Second stage sprite: As a Flareon
Final stage sprite: As a Porygon
Additional comments: I feel like I haven't done this in forever and it seemed like everything wanted to give me a hard time...lol.

[Noblejanobii]

Pokemon Trainer Sarah
First Impression: A
How well are instructions followed: A
Coherency, Incorporation, and Quality: A
Creativity of design: A+
Total Points: 27
Overall, you did a great job! The first impression of these sprites is great. They’re colorful, quite striking, and you make them look almost like the natural colorings. Even better, you present the actual sprites to show the contrast and shift. But what gets you the most points is the theme, which factors into your creativity of design. So great job there and can’t wait to see more!

Azura Eveley
First Impression: A
How well are instructions followed: B
Coherency, Incorporation, and Quality: B
Creativity of design: A+
Total Points: 18
The main places you lose points are quality and instructions. Overall because the sprites were shrunk down for some reason it makes the pictures very grainy which destroys the quality. You also didn’t follow the instructions entirely, which doesn’t hurt your first impression score because I didn’t realize it at first, but does hurt your instructions score. All these pokemon are final stage pokemon, whereas the directions asked for a first stage, a second stage, and a final stage. But otherwise you did very well. Like Sarah, you had a theme, which got you bonus points, and you had the actual sprites there too which also helped you. The sprites look great recolor wise as well and overall you did great. Better yet you can even get bonus points next round if you use these guys again since there’s no stage requirement for the second challenge.

Coru
First Impression: A+
How well are instructions followed: A
Coherency, Incorporation, and Quality: A+
Creativity of design: A
Total Points: 27
You did great all around. While you didn’t have a theme, the first impression on these guys was great. Personally, I think Ponyta looks the best, but they’re all great. You followed the instructions, made the recolors look seamless, and used photoshop which was a program you were uncomfortable with. If you need any tips for doing sprite work in photoshop, feel free to ask since that’s the program I use and it’s great for recolors and fusions with tools like contiguous paint bucket.

Caite-chan
First Impression: A
How well are instructions followed: A+
Coherency, Incorporation, and Quality: A
Creativity of design: A
Total Points: 28
For having not done this in a while you did a great job. You even exploited a loophole I unknowingly put in the rules which gets you extra points. Overall, the recolors look almost like shiny forms for the pokemon if you didn’t know any better. You also get kudos in the creativity for using more than just the three pokemon that are the bases. Can’t wait to see more from you!

[Coru]

Well done guys! We all definitely did our teams proud. Nice one Caite for using that loophole, didn't notice it until just when Noble pointed it out. haha.

[Caite-chan]

I don't even know what loophole that is other than sheer dumb luck...lol.

[Noblejanobii]

I don't even know what loophole that is other than sheer dumb luck...lol.

So when I was writing up the challenge, I meant for you to pick three pokémon and switch those pokemon's palettes. But I was vague enough in my instructions that you could actually use other palettes entirely like you did.