HD Sprite Pixel Over project.

[Suicune's Fire]

Hey Xanthe, what's up? Well, good luck with reserving all those mons, hahahah. Thanks for volunteering! And yes, these are basically meant to be as-close-to-exact-as-reasonable to the originals; as if they were the same exact thing but enlarged.

Not much. 8D You?

AWW. Well...do we have to use Black and White 2 sprites? :C I haaaaate the new flareon sprites...like...all of them since Fire Red/Leaf Green. They're all stupidly coloured too. :C Also I think you're inaccurate since your pixel overs look waaaaaaaaay better than the official sprites they're modelled after. XD

Also ever since you recommended Gale, I've been using it. XD

And well done, TheProtobabe! You've really, really significantly improved from your first attempt! 8D

~SF.

[TheProtobabe]

Okay, for right now I'd like to reserve four Pokemon: Raikou, Luxio, Luxray, and Lugia.

EDIT: Replaced Eevee with Lugia.

[TheProtobabe]

I'm not sure if you got any of my messages, Speed, but I have a sprite for you to look at before I submit it. Here it is in case you didn't see it yet, along with Lugia's normal sprite that also needs approved:

-Luxio (Female)



-Lugia

[SassySnivy]

I apologize for my absence; I have not been on a computer, even, for the past couple of days. I have been quite busy. I promise I will get right back with you when I have time, which will likely be tomorrow afternoon or more likely, tomorrow evening.

If I get around to it, I will try to find a better screen capture-video program with speaker audio, like...one that will actually freaking record the entire damned file. I swear, last time I did it I took an hour or so to finish the Cottonee; when I wrapped it up and decided to save it, it said it was invalid. =_= Gotta love technology! If anyone's got an idea for a good screen capture program let me know by VM--or, if my internet bandwidth even allows it, I can start a join.me stream.

[Kyte]

Is this making these from scratch? If so ya'll are awesome. I need to learn how to do this!

[TheProtobabe]

I apologize for my absence; I have not been on a computer, even, for the past couple of days. I have been quite busy. I promise I will get right back with you when I have time, which will likely be tomorrow afternoon or more likely, tomorrow evening.

If I get around to it, I will try to find a better screen capture-video program with speaker audio, like...one that will actually freaking record the entire damned file. I swear, last time I did it I took an hour or so to finish the Cottonee; when I wrapped it up and decided to save it, it said it was invalid. =_= Gotta love technology! If anyone's got an idea for a good screen capture program let me know by VM--or, if my internet bandwidth even allows it, I can start a join.me stream.

Ahh, I see. Well, no rush or anything. You'll just have a stack of sprites to look at when you come back :P

Is this making these from scratch? If so ya'll are awesome. I need to learn how to do this!

Not entirely from scratch, we use the base of the original Pokemon sprite. But as far as how I do it, I re-draw the image larger and repixel over that, trying to emulate the original style of the sprite. So, yes and no, I guess? I'm probably going to create a tutorial as to how I do it, though I am by no means very good yet XD

EDIT: Pending sprites.

Pending Judgment

-Luxio



-Luxray



-Lugia



-Raikou

[Kyte]

Not entirely from scratch, we use the base of the original Pokemon sprite. But as far as how I do it, I re-draw the image larger and repixel over that, trying to emulate the original style of the sprite. So, yes and no, I guess? I'm probably going to create a tutorial as to how I do it, though I am by no means very good yet XD

Bah! You're stuffs good! I like the luxray! I wanna learn to altar some and make my own shiny versions. Lol I'm a big fan of red and some shiny version are just meh!

[TheProtobabe]

I created a tutorial! This is my method. You don't have to do it this way, and I might now be doing a lot of things right, but it's how I do it. Hopefully it helps!

Steps 1-6

Spoiler:

Steps 7-12

Spoiler:

Steps 13-18

Spoiler:

Steps 19-24

Spoiler:

Steps 25-31

Spoiler:

[SassySnivy]

Okay guys, hold up really quick on the posting. Please; I need to make a video tutorial and evaluate the stuff that Protobabe has. Thanks. ^^;

Wow. This program failed on me too! AUGH AND IT WAS SO GOOD TOO. FEEECCCKKKK. I'm claiming Ditto for the sake of another freaking video.

[SassySnivy]

Okay guys, my apologies. I had a LOT of technical difficulties, but managed to record a complete tutorial. I tried my best to answer as many questions as possible, but let me know if you have any more.

I didn't use YouTube. Was gonna take too damned long to upload videos. Sorry.

Spoiler:

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

I also critiqued your stuff a little bit, Protobabe; it's so much easier to do so via screencap and audio.

I sincerely hope this helps you guys.

As a result, Ditto and Victini are finished.


I choose...Pansage, Pansear, and Panpour.


Now to update the first post.
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Oh my god, are you freaking kidding me? THE AUDIO DID NOT RECORD. EVERYTHING IS GOING WRONG.
I'll explain, then.

Part 1
I go on to describe how much I hate technology and that this is my fiftieth try at trying to successfully record something. I show that I take the sprite and enlarge it in Paint and copy it into Graphics Gale, basically. I explained that I make a new layer, lower the opacity / alpha of the original layer, and use the layer on top to trace. I also mention that I have a tablet therefore makes drawing out the lines a little easier for me, in a way, but you guys can of course use whatever you feel comfortable with.

Since I had already finished the Ditto (and part of the Victini) in two other (unsuccessful) recordings, I explain that you want to try to make the shading as similar as possible. However, sometimes you want to add exceptions. The smaller sprites have to sacrifice some details because of the size limit: if all of the little nitpicky things were included to such an obsessive level, the sprite would be a cluttered mess, and would not be readable at all.

I then explain, with Victini, the importance of "buffer shades," aka using anti-aliasing. With Victini's original sprite, note that the two colors for its eyes look just fine. Use only those two colors for the larger version, though, and it doesn't translate well. This should be used only on rare occasions; usually I would try to use an existing shade to use for anti-aliasing, but since the blue and the rest of Victini's colors were on opposite ends of the color hue spectrum, I was forced to make my own color inbetween the two blues.

Explaining that contrast will sometimes translate differently when you are going from smaller to larger, therefore a lot of the time you may need to lower / add more contrast (by making the shade of interest lighter or darker).

I'm then explaining why I use a white outline around my work: it is mainly because it will make it look more attractive on any background color, because in a way, that white is acting as a background color. It's very difficult to, with pixel art, shade the outlines in but still make them friendly with any color of background. This is a simple solution to that.

.:MOST IMPORTANT SECTION:.
I find Protobabe's method interesting. But nonetheless, when you have pixelled over the trace you made, you still need to compare it to the original sprite and revise it when necessary. The eyes on your Raikou vs. the original is a prime example. Also, the very farthest leg.

I then explain that the lighter purple is not necessary, and warn you guys to be careful of banding and pillow-shading. View the first link in the OP if you need to know what those two things are.

Lugia's head--despite the fact that yes, it should be a little bigger because it is a little closer to the viewer than the body is--is a bit too large. I also mention that Luxio's head looks really squished.

Part 2
And I really, really like the turnout of Luxray; however, there is something that is needed to be kept in mind: always, always, always, use a bigger reference picture to look at every now and then when you do these. If you look at the pupils of the Shinx line--and trust me, at first I wasn't even aware of this, hahahah--they are not solid color. They are "hollow," so-to-speak.

I started to finish Victini to show you guys at least a little bit of how I'm doing these, but then am interrupted by an epiphany: there's something else I had to mention. at 2:42, I show you the "3, 2, 1, 2, 3" pattern that is pretty uniform for pixel art. However, sometimes, especially for slight curves and to make it so that some curves don't look like straight, polygonic angles, you need to break this streak. I show how this can be done. And then at around 6:18, I just kinda fix Luxio's foot up.

Part 3
I finish up Victini and revise things along the way.