Esjitu's Sprites

[esjitu]

I'm new to the world of LF2-style sprites, this thread will be where I post my attempts at getting better with the style.

I'm a long-time pixel artist, but never worked in the style of LF2 sprites before...but I am thinking of attempting some characters of my own. I've been lurking a few days and I have to say I am amazed at some of what you guys can do, PF especially, you're really talented I can only hope I can improve to become half as good as you guys here as I experiment with the LF2 style

SPOILER: Click to show

This was my first attempt at doing a sprite of my character, Esjitu (AKA SG2 Tiger).



(Big version: i.imgur.com/0NXBA.png)

This is how I did it the first time:



Animated:



My second attempt, redrawing it without using the outline:



Third version, completely redone again, less fat and rounded shapes than the previous:



And here's my attempt at a human, my character Jihskan (or Jisk):



This is Lemmy. I wanted to experiment with different types of stances, and I think he came out well.

I'm crossing out all the original questions I asked since I'm just going to keep using my first post for new sprites, but I didn't want to delete it all

So what I did was look at Woody (not sure why I picked him specifically) as a base and blew it up twice in Photoshop, then started drawing my character's outline on top of it as a guide. But...I'm thinking this was an inefficient way to do it, by drawing an outline first (I recolored the lines after to be the same as the color fill)? Seems like most of the people here will draw blobs of color for shapes instead, I'm just not used to that, but I'm going to try it that way now. It would probably also take less time than drawing the outline first then coloring it in the way I did it...but it was when I got to trying to animate the breathing frames for the second frame that I got a little confused.

Do you guys usually draw the moving body parts on different layers or something? What's the best way to make the animation (I don't mean turning it into a GIF or something, I mean drawing the frames well)? I change the hair a little and redrew the arms and tail but somehow it looked weird to me. Mostly I was also concerned with, how do you shade all your frames and make it so the shading doesn't jump around? I just copied the first frame and redrew parts of it, because it was the best way I could think of. I think I will try again with colored blobs instead of drawing the outline, I'm just really not sure what the best way to start off is. Basically I'm asking, not for a step-by-step tutorial or anything, but for some basic advice on how to get started? Should I be using a bigger/smaller size to draw? Do you draw one frame and then slightly change it to make the alternate frames or do you draw them all first and then shade them after? Etc.

Sorry if I sound like a n00b. I'm very interested in learning to work on some LF2-style sprites, it's just different from what I'm used to doing pixel art sprites, and I thought it wouldn't hurt to ask the experts, because you guys are seriously impressive, from what I've seen.

[MeNmine]

Welcome !

Jan 16, 2013 0:54:22 GMT 2 esjitu said:

Do you draw one frameand then slightly change it to make the alternate frames

this is the method most of them follow . There might be other methods also which i might not know . by altering parts the animation looks consistent . For some complex movements you need to re draw most of the parts . Just make sure they are of same size so that the character doesnt look like it is made of rubber or jelly :-P . You can visit lfe an affiliate . Bunch of tutorials are available . Have fun spriting !

[prince_freeza]

first of all, welcome to 13thzone your looking to learn some spriting (lf2 style in particular) then you came to the right place.

but I just can't find a good tutorial for LF2 spriting.

not to worry, i am uploading a good amount of tut's soon (my stuff and others so you can have a perspective in spriting)

But it was when I got to trying to animate the breathing frames for the second frame that I got a little confused. Do you guys usually draw the moving body parts on different layers or something? What's the best way to make the animation (I don't mean turning it into a GIF or something, I mean drawing the frames well)?

yes for breathing frames, you simply modify body parts, you dont bother redrawing them all over again.. i have this old breathing tut, hope you can understand it XD i made it back when i was still learning too, but like i said ill upload an easier method soon.



outcome:


check out the animation on this breathing:



just a slight resize for the chest area >> a bit of rotation for the arms and your done.

but for some basic advice on how to get started? Should I be using a bigger/smaller size to draw?

you have these sizes which are common:
- 79x79 which is the default size for lf2 sprite. (means you sprite at the normal size with no resizing)
- 158x158 which is double the size for lf2 sprite (means you will hafta resize when you finish) this type is most common/popular around here.. since mr.marty wong used the same technique to create lf2.

- 400% this is like 79x79 blown up to 4 times bigger, not many use this but i seen some guys make the best of it.

Do you draw one frame and then slightly change it to make the alternate frames or do you draw them all first and then shade them after? Etc.

i dont know about others but as for me, like i said for breathing frames just alter some parts (rotate arms, lift torso, tilt head...etc)
but as for other frames i just redraw the whole frame from scratch (ofc using an lf2 base so i dont go off proportions)

if you noticed, some frames in the sprite sheets use repeated parts from other frams (head,torso,,,etc) so sometimes you can use stuff from other frames instead of drawing it all over again.

Edit: I made an animation to better explain the steps I took to make these. Again, I'm figuring I should probably skip the outline part and just start by making colored shapes, but I'm not sure.

pretty impressive, looks so clean and well made.. maybe you should try spriting at a smaller size? lets say at 158x158? this seems like too big which will cause your shading/details to be lost after you resize..

heres a quicky quicky maybe it'll give you an idea of what i mean.



also, try drawing over the outline, because its just a base to guide you it wont be a part of the sprite your making

hope this helps, i will provide more for you later as promised.

[mono]

actualy nice "

[esjitu]

Thanks for the tips, everyone...I'm thinking I'll try redrawing my sprites from scratch more in the method of PF's Vegeta example (particularly not using the outline as anything but a guide, I feel like that is part of where I went wrong). However I did decide to attempt animation with the sprite I'd already drawn (got rid of the second frame I posted before and just used my first one and the breathing tutorial)...I don't think it came out too bad honestly, here it is in big (I took PF's advice and only did it twice the size of default) and small:



(probably animated way too fast but whatever )

It's definitely not as subtle as LF2 style though...not sure how I feel about that. Definitely the left arm is too stiff (I didn't know until I animated it and was too lazy to fix it then...might try later ) but I feel like it looks pretty okay, the idea to give the chest some inhale/exhale effect looks good. But again it doesn't feel LF2 style to me...it feels a lot less subtle and I don't know if I like that or not.

So I do think I will try from scratch...but I wanted to give it a shot with this one first. Do you think it should be a little less busy, or this style is okay? I do like how the hair moves but again...LF2 breathing animations usually look a lot more subtle. Finding that style is hard for me because when I do pixel animations they're usually a little busier, like this. I think I will need to practice.

[YinYin]

Looks like you made the shoulders move a bit more than the whole arms/hands themselves.
Try to always move the arms as a whole at first and only later consider also bending them.
No original LF2 character has his arms bending during the breathing animation actually, so just don't bend them here.
(also I cannot really make out any elbows or other joints; not keeping such jointless limbs stiff in a simple animation makes them look pretty flappy, do you want that?)

About the outlines:
The way you work now they get lost in the final resolution and it looks ok.
If they help you a lot you can keep using them.
However I think it's easier and faster fixing shapes on an already finished sprite when there were no outlines involved (erasing parts from the outside and reshaping the sprite from the inside is a really fast process giving you direct feedback on your improvement, if you have to reconstruct an outline whenever you do that it will really hinder you from improving your sprites on the fly).

Also where is that trusty chainsaw?

[esjitu]

Hmm...I did lasso all the arms when I did it, maybe I shouldn't grab and rotate the shoulders. I agree with you about the jointless arms though...should look more realistic and less like a plush toy. Great, I have a few critiques in mind now...I think I will try to do one over from scratch now that I've gotten some pointers. I also agree speed-wise; doing what I did with the outline (recoloring it once I finished the shading) was an extra, time-consuming step, and so cutting that out of the process it's probably going to be a lot faster and efficient to make sprites. I do need to do an outline first just because I'm bad at visualizing the shapes the right way if I just start with colors only, but what PF showed in his example is probably the way I'd try it - outline over an LF2 base, then on a new layer make some colored blobs to work with. It might not hurt to keep the parts that move (like the arms in the breathing animation) on their own layer as well so they'll be easier to move...the way I did these ones, I had all my colors on the same layer, underneath my outline layer. It made shading quite a pain that way, too. I'm rethinking my method so that's good

Also where is that trusty chainsaw?

how do you know about my character having a chainsaw? (the answer to the question though is that I was thinking of only using it for special attacks and keeping the basic actions martial arts-based)

Edit: PF mentioned that my character Jihskan might make a good LF2 sprite so I decided to practice a bit by doing one of him...I traced over Bandit as a base because the 'fists up' pose suits him.



This time I used my outline as a guide and then drew colored blob shapes on different layers and tried to let the shading build the dimension. It actually did feel a lot faster and easier though admittedly it still feels weird to me since I'm not used to this style...I think he came out pretty good though all things considered

I didn't animate him yet but I probably will.

Okay I animated him and I think he came out pretty good feedback?

[YinYin]

Jan 17, 2013 20:42:58 GMT 2 esjitu said:

how do you know about my character having a chainsaw? (the answer to the question though is that I was thinking of only using it for special attacks and keeping the basic actions martial arts-based)

Doesn't take a genius to click a few links.

Anway I thought it would be pretty rad if he didn't pull it out of his ass at random and instead carried it all the time - pretty much turning it on as soon as he walks.
Never mind that tho, it might be a little too much on your first character.

Jan 17, 2013 20:42:58 GMT 2 esjitu said:

The animation is good. But he looks way too chubby. There are two things you can do about that if you like:
-first of all obviously make him slimmer or taller in general
-and second: use more pointy shapes; all your color shapes have round corners resulting in a puffy face, very baggy cloths and plumb hands

Also his irides are way to light and small.

[prince_freeza]

he looks chuby cause his head is bigger than his body, and its too low in his shoulders.. also, the scar looks like a nice after you resize the sprite, but am liking the breathing tho looks nice. id listen to yinyin about the more pointy shapes advice, your stuff will sure look better

[esjitu]

Alright, thanks for the feedback, both of you not sure if I'll actually change him, because it was more for fun and I wasn't planning to do a character out of him, but I can put the advice towards my future sprites. YinYin is definitely right on about the puffiness and rounded shapes. I think it would probably help if I used a smaller brush (doing in 2x sized canvas, using brushes between size 3 for fine details and 5 for filling in big blocks of color, maybe bump it down to 2 and 4).

Doesn't take a genius to click a few links.

I actually forgot I put a link to my board on my profile ^^;

Anway I thought it would be pretty rad if he didn't pull it out of his ass at random and instead carried it all the time - pretty much turning it on as soon as he walks.
Never mind that tho, it might be a little too much on your first character.

That's basically what I was thinking too, it might be a little bit more challenging for me to sprite until I get the hang of things. It has other attacks besides using the chainsaw anyways, though, so I was thinking it would be okay to pull it out of hammerspace when it's needed...the real challenge would be doing the rocket chainsaw attack

I did redo my tiger animation, but I'm reluctant to share it now because it's also very chubby, haha. Well, here it is.



I'm going to try and put the advice to use pointier shapes to use and maybe make this a bit less chunky as well. The previous version with the outline definitely looks a lot slimmer, but I like this one's animation a lot more, and it was faster to create. I did try to be a little more dynamic with the arms too, not just moving the whole thing stiffly but trying to move the upper and lower arms separate and give a better appearance of joints, though I'm not sure if it shows. It's also a lot more subtle when I don't try to animate the hair, just for a breathing animation at least - more dynamic actions would definitely have hair movement, but probably not just breathing.

Okay...still haven't given up. Redid the tiger completely once again, with pointier shapes...I think I finally did pretty good on this one.



The only thing that looks maybe weird to me is that the chest expands too much on the third frame but I think other than that it came out pretty nice

Also, I edited my first post to include all my sprites, in a spoiler tag.

[Arcane]

yo, pretty cool man, i like that ur so eager to learn and dont give up if sth doesnt look good the first time (too often i miss this attitude D: )

well, imo the last breathing animation u did looks great, its smooth and he is not so chubby anymore, i guess its time for walk or any other move

[esjitu]

Thank you mundvoll I'm not sure if I should do a walk cycle yet though, I'm thinking I should continue practicing with breathing animations for a little bit with some other characters until I think I am comfortable enough doing a good job with them, before I'm ready to try the more complicated cycles. I might try to redo Jihskan from my earlier post, or just try a new character, I'm not sure yet.

[prince_freeza]

Jan 21, 2013 21:25:42 GMT 2 esjitu said:

Thank you mundvoll I'm not sure if I should do a walk cycle yet though, I'm thinking I should continue practicing with breathing animations for a little bit with some other characters until I think I am comfortable enough doing a good job with them, before I'm ready to try the more complicated cycles. I might try to redo Jihskan from my earlier post, or just try a new character, I'm not sure yet.

also, make sure you sprite over existing lf2 sprites when doing new cycles besides breathing.. just to get comfortable with the proportions for a while.

also, agreed on the last animation being your best one so far.

[esjitu]

So I've been looking at fighting stance animations from various fighting games to try and get some ideas because I want to try more than the generic standing-and-breathing pose for my other characters...but I'm having some trouble still I think I need to go to bed and come back fresh tomorrow...but this is what I have so far, the character is Lemmy.



First off it's a bulkier pose but I still think I definitely drew him too chunky (again)...the hands are probably too big, too. But what was bugging me most was I am having the HARDEST time with shading the fists I just can't seem to get them to look right no matter what I do.

On the plus side I really love the way the head came out. But yeah...I think I need to start this one over anyways, so before I do, anyone have any pointers? I'm trying to go for a pose like this miniature sprite of KOF's Shingo:

[YinYin]

you already spotted most of your flaws

about the fists - if you can't shade them right yet: try going with boring spheres first, lf2 characters often only have spheres for their hands
once they look alright (especially their size) you can try to shape them

also something you might not have spotted yet: he's leaning way too much to the front
the body of your reference is upright, but your sprite looks like hes about to either fall over to the front or kneel down - not much of a stable stance