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[poe]

I know some of the basics but when I look at other works I'm still confused sometimes.

So I guess I'll just ask questions, and do a sprite a day sort of thing here. For now, can anyone explain why some sprites use different colored outlines, and when that is appropriate?

Example (The snorlax near his ears and at his feet):

http://www.spriters-resource.com/gameboy_advance/pokefrlg/overworldpkmn.png

[Kramlack]

The colours are different around the ears and top of the feet because it's supposed to represent the light coming down on the object. There's no good or bad time to use it, just good and bad ways of actually using the technique.

[poe]

Thanks for the help Kramlack!



I think it just ended up looking too glossy, but it is better than the first one I had at least . So where would I go from here to add more detail? Or is the object I chose just too detail-less?

[green]

I'm guessing it's a mailbox? Well I think it has enough detail for such a small sprite.
Normally I tell people to use more contrast, but you could do with less. Especially on the blue outline.


Here's a redo of your sprite. I hope it helps. If you need any extra information on how or why, just ask.

[poe]

Thanks that's very helpful, I'll keep at it and see what I can do. Oh and I remember you from your stream, I love your work!

[poe]

I tried using an NES palette. I used Zelda Links Awakening as reference for the shapes of things. Is it too similar?

[poe]

Trying again to make it less like Zelda.

[SolarLune]

The grass is pretty nice, but the bricks are a bit 'shiny'. Maybe it's because they're perfect - try adding some shadows, or bricks sticking out. The key looks alright, but the prongs are kind of long. The treasure chest is pretty solid. Nice tiles! And it doesn't look that much like Zelda to me.

[poe]

Did I go overboard?

[SolarLune]

A bit, I think, though it is improved. It's hard to convey so much detail on images with so little space - that's why the grass is good. For GBC and NES, making full on grass blades every frame would be awkward.

Here's an edit of what I thought. I pushed a brick out to make it less monotonous, though this shouldn't be done ALL of the time like below - it should be a different tile that you can use to break it up. The bricks seemed a bit too small to make actual highlights, though it might be possible and better-looking to do so. I also added some lighting that just swaps the colors - what is the dark area of the 'normal' brick is the main area of the brick on the dark side. Black becomes its shadow color.

Anyway, I just edited the main bricks and the doorway.



EDIT: Crud, I forgot to shade the right single-width roof tile.

Anyway, that's just my thought on it. It's a cool tile-set. I like it a lot.

[poe]

Alright so now I want to make the same set but essentially at a higher resolution. I started but then realized I don't really know how to add detail at a higher resolution :<



Also the palette came from here on tigsource, I assume it is okay to use :S

[poe]

Gave up on that previous set I suppose.



This time I actually made a map with the tiles I made

[Yrgkala]

Waves are a tricky subject that tend to look like cardboard cutouts unless you really know what you're doing; by default it's better to go for flat water; this also makes the hitbox borders clearer to the player.

Your chest & fire are outlined with a slightly darker shade of the same colour; that leaves an awkward pillow-shadey impression.

Things like brick irregularities are best not described by regular tilings but by some other method (several brick block subtypes in level description, manually (or with level editor help) irregularly placed? One brick block type in level description, for which subtypes are determined randomly run-time with the coordinate of the block as seed? A huge (larger than level) manually pre-made texture, from which a brick block masks visible the corresponding area? etc).

[poe]

Ignoring the fact that the side and top wouldn't normally go together, how do these textures look? Not sure if there's something I'm not doing right but it seems a bit off to me.

Brick texture is heavily inspired by Eld Pack (Shape not style) http://www.eldpack.com/