Terra Branford

[Smash]

At spriting speed. Yeah.

Just look at this sample here. One fucking hour making a single pose.


*Dissidia addiction*
11 colors


For those who wondered why my works never got pass the concept part, this might be the answer. And it's just not spriting, but drawing and even when designing architecture at uni. I work at a snail's pace.

Good thing is that I always end up making great quality pieces. But either way, I can't rely on talent everytime (as it has failed before in crucial moments), and as direct consequence, im looking for ways to speed up my techs.

All advice is welcome, especially the ones regarding spriting methods.

[jimmyjw88]

Wow...Cecil Harvey? I plan to make him someday ^^
As far as the design goes, it looks great. Colours choice are very nice too. Though he is short hair now. I assumed that long hair is clashing with his body? ^^
Overall, great work.

EDIT: Yeah, you always comes up with great quality.

[Xifanie]

You are likely doing too much steps. Can you list them for a normal drawing/sprite? It may not feel like it because you're used to it, but there are probably steps we can fuse together or just remove completely.

Also working with MSPaint doesn't help.

It took me 10hours for my last drawing, but I'm kinda new to this. ^^'

[PX_Timefordeath]

Quality > Quantity my friend.

[jimmyjw88]

Well, took me a lot of hours to draw with lousy quality. So, TEACH ME!!!...........Please? ^^

[mav]

While I do agree that quality is definitely more important than speed, I can understand why this is frustrating: in the real world (and even here in the fake world) things need to get done on time, they need to be done with speed, and they need to be done well. You can make the greatest sprite in the world, but if it takes 10 years, no one's gonna stick around to wait. All I can suggest is to combine steps or to start simple and polish at the end. A lot of spriters get stuck adding so many details at the beginning, that they waste everyone's time. Start simple, edit, polish, and repeat until you get the desired results.

The most ironic thing about all this is that your mounds faster than the rest of us anyway.

This sprite is nice, but the palette seems a little too dull for my tastes, and it's a little flat looking too. I'm sure those 5 extra shades will perk this guy up...once you hit the polishing phase.  

[Smash]

You are likely doing too much steps. Can you list them for a normal drawing/sprite? It may not feel like it because you're used to it, but there are probably steps we can fuse together or just remove completely.

Steps?

Well, I rarely articulate my workflow. It doesn't have a specific proceidure, nor stages and presets most of the time; I do most of what you'd call steps randomly and pretty much mixed, probably because of my un-instructed ways.

Most of the time, I start with blobs or lineart, depending on the objective; then I proceed to bucket fill to show the intended colors or to chisel the main forms, and the rest is pretty much shading mixed with all the detailing and crap. Sometimes I tackle the job by areas, on others I go detailing first and then expand, and ect.

Also working with MSPaint doesn't help.

Elaborate

I've tried programs like Cosmigo Pro-motion (The best one, supposedly), and the only differences to paint have been all the fancy functions and features it has. But when all you need is a brush and zoom, it's the same thing.

Paint works well for me because of the auto-undo mouse button combination (draw and while keeping the mouse button pressed, click the opposite one to erase), and that both mouse buttons can draw. I haven't found a program who could best this yet.

[Smash]

I think it's the over-detailing I put into small sprites. *Cecil was scratch*


This came out in less than 40 minutes just moments ago..

[jimmyjw88]

Amazing!! I like the mountain, how you make it old, rocky, rusty kinda look.

[Jon]

Speed...I work fast, but my work comes out like crap on the first run every time. Just look at the first page where my Cannoneer is, over saturated to hell and back...and I still don't know how to shade. However, if you want to do things faster (and I feel really weird telling you this because in general I think you are probably the best/one of the best spriters on here) just do what I do: first if you are basing it off of an already existing sprite, try to get the colors right on all the poses, not just one, with the replace color tool (I have no idea if Paint even has this, that is why I use PS haha). Even if the whole thing looks so bad, it doesn't matter! All that matters is the color! Then, on the second pose, the much loved 3/4 view, edit things like hair first over and over, continiously undoing and randomly redrawing it. That is my secret technique. For example, when I made the Cannoneer's hat, I sort just twitched the touchpad around a couple times until I got lucky and got what I wanted. Some secret technique, huh? Then go for the shoes and legs, and save the body for last (actually do it in any order you want). Once you got your 3/4 view, for me the rest is all downhill. Hey Smash, if you could sometime, could you make a very detailed step by step tutorial on how to shade the way you do? You seem to see everything in a different light, and your skills surpass most Oh yeah, sorry for writing sooo much...

[mav]

That's a pretty cool piece, Smash. I see you're moving even further away from FFT's palette-types, which is good, and the cutout look definitely accentuates the uniqueness of this image. I have no tips for you man; if anything, you should be giving us [more] tips.

[Kaijyuu]

I have no good advice because I work at a snail's pace with whatever I do. However, I do want to comment on that piece -- I used to make those sort of things alll the time back in high school when dinking around on the computers :) Never quite that high in quality but still, it's fun to work with shapes and color contrast like that.

[Kupoe]

practice makes perfect. i can spit out a sprite in 30 mins. but its because i know what i need to do, in order to get it done, and ive already en-visualized what i need to do before i do it.  sometimes what ends up going wrong is you get stuck in conceptualizing a hazy idea, rather than trying get the idea down, you keep adding to the idea before it is even down, leading to a bogged up work pace.

[Smash]

Thought I would post my whereabouts. Black canvas, face anatomy, water, and effects practice.

[jimmyjw88]

Those are amazing!! Great water splashing effects. And that port is just very well done. I love the details of the hair. Brilliant!

[Smash]

Yeah, that hair was the equivalent of making 50 FFT styled portraits.

Both are wips, btw.

[jimmyjw88]

Lol. 50?? Wow!!! Just brilliant. WIP...hah..I can't wait to see them done ^^

[Vanya]

Nice! ^_^

[mav]

Good stuff, good stuff. I especially like the changes made to the landscape. The face is very, very well done. Even if these are the early stages of the WIP, they're fantastic.

[Smash]

The face was an early wip



It's changing fast.

And, I think this might be useful to everyone.