The sprite practice thread.

[Obscure_Trash]

I don't think it's bad! At all. But your shading should follow the texture of the egg, not create a new texture. ^^

 

It can help to look at current DC eggs and see how some of them are shaded. Where they're shaded, what kinds of shades are used, how many high/lowlights, etc. It can also help to look at objects in real life and see how light and shadow interact with them. :3

[Tango]

 

Crits? Happy to let people redline over this to show me, I'm a visual learner and don't understand words no good. One thing I do know is wrong is the sharp angle in the end of the tail, I just didn't have time to fix.

[Sundew]

That looks really good! I don't have time to redline at the moment, but the first things I noticed:

 

-The muzzle looks very long, not sure if this was intentional

-The front leg farthest from the viewer could stand to be moved behind the chest a bit more

-and yeah, as you mentioned the tail lines need polishing

 

--

 

please help with the shading on this, I can't seem to get it or the colors right and it's driving me crazy

 

/

[Skellybones]

You need some more shadow all around the body- you've used a lot of highlight, which makes it difficult to distinguish where the light source should come from. You used your darker tones sparingly, leaving you with strange little patches of dark where there should be balance between the two. I love your rib definition, and the detail on the head is great!

You could probably lighten the line on its neck, as it seems to split the dragon up a bit more?

 

To fix your shadows, you could lower the colour pallet by one shade on areas that should be darker? I do that on some of mine, and it keeps the contrast and the range you want, while giving it the appearance of being in more of a shadow than other parts.

 

 

I guess on the one with different colours, just increase your contrast a bit more...? You've got a lot of contrast on the one without the different colours, but far less on the other. I'm not sure though, I don't tend to work on dragons with huge amounts of different colours >.<

 

I'm no expert on this stuff, I'm still trying to figure out shading myself o.o

[Sundew]

Thank you! I wasn't expecting such a detailed response.

 

Is this better?

 

-->

[Skellybones]

Yes! You have the range of shadows now, and there's a much better balance between the lights and darks.

I think the legs are still a bit too bright though, especially the lower parts.

[Tango]

Some updates and colouring. I dunno, I feel like the body is too big or bulky?

 

Edited June 3, 2016 by Tango

[Ashywolf]

Some updates and colouring. I dunno, I feel like the body is too big or bulky?

 

If you are starting out my advice is to only use 4 colours at most. The middle colour, a highlight, and one or two shades. You have 2 highlights, a middle colour, and 4 shades here, which makes the sprite harder to work with.

 

You also want a sprite to look clean. There are several dark lines which could be paler, for instance the muscle lines including the tail line, and the top of the arms. At the moment these sudden dark lines on a pale background are very jarring.

Edited June 8, 2016 by Ashywolf

[Tango]

If you are starting out my advice is to only use 4 colours at most. The middle colour, a highlight, and one or two shades. You have 2 highlights, a middle colour, and 4 shades here, which makes the sprite harder to work with.

 

You also want a sprite to look clean. There are several dark lines which could be paler, for instance the muscle lines including the tail line, and the top of the arms. At the moment these sudden dark lines on a pale background are very jarring.

I was trying to make it look smoother - next sprite I make I'll stick with 4 shades!

 

Ok this probably the final edit and next I'll start to make a new sprite to practice with:

 

 

I blended the lines in more, and colours and such. If I submitted this dragon to be added to the cave, what would you guys suggest in terms of spritework? What would I theoretically need to change?

[Skellybones]

So I'm here for a mixture of stuff, mostly just crit on the sprite, but also some small questions about the concept itself, as this is an idea for a dragon that will probably make an appearance in dragon requests once I finish one of the ones I'm already working on.

 

It's based off the Quetzalcoatlus.

 

 

Any crits on lines/anatomy/colours?

 

Goes up to 120 in height because of the long neck. I'm also doing a smaller version for a comparison, so that may appear later.

I think it may be too similar to the dinosaur, but it didn't look right without a long neck. Any ideas on how I can make it more dragon-like?

Edited June 26, 2016 by Shadowwolf6

[Obscure_Trash]

I'm... Hm. I'm really confused about the anatomy. The neck is like 10x larger than the arms/legs (perhaps an illusion from the neck frill?). (Also, the neck has some too-thick lines where the design meets the outline. Same with the frill at the top of the head.) And it seems really... stumpy? Like, I'm not really sure how its wings are supposed to function. o.o

 

I mean, overall, the lines are gorgeous. I agree you have problems with it looking like a dragon, though. I think most of what does that for me is the unrealistic head shape that ends in a sharp point. It just overall gives the creature a pretty cartoon-y feeling. As well, heads are really the selling point for being a dragon for a lot of dragons, so I would just work on fixing its anatomy up. ^^

[sapphiredragon73]

Crits on this? He's done and I won't be changing anything, but I'd like to know how I could improve for the future.

 

 

**art and character are both mine.

[Obscure_Trash]

I like him! He's pretty dark, though. I have a hard time making him out, particularly his face. Also not sure what's going on with the shading on the wing because that is some drastic... "contrast". xP

[sapphiredragon73]

Ah, his wing is a gradient from red to dark grey to red again. I see what you mean by his dark coloration, though. Thanks for the input!

[ZelenPixel]

So I can post this here?

Just made this for test. The sprite came out slightly oversized.

How much problems there is? The wing is supposed to be slightly folded, similar to this. And the wing is supposed to look like a sparrow wing, but I don't know how to do that.

Also an egg.

 

[Guillotine]

Can someone put into words what exactly is off with this thing's tail? I can tell that it needs work but I can't pinpoint how to fix it. The rest I know how to tweak (like those twiggy forelimbs), but I want to get the tail finalized first.

 

[Lemniscate]

I've never sprited anything more than a few flat pixels, but I think the tail looks a bit pointy at the bottom edge. Like, at the point where it starts curving up, the bottom line of the tail looks a bit off. Aside from that, I'm not really sure.

 

I'm not schooled in sprites by any means but hopefully my opinion helps?

[Guillotine]

Yeah, now that you've described it I see the problem. Thanks, it was a huge help!

[Obscure_Trash]

Mashabely -

 

The biggest problem I see is that the sprite actually suffers from a small case of hangbutt. The wings need to connect further down on the rump, rather than ending right before it (I'm guessing this is an artifact of the reference you used). Also, yeah, it's gonna be hard to get a clear feathered texture in a sprite that small. xDragonia has done a really good job doing feathers on the dove pygmy. Those wings are fully displayed but would be good for you to look at as a reference for spriting small feathers. ^^

 

Guillotine -

 

For the tail specifically, the two issues I see are:

- Lines need smoothing (the wing lines are quite good but the tail and neck, in particular, need smoothing)

- The tail is thicker than the front legs, contributing to an overall wonky perspective of the sprite

[DragonOfTea]

Hello! I recently created a thread featuring my sprites, probably should've looked around the board first.

 

 

 

Crits?

 

Also, here's a link to the thread - https://forums.dragcave.net/index.php?showtopic=176553

Edited October 26, 2016 by dedbutliving

[Robot Chimera]

I removed the shading layer because it was..bad. How's this look though for unshaded?

 

I have no idea how to shade correctly.

Edited November 6, 2016 by Robot Chimera

[Obscure_Trash]

Hello! I recently created a thread featuring my sprites, probably should've looked around the board first.

 

 

 

Crits?

 

Also, here's a link to the thread - https://forums.dragcave.net/index.php?showtopic=176553

What do you want crits on? Shading? Lining? If the style is consistent? Because the most obvious thing that pops out is anatomy, but I'm guessing that is a part of your style. ^^

 

The top one is a little dark and would benefit from some highlights, but both sprites are cute! I really like your unique style. :3

[Obscure_Trash]

I removed the shading layer because it was..bad. How's this look though for unshaded?

 

I have no idea how to shade correctly.

It looks good! The tail and the chest could use some smoothing, but overall the lines are very neat and composed.

I think the legs lack wrists, so those could use some more definition, but overall, that would be my only crit on the anatomy.

 

Very neat concept. ^^

[Ventuaer]

Well, never was a spriter....So, here are my tries...

Hope all of the pictures work :'D

If someone is inderested, I created those in SAI.

[flockof-doves]

do my ducks on my sig count as sprites? probably not lol but i was just messing with firealpaca when i made them (and ikikik i have to fix Poison's (the first one) skin colour it's grey and just)