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Maklo
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this may sound stupid but how do I make eyebrows I suck at it

If you have any questions about how to sprite or are looking for critique then please make a separate topic. This topic is for spriting resources, not for spriting questions.

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If you have any questions about how to sprite or are looking for critique then please make a separate topic. This topic is for spriting resources, not for spriting questions.

oh ok sorry :D, i think i've gotten over this problem anyways

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  • 5 weeks later...

1. Lumi's Google Docs spriting tutorial link doesn't work.

2. Are there any guides to basic customizing? There's certain things that the GBA sprites don't cover, but there's no way I'm putting out my current work in progress in public (it's pretty atrocious).

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1. First post hasn't been updated for over 2 years.

2a. Reference GBA sprites for some example of the texture/object/placement you want to get an idea of how light plays on it, colors to use. Not necessarily for direct splicing, but as reference.

2b. Pi's video tutorials for building from scratch http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWGAeoCsqrQ

2bb. Other people might have tuts/examples too, depending on whose style in particular you like?

2c. Guess it would help to know what sort of customing you're up to. (How bad can it be?)

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2c. Hair customizing: I am completely and utterly lost. Tell me to "look at something and mimic it" isn't going to work, because I have no understanding of WHY it works. The splicing tutorials explain the why, which is how I was able to pick it up. I'll check out the videos, so thanks~!

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Regular art tutorials would probably help a lot with shape, shading, and color theory; I'd probably suggest brushing up on some of those, too.

Hair is kind of a really...general category. It really depends on the hairstyle you're trying for, since there're different approaches to hair textures, style, volume, color, etc. Do you have a more specific hair-do?

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Regular art tutorials would probably help a lot with shape, shading, and color theory; I'd probably suggest brushing up on some of those, too.

Hair is kind of a really...general category. It really depends on the hairstyle you're trying for, since there're different approaches to hair textures, style, volume, color, etc. Do you have a more specific hair-do?

Hmmm. . .how should I put this. . .I can't draw a face, but I can splice one. I can't splice a tree, but I can draw one. My brain refuses to make the connection between the two, and it's driving me up the wall. As for the hair, I'm having problems outlining it. I've tried using references in the past, but that's turned out. . .uh, badly.

EDIT: I got REALLY frustrated and started freehanding wildly. . .and it turned out better than a pixel-by-pixel attempted sketch. By refining the freehand, I was able to get a rough outline of what I wanted, which in turn led to something closer to what I had in mind. I should finish this, uh, eventually. This is a one-off thing, so I'll link to what it's for, rather than make an entire topic for it. Thanks for the suggestions, though~! If I notice that anyone else has problems in this department, I'll attempt to explain my thought process, but I am NOT a natural artist!

Edited by eclipse
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I personally recommend people to not outline hair. Block it out. Block out the individual strands and shapes and blobs, then shade it according to how you feel. Outline comes last, since it pretty much means nothing aside from giving the rest of the sprite a concrete border from the background.

Old sprite, but quick example:

3LfAa.png

Base mug (blocked)

3LfAo.png

Blocked in the hair shape

3LfNc.png

Blocked in shading. Also changed the shape of the front bangs a bit.

...and then kinda shade. It'd take too long to shade the entire thing as an example, but I hope that kind of helps.

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That kind of explanation is something that's helpful, but not something that I can wrap my mind around. I see things from the outside in, so I wouldn't be able to draw a block of hair I'd be comfortable with shading - I'd go right back to outlining it, because that's what I'm more accustomed to working with. I think it'll help others, so thanks~!

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  • 1 year later...

Ok so I tried making a tutorial on how to make simple mountains, hopefully this helps some people out. Before we start some of the beginning steps are almost stupidly short, so hope you don't mind that. Also I am very liberal with the word "Square".

Step Zero: Which Tiles will we use?

Ok so first off which tiles are we gonna use for this mountain. Like I said this is gonna be a simple mountain, so I won't be showing you how to use all the tiles mostly because I don't know how to use all of them. So these are the tiles we are gonna use:
Base_1.pngBase_2.png
On the left are the mountain tiles, with the ones we won't use scratched out in red. On the right are the ones we will use, each surronded by a color, I'll be referencing the colors a lot so you'll probably want to have that open.
For reference here is what each color means:
Dark Blue: Starting Tiles
Purple: Range Tiles

Light Blue: Peak Tiles

Green: Transition Left Tile
Yellow: Transition Right Tile
Pink: Border Tiles
Orange: Mountain Tiles

Step One: Starting your Mountain

So now we start our mountain. So pick a tile in the Blue Square, one of the starting tiles, I recommend starting with one on the bottom row. In my case I'm starting with the one on the bottom left.
1_Step_1.png

Congratulations you completed step one of this tutorial! :newyears:

Step Two: Mountain Ranges.

Now to keep your mountain going you have to use Range tiles, the ones in the Purple Square. You place it above your starting tile, usually. How many range tiles you use depends on you, given that this is a simple mountain I went with one.

1_Step_2.png


Step Three: Peaks

Now come Peak tile, the ones in the Light Blue Square. Peaks are what stands out the most in a mountain tiles, at least when I look at one, and you may notice that there are two blue light boxes. I'll explain some of the differences now and some in another part. First off, look at both of the squares, notice how some of the tiles have a little groove in the top left corner? That little groove is to move your mountain range to the left, which will become important in the next step. For now, you can just pick any of them. I picked one of the one in the smaller square. You place the Peak Tiles above a range tile, at least the ones in the Light Blue Square anyway.

1_Step_3.png

Step Four: Moving Left

So you have a basic mountain range and you've placed a peak. Now you have to decide, you want the mountain to go left? or do you want it to go right? or both? This part is about going left. To move left you want one of the tiles in the Green Square. Now there are two sets of tiles that can move you too the left, I'll explain the Upper Green Square first. You place the tile one tile above and one tile left of your peak tile.

1_Step_4_Moving_left_1.png

So see how the little groove from the tile I choose lines up with the new tile? That's part of what the groove is for.

You can also use the tiles in the Lower Green Square to move your range even more to the left.

1_Step_4_Moving_left_2.png

Now what I did here was place one of the Lower Green Square tiles next to my peak tile. See how the groove lines up with new tile to make it look like there's a sideways peak? That's the other part of what the groove is for. To make the mountain go up again you need to place one of the Upper Green Square Tiles like it shows in the image. Now you can place more than one of the Lower Green Tiles, for example if you place two it would look like this:

1_Step_4_Moving_left_3.png

I'll stick with one for now cause I think it looks better.

Step Five: Moving Right

Ok so we've covered moving left. Now comes moving right. There's really only one tile you need for this, the tile in the Yellow Square. Place it to the right of the your peak tile.

1_Step_5_Moving_right_1.png

Now if you look at our mountain you may notice that there's something off with the shadows of our mountain. See how the peak tiles I picked has shadow in the top right corner but the tile next to it has light on it? To fix this we need a new Peak Tile. Now here are some of the peak tiles from the top Light Blue Tiles.

Light_Blue_Tiles_2.png

Notice how they all have light in the top right corner? These are the Tiles you use when you're moving your mountain to the right. Also notice how some of them don't have grooves in the top left corner for when you're not moving to the left. So now we change our peak tile for one of these.

1_Step_5_Moving_right_2.png

That looks better. Now to continue the mountain you just place a range tile above it. Like so:

1_Step_5_Moving_right_3.png

That looks pretty good.

Step Six: Borders

Now, Borders. basically this defines how big your mountain is. Border Tiles are in the Pink Square. Now you can make your border almost any way you want, though as you don't want your mountain to be too big.

1_Step_6_Making_Borders_Right.png

Dark Tiles go to the right of the mountain, the best way you can get the grasp of this is to experiment, also note that there are alot more dark tiles than light ones, so it's easier to make the right side of the mountain interesting.

1_Step_6_Making_Borders_Left.png

Now Light Tiles go to the left of the mountain, again the best way to get a feel for these is to experiment.

Step Seven: Filling in the Mountain

What it says on the tin. Mountain tiles are divided into Dark tiles, Light tiles and Mixed/Transition tiles, just like with border tiles light goes on the left, and dark tiles go on the right. Mountain tiles are in the Orange Square.

1_Step_7_filling_in_the_mountain.png

You can just spam most of the Dark and Light tiles and then change one or two. Mixed tiles however are a bit different. It's kinda hard to tell but our peak tile is half shadow (on the left side) and half light (on the right side). Now to cover this we need to use a mixed tile. Some of these tiles are kinda funky, and there are some places where you'll never get an exact fit or maybe you'll have three different ways to do it and you can't decide. Here I choose to do this:

1_Step_7_filling_in_the_mountain_curved_

Now that we've separated the dark and light parts of the peak, we can fill in the shadow tile that's missing.

1_Step_8_realizing_this_mountain_is_terr

There we go.


Step Eight: Admiring your handiwork/Valleys between mountains

Now you want to look at your mountain. And feel good for making it.

1_Step_8_realizing_this_mountain_is_terr

At about this point I realized that this mountain is terrible. It's sorta blocky, the border on the left side is way to big and it doesn't really look good IMO. So you change it.

1_Step_8_Ok_this_is_better.png

Here's what I ended up with, I tried using only things I showed in this tutorial (I cheated once but it'll show up in "Notes" just below this). Hopefully when you look at this new one you can see what I did. Somethings you should note though:

-See here where I go from dark border to light border?

Dark_to_light_transition.png

Basically when you want to switch between borders like this (you'll mostly do it when you have a valley between to mountains) you place a Dark border tile, a Mixed tile and a Light border tile. It changes depending on how you're doing it, but this is a pretty good example.

-The change from dark tiles to light tiles between the two mountains is important here, how many dark tiles you place determines the hieght of the new mountains (this is finicky, but generally the more dark tiles a mountain has the higher it is).

"Notes": Now some things about tiles that I didn't mention above.

- Look at the Blue square, see the tile in the top left corner? To start with that tile you need to do two things.
1. Put a Dark Border tile to the left of it
2. Instead of starting your mountain above your starting tile, you start one tile to the left, and one tile to the left. If you look at the final mountain I showed you'll see an example of this.

- Ok so you may have noticed that some tiles have this weird lines on them. Example:

Light_Blue_Tiles_2.png

See how the second and fourth tiles have these lines in the bottom left corner? Basically it has to do with how high that tile is. In theory tiles that are higher than others have no lines, cause there smoother or something. A good example of this is chapter 12 of FE8 Eirika Route. It's not mandatory but it's something to keep in mind.

Hope this helps someone, and thanks for reading.

Edited by Matt Snow
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I like it! I have absolutely no problem with making maps... Until it comes to mountains!

I'll follow your tutorial's method for my next maps. It's not hard, and it looks pretty good.

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Oh, hey, now I don't have to make this anymore. Cool.

I like this, though I have a few gripes with it. First off, I disagree with a lot of the peak tiles you crossed out. The vast majority are perfectly usable, once you do a little experimenting. I noticed that you didn't talk about peak "shading" at all. What I mean is some of the peak tiles are colored lighter than others. Several of the tiles on the left that you crossed out just need a proper transition of lighter to darker shading.

I guess these issues are best explained with pictures?

[spoiler=Peak Shading]

CSuJlAO.png

Basically, it's a way to make your peaks more interesting instead of the same color the whole way through.

I also decided to be a bit of a jerk and show examples of some of the tiles you crossed out in action. :B

[spoiler=Examples]

qsKm28T.png

The red boxed tiles are stuff that you've crossed out.

Be careful when saying a tile is unusable.

Moral of the story: Don't be afraid to experiment!

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Thanks Solum :).

About the crossed off tiles I just wanted to cover how to make a simple mountain, I tried making a complete tutorial once and it ended up stupidly long. I'm not saying that you shouldn't use those tiles, just I won't use them in the tutorial, hope it didn't come off that way. As for the peak shading I mention it in like one line in the notes part, but your explanation is much better XD. Thanks for the critique.

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  • 7 months later...

So... Thought I might as well share these tutorials I have read and would recommend for anyone doing battle sprites or pixel art and general...

[spoiler=Helpful Tutorials]
Here's a good tutorial on use of colors in pixel art and spriting... and some others that may be a bit more advanced... but good reads anyways...

Thinking in Color
-Excellent easy to understand tutorial on how colors effect your pixel art/sprite. Definitely worth the read!

Derek-Make Games: 10 step custom sprite tutorial
-great quick, easy tutorial on custom pixel art/sprites.

So you Wanna be a Pixel Artist? 11 part series.
-A bit wordy, but very well done in-depth look at the world of pixel art in general, from map tiles to sprites to animations.


BwdYeti's tutorials are very recommended reads as well. Please share if you know of any other excellent tutorials! :D

...so here are the links to BwdYeti's custom battle sprite tutorials. Shared with his permission. I found his second tutorial, along with the Thinking in Color very fascinating on palletes... Hoping to apply those to my next couple sprites now that I understand it a bit better.

BwdYeti's Custom Battle Sprite Tutorial #1
-kinda old, from before 2009... But a great look at the process of creating custom battle sprites from the Best Battle Spriter around... Then and now.

Yeti's custom tutorial #2
-his second tutorial, even better than the first! Great tips on creating a custom pallete that fits with GBA battle sprite colors. A must read for anyone doing battle sprites!

EDIT: Seeing L95's post... I might as well share this sheet I found from the fine rippers on the Spriters Resource site forums.

[spoiler=All GBA standing sprites]

BattleSprites-All-FE678-CorrectColors_zp

...figure most of us have the original sprite sheets, but helpful to have them all for easy reference. I've gotta fix the sheet eventually, or post a correct color version, instead of the way they've recolored a number of them to hero blue. :\

Edited by TheErrantShepherd
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