Spriting Competition II ~ Working With Limits

[Blyde]

Voting has begun! In order of appearance, let's get this show started, baby!

Mark the Echidna

WINNER with 5 votes

Kain

TRD

Ryan Cordel

someone2040

RUNNER-UP with 3 votes

zenor

Good luck, everyone!

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Following in the footsteps of the first spriting competition is this little idea that I've had. Since forever, colors have helped to define sprites and give them that extra edge. Back in the day, artists had to choose wisely, as the hardware dictated that they needed to work with a certain number of colors. Given the size of pixels, it was entirely possible to generate illusions of different shades with certain techniques such as dithering. Now I just had to write some introductory crap to get the [second] ball rolling, but this time, the spriting competition's theme is...

Anything

Yup, that's right. But what about that whole thing about colors? And limits? Well, very simply...while you can sprite anything you want, you are limited. In both size and colors.

You will be working with this palette to produce a 45x45 sprite of any character in the Sonic universe that you wish. There are certain guidelines to follow:

1. You MUST use 15 of the 16 colors on the palette. Reserve 1 color for transparency.

2. You many replace up to TWO colors with any other colors of your choice.

Here's a shoddy example I whipped up a little while ago of Silver the Hedgehog:

Here, I opted not to use the lightest peach shade, and replaced the pink color with a darker blue. 45x45, 15 colors, 1 transparency. Yes, you might notice the lack of blue. Sonic gets plenty of love...let's try to appreciate the other characters! (And no, I did not make this palette with Silver in mind.)

The deadline is Sunday, March 11th, in a week. I can't think of any good prizes, but this should flex your spriting muscles and explore the more technical side of pixelart.

Well, have fun everyone! Let's hope the turnout is better this time...

[TRD]

Congrats Blyde.

I'm in.

[Mark the Echidna]

[Blyde]

Whoah, speedy. That's a brilliant entry, Mark! Very well done!

[Kain]

Mixed feelings bout how this one turned out. True to my style (or should I say habit), it looks completely different every time and way you look at it :

Very interesting competition rules; made it quite fun. Especially that you must use at least 13 colors from the pallette (15 -2 you change). Certainly through me for a loop, but it made me try some color combinations I wouldn't have thought. The light blue in the gloves work almost better than light grey. Love to see how the rest turn out.

BTW, very great sprite, Mark. And of course, cool Silver, Blyde.

Edit: also, yea, it's somewhat 'taken' from a Next screenshot.

[someone2040]

Seems interesting. I had a go at doing Mighty before I realised I couldn't possibly do it very well within the limits.

I'll see what I can do, dunno if I'll have the time to make something though.

@Kain

your palette is wrong. You have 2 whites, where one of the whites should be a darkish green - somewhat a colour between blue and green.

[sonicbw]

kool

[Kain]

@Kain

your palette is wrong. You have 2 whites, where one of the whites should be a darkish green - somewhat a colour between blue and green.

The rules say, you may change 2 of the colors in the pallate for whatever color you want. I chose to change the two greens to two shades of red. I indicated which two were changed the same way Mark did, by putting a white C over them. The rules also say one color is to be reserved as transparent. For me, this is teal. I marked it with T and also made it transparent in the gif, that is why it looks like the color of this forum's background.

[TRD]

Custom Shadow:

And to show what palette I used:

This was hard because I decided to sprite shadow....and he only has a few colors so I just added a Chaos Emerald and a glowing sword. (In back of him.)

All and all, it added up to 14 colors.

@Kain and Mark:

Those are some awesome entries.

[ila]

Excellent idea with the palette limit Blyde. I might try to whip up an entry myself sometime.

[Ryan Cordel]

You guys should really try to do a restriction of a 2-bit pallete. See how much you're experienced there. X3

Final version, fixed some things, hopefully removed anything that would make people think with their gutter, and fancied it up a bit.

EDIT: Refresh if the lighter orange is still marked 'T' for Transparent.

[Blyde]

Entries are due tomorrow! If anyone wishes to refine their entries, they may.

Aww, four people. :< Still, great submissions thus far!

[Ryan Cordel]

Just noticed about the transparency thing. I dunno why it has to be neccesary. -.-; *Opens up PSP*

[Blyde]

Eh, it doesn't have to be transparent so that you see the forum color underneath. As long as one color represents that transparency and is not used anywhere in the actual sprite, it's fine.

Ryan, I took a look at your sprite - you missed using the darkest orange in the palette. Had the white been transparent, every white spot on Chaos would also be transparent. So the darkest orange should be the transparent color...which also means you may have to ditch the gray anti-aliasing and replace it with brown on the outline to make it look better, and then you would have to use the gray somewhere in the sprite. Great entry, though - Chaos looks sweet ;]

TRD, you did the same thing - you actually missed using two colors. One should be an unused color for transparency, and the other should be integrated somewhere in the sprite. I think it's one of the pink colors. Good sprite; could use some more shading. Now there's an idea!

kain - No complaints about color. Just looks grainy in some parts.

Mark - Great sprite, again. Your sprite used 17 colors actually, but you just confused the darker black you used with the 32, 32, 32 one a couple times, so it's fine.

[TRD]

TRD, you did the same thing - you actually missed using two colors. One should be an unused color for transparency, and the other should be integrated somewhere in the sprite. I think it's one of the pink colors. Good sprite; could use some more shading. Now there's an idea!

Thank you for letting me know, I would fix it up but unfortunately I don't have the time now, does the entry qualify though?

EDIT: I think I can at least shade him alittle bit right before the deadline, I'll see.

[Kain]

Mostly fixed except maybe the shoes: Using gray in most places didn't turn out so well.

Might change and/or remove some of the glow.

[Ryan Cordel]

Updated with some of the pointers in mind (gray/silver is used in odd spaces and barely seeable, but it's there. ), check first post on this page. Is that enough, Blyde? @_o;

[someone2040]

Here's my entry, quickly did it today.

I believe it meets the requirements. 18 colours in the actual picture. 16 colour palette (one which is labelled the transparency colour) + the actual transparency colour + the removed colour.

[Zenor]

meh. DarkSpine Sonic(sonic and the secret of the rings).

[Blyde]

Ryan, nicely done. Still good stuff ;]

TRD, you can still change if you like. It does qualify, even though it wouldn't be a practical sprite in a game, technically speaking.

kain, looks a lot smoother. Good stuff!

someone2040, it meets requirements. Good, we got a character that didn't get a lot of attention!

zenor, good use of the palette. I haven't seen a lot of Darkspine Sonic yet...

[TRD]

Blyde, when you say "Transparency", Do I just pick a color off the palette and slap it on the sprite somewhere or the background and make it transparent?

I'm not 100% sure on what I should do.

If I understand what that means, I can make the changes then.

Shading, can do.

I guess I can use pink for his muzzle of make it light area on the red stripes.

[Blyde]

Yeah, transparent is on the bg. It's a color you won't use on the sprite itself.

For example, right now, your sprite has white as the bg, which I assume to be transparent. Since the Shadow sprite also has white in it, then those regions will also be transparent. This is what it would look like:

Eek, that's not cool!

EDIT: Err, I forgot...if you use SFGHQ Shine, it won't be very noticeable. However, copy and paste that image into Paint and you'll see what I mean.

[TRD]

Oh, I know what you mean.

No problem then, I'll fix that right away and enhance shadow some more.

Thanks Blyde.

EDIT: Custom Shadow redone and enhanced:

And to show:

I used that beige-y color for the transparency, and I used one extra color for some of the sparkles from the Chaos Emerald. (Yeah I couldn't find a better color or use for it so....)

And shadow had been shaded some more.

Hope that's good.

[Zenor]

I can't see any shading in his hands and shoes...

[TRD]

I don't have the right colors for it. It meaning the white parts.

And I already used up all my custom colors.