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8-Bit Spriting Guide By: Rhythm Saturday, January 7th, 2006 For those of you who are just learning how to make sprites or recoloring them, here's a brief guide on how it's done. A sprite is a character made out of pixels. Some are custom, some are taken from games. It's a form of artwork that most people use to make "Sprite Comics". Most people that are new to spriting start with recoloring, which is where we begin. Most commonly, you can use MS Paint to do what you see here, or if you have it, Photoshop/Imageready. Recoloring First off, find a sprite that you're comfortable using. Take a Megaman sprite, for example:  Second, notice that the 8-bit Megaman sprite has two main colors: blue and sky blue. Choose one color and click on the paint bucket tool. Carefully, click on all the blue spots on the sprite until every bit of blue is now the color of your choosing.  Then, choose another color, try not to pick a color too close to your first one or people will have a hard time making out certain parts of the sprite. Once again, click the paint bucket tool and carefully turn all the sky blue pieces into the color of your choosing.  Once you have mastered this section, you will have successfully recolored a sprite. Editing Now continuing from your recolored sprite (using an 8-bit Megaman sprite for example), you are now ready to "edit" your sprite. Editing is meant to make this sprite your own. First, start from the head and work your way down. Starting at the head, use the pencil tool to remove the design of the helmet of the Megaman sprite. Then think of a design you like and pencil it on the helmet. Or you can give him hair. Now on to the torso. If you want to, you can add armor or some other thing to the torso, or you can leave it like it is, the same goes for the legs and arms.  Customizing Now you are ready to customize your own sprite if you want to. To start, pick a bright color and use the pencil tool to make your outline.  Once that is completed use the pencil tool to make the lines to separate the foot from the leg or the hand from the arm so people can tell the hand from the arm or the leg from the foot. Then draw a line between the pants and the shirt.  Then choose another bright color and paint bucket the spots that you want with that color. Then choose another bright color and again paint bucket in the the other spots. Once thats done, pick the color black and paint bucket the outline until it's black. Then pick any color you want and go over one of the bright colors with the color you have chosen. Then repeat this step with the other bright color.  As for the head, most people base it off a game sprite. Then they edit it.  Hopefully this will help you get started with spriting on your own. |
