Collection The Radiant Collection|

[NICKT™]

EDIT:

Added a later rendition. I'm realizing why I hate doing big eyes, they're just so tedious to get right.

Just to show that I haven't been ignoring the collection, just been stumped on Soren who I haven't been enjoying as much as I thought I would.

I'm not sure whether that's a good or bad thing, because I was sitting here thinking to myself, wishing that I could just go and breeze through all the mugs I'd enjoy doing but then I'd be left with a heap that I wouldn't, and I don't want to do a bunch I don't enjoy because then my motivation would be shot. Either way, maybe fun times are ahead.

Made a compilation sheet, for shits an' gigs.

Edited October 8, 2015 by NICKT™

[ghast]

i think holding off on bandits and other insignificant npcs is your best way to conserve energy for sprites you may not like

[Princess Peachar]

Soren's eyes aren't piercing enough. :( they're more like "Aiku, I am so kawaii desu love me please"

[NobodiePichu]

oh no, doe eyes soren!!! its so not him but still really cute, quick go back to grumpy eye sourpuss soren face, that is still really adorable!

[NICKT™]

Guys, guys, I can't do big eyes.
Can I make Soren like, 10 years older?

Give him really small eyes, and spikey hair, then I'll be in 'da zooooone.

EDIT;
Guys, guys. I think I got it.

Edited October 8, 2015 by NICKT™

[NobodiePichu]

i still think he looks a bit too happy for his sourpuss character, but you know what the eyes are waaay better, and tiny adorkable "this is not a smile" soren is just way to many layers of cute.

[NICKT™]

i still think he looks a bit too happy for his sourpuss character, but you know what the eyes are waaay better, and tiny adorkable "this is not a smile" soren is just way to many layers of cute.

Better?

I was trying not to do an angled mouth because of the way his face is angled, but I think it looks better in regards to him being a sourpuss.

Edited October 8, 2015 by NICKT™

[NobodiePichu]

theres the soren i know and love, much better.

[NICKT™]

New WiP.

If anyone wants a crack at those eyes to make them look more human/normal, feel free, plz.

Edited October 8, 2015 by NICKT™

[Book of Ereshkigal]

Better?

I was trying not to do an angled mouth because of the way his face is angled, but I think it looks better in regards to him being a sourpuss.

Wait, was Soren's hair shorter in PoR?

Edited July 24, 2015 by L95

[MarioKirby]

In regards to the eyes, whipped this up real quick. Hope this helps. '.'b

[NICKT™]

Cheers for the touch, Pichu.

I think I'm all done on it, any last critiques, guys?

Edited October 8, 2015 by NICKT™

[ghast]

the eyes, the eeeyyesss.

we need another solum + nih combo.

i tried my own take and it sucked nuts. eyes are impossible

Edited July 25, 2015 by Ghatsu!

[NICKT™]

the eyes, the eeeyyesss.

we need another solum + nih combo.

i tried my own take and it sucked nuts. eyes are impossible

It's the big eyes dude, they fucking suck.

Stupid anime bullshit.

EDITTO:

Decided whilst sitting on Mia I'd get working on the next one.

Felt like going body first, where normally I do face and hair first. Was pretty simple, because the face is usually the first part I do and it's usually the most tedious, so leaving it to last I felt whilst not a good decision for later, was a better one for now.

Edited October 8, 2015 by NICKT™

[Toa]

What's up with Ilyana's colors? They're way whack, like the background green is all over her face and the lightest shade of her cloak isn't listed. Her main ear color also isn't listed. Her hair color is really light and her clothes seem really saturated.

[NICKT™]

What's up with Ilyana's colors? They're way whack, like the background green is all over her face and the lightest shade of her cloak isn't listed. Her main ear color also isn't listed. Her hair color is really light and her clothes seem really saturated.

WiP, mate.

I usually work from colours from original mugs or I try to get a somewhat palette from the reference, I usually worry about corrections in Usenti after the mug's finished.

EDIT:

Noticed that I actually hadn't changed the first tone on the cloak, so that's my bad, nice spot.

Touched it up a little bit more.

Edited October 8, 2015 by NICKT™

[Solum]

I tried, but it's far from the result i expected x_x

[Alabaster]

same issue as before. Eyes don't have to be so fukken big. PoR style is not as animu as animu usually is.

Also the palette is rly dark, 3rd shade is even darker than the outline. I tried to address that but I suck at palettes myself, and all i did was making it slightly lighter so that it was possible to work with it a bit. my advice here is to redo the palette entirely to make it look better. Also the body needs some re-shaping and moving around near the pauldron area

Now, I'd like to say that even tho being able to dish out a sprite every day is admirable, I think u need to work on your stuff longer than a few hours each. I mean they all have their issues, but those issues are fixable as long as you spend a little more time moving things around and adjusting shading on ur paint canvas. Right now it looks like you are rushing all of these sprites just to make the "collection" larger, and the results are not okay but not as good as they could be. It's okay to post wips to get comments, but at the end you will only find yourself drowning in a sea of sprites that need fixing and you won't even know where to start. So focus on one of two sprites at a time

[ghast]

same issue as before. Eyes don't have to be so fukken big. PoR style is not as animu as animu usually is.

Also the palette is rly dark, 3rd shade is even darker than the outline. I tried to address that but I suck at palettes myself, and all i did was making it slightly lighter so that it was possible to work with it a bit. my advice here is to redo the palette entirely to make it look better. Also the body needs some re-shaping and moving around near the pauldron area

Now, I'd like to say that even tho being able to dish out a sprite every day is admirable, I think u need to work on your stuff longer than a few hours each. I mean they all have their issues, but those issues are fixable as long as you spend a little more time moving things around and adjusting shading on ur paint canvas. Right now it looks like you are rushing all of these sprites just to make the "collection" larger, and the results are not okay but not as good as they could be. It's okay to post wips to get comments, but at the end you will only find yourself drowning in a sea of sprites that need fixing and you won't even know where to start. So focus on one of two sprites at a time

i mean it mostly is all good except for the face which just boils down to literally a handful of pixels that need to be meticulously arranged to not look googly or not good and whatnot which from what I've seen that takes like the top spriters in the community to get the right (you, char, solum). So I think that Nickt is going at a great pace and pumping out some solid stuff every time, but his weakness is just big girly eyes and palettes sometimes.

but i see your point.

[Lenh]

My reaction to ghast: X .

This is tracing/copying for the most part, you just need a handle on reading/translating the core lines and good grip on aliasing/dithering and rehashing colors. For your wonky parts, it's apparent when you flip between the downscale image and your new sprite.

Main problem with Mia is her purple and green ramps are working completely against you, they don't blend at all, fix that and things should be easier. (Working on it, might be a few hours before I get back.)

(Edit:

I agree with Nih, everyone's probably just going to have a different twist and different taste.

)

Edited July 25, 2015 by Lenh

[Alabaster]

i mean it mostly is all good except for the face which just boils down to literally a handful of pixels that need to be meticulously arranged to not look googly or not good and whatnot which from what I've seen that takes like the top spriters in the community to get the right (you, char, solum). So I think that Nickt is going at a great pace and pumping out some solid stuff every time, but his weakness is just big girly eyes and palettes sometimes.

but i see your point.

apart from quoting and agreeing with Lehn entirely I would like to add that I don't see that as a "small problem". The sprites we work on are usually so small that it's that "handful of pixels" of pixels that makes the difference between each of us spriters. Even if each one of us were to "rearrange" as you would say, those pixels or even sprite the same subject (or ref image), we would all get a different result because right now it's all a matter of styles. There's not a right way that i've found to sprite things, especially now that we've come so far from the original look of the vanilla sprites, so there's not really a model we look up to when we sprite, it's all a personal thing. (except for maybe some basics like "avoid pillowshading" or stuff) That is also why I can have a different way of shading hair, face or even eyes than say Solum, Lehn or whoever. But that doesn't mean they do it the wrong way

However, no one can dish out a perfect sprite in a few hours. Those that you call "good spriters" take DAYS to sprite stuff (the only exception is Merc cuz fuck that bich xDDDD), because they keep moving stuff around and trying to reshade and adjust that "handful of pixels". So yeah, my advice is just to work longer on your stuff, because that way you'll be able to figure out a lot of stuff yourself. It takes also a few tries. I usually have a lot of copies of my sprites and I go back to old wips a lot, because sometimes improvements tend to look worse than what we had before XD

Edited July 25, 2015 by Alabaster

[Princess Peachar]

I do think that these sprites are improvements from your past works-- but they are still traces. As good as traces can be, they do not account for mishaps in anatomy or shading or etc. Those things you gotta flex them spriting muscles! For example, Ilyana has some weirdo shading that doesn't translate well. Also, the super anime eyes with the abundance of sclera. Those are things that you have to improvise in to not make weird looking. I understand that having a mass of sprites is great, but you have the potential to make them better. The quality is inconsistent-- like compared to Greil, Shinon, and Titania (minus hair palette, but red is hard I get it), Boyd, Ike, and Mist are suffering. I do think some personal eye exercises could help you out also as some eyes need some polishing ( Rhys jumps out at me off the top of my head). Palettes, too, need a little more work as well. Don't be afraid to color blend! Recycle those shades, hunty!

I guess short hand, I agree with spending a little more time on each sprite because having a lot of sprites to fix at a time is depressing (I know from experience as well). Just put in a little extra effort. We will help! <3

Also, yeah, Ghast. Sprites are all a handful of pixels. Everyone can learn how to arrange them with enough practice and experience. Might be harder for some, but with good guidance and an open heart...you know? But yes. What is a sprite but a miserable pile of pixels?

[Solum]

(Edit:

I agree with Nih, everyone's probably just going to have a different twist and different taste.

^ Teamwork > Styles

I agree with most parts of Nih's comment too. We all have different styles (though I nearly never sprite this kind of big anime eyes in my own sprites)
and that the a best way to improve a work is to spend a lot of time on it. But the fact is, spending a minimum amount of time on a sprite and having it look good is clearly possible, and it's even more than that : It's one of the best exercises to improve, not your current work, but your overall skills and knowledge. Since working hard on spriting something under the 2 hours will force you to develop mechanics and basics that your brain will just use for free whenever you sprite again.

A good example is SqRtOfPi's Youtube channel. Every work is done under few hours. And anyone can do this honestly, it's all about training. (Me and my barely standing level included).

And... Since we're having such fun with Nikt's Marathon :

Again I played with it. Also edited some hair parts and palette. I didn't see your new palette in time Lenh, I find it pretty close to the original!

[NICKT™]

I've never really been that good at spriting, it's why 'til now I've always spliced and preferred to do so, so I don't mind so much that these are just traces, helps gets the groundwork down which is preferable for me to work from.

And there's only so much I can do on a mug before I just look at it, and sort of know that it's not perfect but I can really eye what's wrong with it, I guess? It's usually those points if the work isn't a major WiP that I post it online and hope someone else can sort of guide me to the area of what's wrong, or I'll go back to it in a couple of days or weeks even and then just flip it around for a bit and maybe change something that I think might be wrong or maybe my idea has at that point changed a little, but I sort of meet this wall in that I can't really improve because I can't see the imperfections, not that they aren't there, though.

I could probably do better in palettes though, but I've sort of been enjoying the freedom of the format and just going to hell with it so palettes are dodgy but at least somewhat accurately reflect the source.

It's not that I'm really rushing these either, the bases really cut out a lot of leg-work and other than that, this isn't really the same as it used to be for me, after losing all my previous works it's just become something I do to fill in a couple minutes here or there rather than an actual hobby like it used to be to me. I suppose the reason why I don't really want to sit on each sprite for so long either is because this is on thin motivation, if I spend too long without getting anywhere then I'm just going to get frustrated and I'd rather bash out a little on another sprite and then keep checking back to see if there's anything I can do overall to make the works better, but for the most part I'm just not good enough to see it.

At the end of the day, I guess my heart's just not as in it as it used to be?

[ghast]

thats what I'm trying to say lol

there comes to a point where you can't actually show a remarkable polish between 1 extra hour or not. When you hit that 'wall', its over.

Until you come back to it later with more experience and touch up on it.

Not everyone is capable of just spending more manpower on a sprite and making it look more polished than before if said person has already reached a limit.

Unlike other people who seem fucking limitless and can make something look insane from scratch.

I suppose the reason why I don't really want to sit on each sprite for so long either is because this is on thin motivation, if I spend too long without getting anywhere then I'm just going to get frustrated and I'd rather bash out a little on another sprite and then keep checking back to see if there's anything I can do overall to make the works better, but for the most part I'm just not good enough to see it. At the end of the day, I guess my heart's just not as in it as it used to be?

No, I'm pretty much the exact same way. I can sit on the same sprite not knowing where to go from there or I can upload it, show it and see what the 'pros' do with it. Then i study what they did and apply that to my later works. That's always been the way I do it.

Edited July 25, 2015 by Ghatsu!