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(Sorry Bly, I'm gonna digress some more.) Durandal, you don't seem to think you're at fault for your action, so I'll clarify it for you. It's more that you figuratively pointed at the whole first post (which has a little over 40 mugs) and said: This is literally the only thing you've said to him on this thread and it's so syntactically passive you've offered nothing constructive to the artist and nothing about your reasoning, but manages to request forfeiture of everything to the most free degree possible in his collective gallery. It's a terrible exchange and disrespectful on multiple levels. Were you really planning on using everything or did you simply point to it all because you were too lazy to specify what you really wanted? Like I said before, you should have done this: if you wanted to be seen as less of a panhandler who just wanted to have access to the option of using the material. From my perspective, so far, you've put a lot of words into and taken people's time for gathering resources. New people seem to always want to start their first-time projects that way, trying to see how much they can get for free before trying to create on their own. The sooner you get out of the begging/collecting phase and start putting forth your own effort towards building something, the more valuable you'll be seen and more willing people will be to help out. I've said what I meant to say to you (and admittedly used you as an example), so I'll stop making any further touchy statements with you on this subject.

Nice maps, Bly~ So pretty ^^ Nestled in his first post, at the very end where Bly's really old work is, states that some of them (the older ones) are free-to-use, but ask first (probably with which specific ones you want to use). Just nipping at this habit before it proliferates: it's rude to ask for sprites wholesale from multiple people (i.e. hoarding) when you're spamming multiple threads / PMs to do it. Yes, sometimes it's okay to ask for a few mugs, especially when they've volunteered it, but no, don't go collecting for the sake of collecting. At the very least pick out the mugs you want to use, and give some sort of feedback/value to the creator as to why you want to use it (e.g. "I really like X/Y/Z in this mug and think it would be a great fit for antagonist #5 in my hack), and maybe they'll be happier to share it. You already posted a request thread, and Ghast's working on a CreativeCommons resource, so unless there's specific mugs you want to use from someone, leave it at that and don't cold request people's entire libraries. I know you've only done this once and sorry I'm being quick about it, this is just a sensitive thing after a particular user has done this way too often.

Thank you, Etain. ^w^

Alphα's wins Best in Theme and Popular Choice with 17/28 and 89% favorability! (Think that's been the highest one so far~) He'll get to choose next theme and a mug. Etain, Nickt, and Matt Custov will get runners-up choice. Great entries from those who entered! ----- ...In other news, would anyone mind taking over splice contest hosting for a while? (Either indefinitely or for a few months?) I currently have a weird schedule and am plain forgetting to progress these along in the right timeframes, even if the work is pretty simple copy-paste. I can keep hosting by changing the deadline and voting periods around, although I'd rather just see if anyone else would like to take up the torch.

Beta Tethys/Neimi, Lalum, Duessel, Ross Theme: Mecha lolis --- 2 days to vote!

Don't think that you can complete a project as just Idea-man (literally everyone has ideas). Go look for more hats and find out what your strengths are (a night on Wordpad, while nice, doesn't really cut it). You could ask but at this point you're asking with the high likelyhood that you won't even utilize the mugs/work others made, because of your lack of effort seeing a project through. [Edit: Here have some more of those guys. Colors have been reduced to 16. ]

Splicing isn't terribly difficult, and you can churn them out quick once you get the hang of it. Although I agree, I think it'll be more trouble for you to get it all working than to just live with the vanilla mugs until you get some more headway in and get a feel for what you're doing and where the characters are needed. Alternatively, find and use Nickt's mugs since he's open sourced and hackboxed his.

Sounds fun! I'd def try to make something. (is it going on now? knights and bandits 4srs?). A few thoughts about it: - If you have deadlines, how about PMing the entries to you and having a big reveal of everything at the end? (Or are you looking for something more instantaneous and independent of the head librarian?) - Personally I think it'd be nice to leave it at just the theme, and leave it open to what resource(s) people want to make for it (mug, battle icon, battle sprite, map, HUD, etc.). - Is proper attribution still going to be a thing? I'm not sure whether you'd want a nametag/watermark on each image, or on the filename, or allow anons, or how you'll end up organizing it. - Would prefer a month rotation, with the next month starting up right after the last. So when January ends, put up February right away even if you haven't had time to collect January's results for presentation. Plus workload makes a month feel much more relaxed right now. Feeding an event is more just getting the right theme and peer-pressure in than the prize drive, imo. Keeping it casual and offering the 'make resources for everyone!' feel is better.

Yes, anime, goood~ As for shading, yeah, you could smooth the lines you have a bit more (the collar lines of #2 and #3, and shoulderpad+blindfold lines for #3 stick out a lot). Typically I don't think you ought to be using the outline color inside the sprite much at all unless it's the for the blue or a really deep shadow. You can use the darkest skintone to replace the outline on the trim and the skinside of the collarline, but I'm not sure if using the darkest grey will work for the clothside of the collar or not. Nope! (As far as I think.) Although you can slap the particular mug onto a new layer on the master sheet and stack it over a close match, then toggle visibility on/off a few times to compare. Or just pull close mugs and compare.

Ayyyy shiny #1~ I like the variety and color choices ^^ If these are for hacking/standard, the last girl is definitely too tall in placement. In general scale afaik, #1 is a little undersized, #2 is about right, #3 and #4 are slightly larger but those are also my favorites as far as overall composition and execution goes (aside from #3's shoulders).

(While we're still at the derail) Yeah, I know the feeling, especially when it comes to the feedback is nonexistent, vague, or purely negative. It's stalled me from doing a lot of things or revisiting a work or experiment. Though, one of the reasons to like contests is because you can at least get a click of positive note when something might potentially not get a comment at all. I think the positive feedback you had was significant, as posted compliments to entries are more rare than you might think. As for the negative, I think the majority of crit in this case was typical armchair crit. The crit wasn't necessarily helpful enough on its own for you to improve the given piece significantly, they were more just possible leads that might lead to learning or might lead to an ambiguous dead-end. I think the idea itself had a lot of potential, and that's why people put in the extra 2 cents worth in hopes of getting you to work on it more. That'd happen whether or not it was a good or bad execution.

@Ghast/Ana: If you guys could end the comparing between entries (better/worse) and insubstantial riffing that'd be great. These are just contests and it's hard enough making people feel welcome to enter them without the usual jabbing we do in sprite threads proper. Ana in particular, voting can be random, don't look too much into it or try controlling what it means. As of right now you've got 5 out of 28 possible points, and people have written positive feedback for you on it, so it's not terrible. (Even so, when I get a 0,0 or a low yield for high effort on an entry I just kind of laugh in self-mock, shrug it off, and move on.)

(Grats, Lumi!) Also agreeing with what Toa said. All three of the individual requirements seemed like good themes standalone, but altogether, by the time I thought of something that filled all the criteria I didn't have any oomph/enjoyment left or reason to fufill such a specific thing. I'd rather have K.I.S.S. and winner takes all if the winner's circle keeps repeating the precise X+Y+Z+etc format. Create a prize cooldown on repeat winners if you're worried about a monopoly, imo.

Une-rider really nailed the 'must have green requirement' though. It's the idea I liked the most, plus Castlevania, so it got my vote. Mr. T on a pig was pretty cool. Slim pickings but I feel like everyone had good creativity this round.

Nice! (Ahhh wonderful cross-stitching + FE I'm totes gonna follow you on tumblr. ^^)

Congrats on the baby, man! Hope you can still have a chance to join in spriting sometime, but life first. ^^; Thanks for putting stuff into public domain too (I'll probably play a bit with them in secret, and attribute you if I post any results from 'em)~

Aw man I didn't even know the deadline was up :c

I think he looks like a bit like an oldman version of serif ^^;;;;; The shading is a little better, but still a little just splat on/light. Might help to shade that area as an eyesocket first, and then add in the eyelid lighting? C.Lee's body seems a little disconnected from the rest of him. Between the neck collar, right OPV shoulder, chest, and hood, can't really figure out what direction/shape his body should be (they're kind of vaguely placed or angled in different directions).

Best bandits <3 First guy is a bit better with the rounded head, feel like there's still a disconnect/asymmetry between the two spaulders around the collar? I like it too, particularly the eyes, reminds me a bit of the way Smirks does his faces~ (Rough shot at matching symmetry) Third girl, think you could shade under her eyebrows a bit more. Hard to tell anything for the last guy, the back of his neck seems unshaped but that's all I can tell for certain. Otherwise, cool stuff all around.

Beta Tethys/Neimi, Lalum, Duessel, Ross Theme: Mecha lolis --- [spoiler=RULES THAT YOU MUST FOLLOW]No mass 'made from scratch' areas. In other words, the final result should be made of and identifiable to areas from the source mugs. Only use the set given, no other mugs. Recommended color limit: 16 (15 on your mug +1 for background). This is a flexible rule, but be cautious with your color count as a general rule of thumb for good pixel art. You are allowed to deviate from the standard FE color choices if you want to do so. Don't vote for yourself or I will cry sad tears devoid of mod power. Hosts may enter contests. Only 1 mug per member. Winner of the contest will choose the next theme and a mug, runners-up will choose the remaining mugs once a theme has been decided. Voting consists of 2 categories: 'Best in Theme' (single choice) and 'Favorites' (multiple choice). 'Winner' is the popular vote for 'Best in Theme' and the runners-up are taken from the most popular two from both voting categories. If there is overlap (e.g. 2nd place is the same participant for both categories), a weighted average of the total votes will determine the remaining runner-ups. PARTICIPATION NOTES: In the past, there has been a lot of conflict surrounding what does and doesn't constitute proper splicing techniques. This is not the venue to repeat that argument (if you're interested in it, please look at old rounds between 50 and 65). Please remember to allow participants the freedom to experiment and find their comfort zone in splicing. Give them votes when you believe they're successful, but do not use their entry as a platform to tell the world what you don't like. If you have any questions or concerns, please PM the current host. Deadline: Sunday, June 7th, 2015 Have fun!

You're at the bottom of the ladder with a lot of much higher quality work out there, and this is the feedback/advice of people who are able to create said better works. Improve, and people can compliment your improvement/dedication, even if the your work still has problems. I pixel over pencil drawings frequently for mugs. For battlesprites I just make sure I have at least a sketch reference beforehand. I've seen your drawings, and think that you're locked into your 'style', and would benefit from realistic studies. (Also a note from something you said earlier, there's some benefit to tracing/copying something to get a feel for it, but it's something you want to credit your source and be careful with.) Mauthe is a bad base for felines, because (1)it's a dog, (2)it's emanciated. It's like wanting to make cookies out of pancake batter. You're better off understanding how the ingredients work and making something with a better base. I started drawing in highschool, around 2002 (anime and chibis), began pixeling with a pirate copy of RM2k3 around late 2005 and tried FE a few times before becoming more established here. I've always been on-and-off with pixels, but consistent with doodling and have taken a few dedicated classes throughout. So 13 years of intermittent activity. That all has helped me feel like I have a decent sense of observation and replication, but I'm in the same boat as IHaveOpinions (decent skill-level but not consistently great).

Unfortunately no, I think the only improvement was the color. The head is worse (size is way too small, or body is way too big). While you can learn these sort of foundational art concepts in pixeling, it doesn't mean it's the best way to go about it. Especially not if you're juggling both learning pixel techniques and tackling a complex subject (like a cat). If you were trying to pixel something simple like a sphere or a cube, or drawing a cat in your most comfortable medium, I think you'd feel less overwhelmed/frustrated with your current ability. So my recommendation is to focus either on pencil drawing cats (using photo/live references), or to simplify what you pixel (basic shapes and/or simple edits of vanilla works(weapon changes and repaints)) for now. Also, with rare exception the artists you admire invested a large chunk of their time/life into reaching that level of their craft, and you would need to as well, if that's the place you want to reach. Dwelling in self-pity won't help your progress.

The face actually seemed a little long, and the nose and ears more mousy than feline. You want to alias the line such a way that it looks like it's actually curved, or find the parts of the body that you can exaggerate to break the line (or exaggerate the curve of the line). If you insist on going monochromatic, I suggest starting with a tested neutral palette like above (someone's 4-color Gameboy swatch I pulled). Or alternatively pull one color from FE-Vanilla sprites. Repeats thing about identifying and reproducing the shapes you see in a real example instead of just sausage with legs and identifying features. I didn't really give this example much thought and feel a lot of it could be better.

It...looks pretty much like your old laguz, complete with the same issues mentioned before. Discussion will devolve into the same arguments as before unless you change or request a different approach. What's your process? How do you go about making a sprite? I feel like you're at a state where you're locked into a symbological representation of animals and know how to reproduce that one symbol representing your idea of a particular animal type, but haven't looked outside your comfort zone to create or observe anything else. Breaking out of the mindset that 'the way I'm used to drawing and seeing it gets the idea across just fine already' can be a challenge but it's something you really ought to try.

Skippy creamy peanut butter is the best.