Pokémon Scratch Spriting Tutorial

[Sandviches]

No, not splicing. Scratch.

 

Let's start.

 

Step 1:

This is very simple. Get a 64x64 canvas (for R/S/E, if you are doing D/P/P, then it is an 80x80 canvas), and draw your dude. Make sure the outlines are just 1 pixel, unless it is connecting to another part of the body.

Step 2: Colors

Get a color that your sprite would be if we lived in a world with no shades and highlights. Then make that color a bit brighter. This'll be your highlighting color. Use eyedropper to get back to your basic color, then make a darker shade of it, and then even a darker shade. Oh, and be keeping all these colors you are getting somewhere on your canvas. They'll be erased at the end, but they are needed for now. Do this for every color. Make sure there are no more than 16, including the background color, black, and to some extent, white. Leaving about 13 for the rest of the colors. If you need to conserve colors for some reason, only make the two darker shades and skip the highlight. Now color in your dude with the basic colors, or the 2nd to lightest color.

Step 3: Shading

Cool. Now we start shading. This can be a bit difficult. Just remember that the light source is from the top left, or for a back sprite, the top right. Also take into consideration light sources the sprite has itself, like if it has fire on it, that is also a light source, so consider that. For the shade color, pick the 2nd to darkest color. Almost everything has a shade, but there will be more towards the back than at the front. Do this for every color you have. Although, some colors may not need to use the shade color.

Step 4: Highlights

Highlights are where the sprite is directly hit by the light source. It can also make somethings look shiny. lol. Anyway, usually there are less highlights than shades, which is why if you need to conserve colors, you can most likely skip this step. You can also skip this step if you don't like how it comes out. I put highlights because this dude because he is a shark and he is shiny.

Step 5: Outlines

Outlines are an important part of the style. Get your darkest color, and where the highlights are start going over the black outline with the darkest color. This is also true for the basic color, but not as much, and as the basic color gets more towards the shade, it is wise to stop. Black outlines stay for where the shades are. Also, don't get rid of the black outline for the basic color towards the back of the sprite. Also, things like nostrils and the outline on lines: if they aren't in a shade, they are also made the same color.

^This pic is wrong, it doesn't follow the step, I messed up towards the back^

 

Hooray! You are done.

[EHN.]

Very nice tutorial, the examples seems a bit lq, but that's YCM's fault.

 

+rep for clear instructions and good tut.

[Sandviches]

Thank you.

I made this kinda quick, so... it might not be YCM's fault for the LQ.

[EHN.]

Nah, right click the examples, then click 'View Image'. Much more hq.

[Jappio]

Scratching isn't something I think can easily be taught or shown in a tutorial. Each step you had probably could have it's very own tutorial for it, rather than just one paragraph entries. I can understand wanting to make it brief. However the shading you show in your example I believe falls into the category of 'pillow shading'. It's when you shade mainly only near the edges and just thing strips. Leaves the center areas really flat looking. Shading is used to define depth and shape too. It shows where the creatures has curves and such. If you have it only at the edges, you assume it's a flat object that only curves at its edges, like a pillow.

[Sandviches]

I didn't Pillow Shade.

Pillow shading is assumes that the the light source is hanging directly between the sprite and the viewer... example:

[Jappio]

Whoops, sorry. I probably should learn my spriting terms better. I don't if there is a term for what you did, but in the very least it could still be fixed in some way.