Victory Road's Spriting School

[teamplasma]

Zisteau

I will warn you now, this is the longest and the hardest class (for a beginner). So please have the time, patience, and willingness to learn. You drop out, or leave for a while, any time that you want, many people choose to do this without telling me (and that doesn't bother me). So please study this, it is your beginners guide. Then please post (in an attachment) 3 of you recolors after reading this guide.

[SyracuvatTenlii]

Oh, hey, new student, and I'm not ridiculously busy and without a computer anymore.

IGOTIT!!! ^^

Zisteau
Right, so, you're wanting to take Basic Recolors with Paint.NET.
POIFECT!
Okay, so here's the thing about pixel-art. The idea of recolor a sprite is that, while keeping the color's shading and design the same, you want to change every single pixel from one to another?
How do we do this? Well, it's actually something that is called the "color changer".
The first thing you want to do is record the palette of the sprite you are currently working with. This palette will usually consist of 2 or 3 shades of 2 or 3 colors. A "shade set" is a single hue's multiple shades that are in a sprite, so when you record all of the colors that make up the sprite, add them to your palette (I'd advise completely clearing it first, which is done by selecting White, clicking the "add to palette" button, and clicking on every color of the palette to make it all white) in a format that groups together shade sets on the top row of your palette.
Next, you want to do this same thing, but with the color of a different sprite, that is, the one you want to change the colors of your working sprite to. Organize these shade sets in the same manner, but this time, match them up with the shade sets of your other sprite so that they are aligned (try your best to make sure that every shade has exactly one counterpart from the other sprite)
Now for the actual recoloring. Pick the color changer, set the "Tolerance" to 0%, and disable the antialiasing (That squiggly line next to Tolerance: Make it not squiggly anymore 8P). Then, with each color pair, make the color on your first sprite the secondary color, and make its counterpart from the other sprite the primary color. Make your brush size about size 50, put your cursor so that that big circle covers the whole sprite, and just click. All of the pixels of one shade should have changed to another.
Repeat this process for the rest of the color pairs, and you're done!
(If you need clarification on any of this, either VM me or look at the Tutorial on the first post of this school)

Assignment 0:
Before I toss you into multi-part assignments without the knowledge that you know what you're doing, I'm going to give you a single basic task to see where we're at.
Take an Oshawott's sprite and change its colors to be like Cyndaquil's

Kat
If you're at all interested in helping teach in the spriting school, feel free to post a little showcase of your skills in the categories shown at the top. If you're cleared in at least 5 of them, you will be made a teacher in all of the skills you've been cleared for.

[john-li]

Syra I thought you quit but if you're back please notice I quit revamps cause no one was there to teach.

[Gamernamerjj]

Sorry it's been a while, Plaz.

Originally Posted by teamplasma

GNJJ


Now please do this.

Recolor Excadrill with Omanyte and Hitmonlee.

I was very boggled by this one, so I had to make it over many times. This is my best thus far:



Meh. Not much Hitmonlee, but he's just many shades of brown anyway. And green, I discovered to my surprise.

[teamplasma]

Gamernamer

This is really good! It is pretty impressive, with slight problems. This half of the class is all about color selection, so something you need to work on the the general appeal of what you could have done. Usually people might use bright colors over a dull color, but you did he opposite. hat is okay because that looked good and still dos appeal, but remember what might be better. Also the you used a darker color than the adjacent colors to blend the brown and blue. Mixing and blending colors will be something hat we work with in this next one.

Recolor Magmar with Spinarak and Magnemite.

Recolor Vespiqueen with Yanmega and Ledyba.

[Gamernamerjj]

Originally Posted by teamplasma

Gamernamerjj

Recolor Magmar with Spinarak and Magnemite.

Recolor Vespiqueen with Yanmega and Ledyba.

Here we are, the fruit of my frustrating labours. Colour choice is very difficult, especially with Vespiquen having so many colours.

Anyway, here are my attempts at the recolours.

[SyracuvatTenlii]

...I thought I posted here already. Where'd it go...?

Um, Zisteau, go ahead and do my assignment 0. I'll be your instructor.

John, I need to recheck your progress, so go ahead and resubmit a couple of the assignments you've already done in this class.

[john-li]

K these are my current assignments teddiursa isn't gonna get much better

[teamplasma]

GAMERNAMER

1) Toxic Magmar! I love it, it looks really awesome. You blended the colors well. It was really good, and you targeted what I asked for. I think that the eyes, though were a but odd, and I know there were a few other choices you could have made.A

2) There is something that I love and hate. I will start with hate. You used the lighter of the 2 colors on the black part for Vespiqueen. This is something that looks bad, especially when the blending colors were too dark because of that black. You used a red to shade the green par on he bottom too, use colors that relate o the surrounding colors to outline. That is really important. What I liked was that you used colors from both of the pokemon for the wings! That is rather simple but applying colors that are similar both of the pokemon are great! Try to do that more often. B

Okay, apply all of the things that I have helped you on...

Recolor Wartortle with Scolipede and Sandshrew.

Recolor Sigilyph with Luvdisc, Honchkrow, and Tympole.

[Gamernamerjj]

Originally Posted by teamplasma

GAMERNAMERJJ

Recolor Wartortle with Scolipede and Sandshrew.

Recolor Sigilyph with Luvdisc, Honchkrow, and Tympole.

I had fun with these, there's so many of colours to choose from! I know there is a big contrast in Wartortle, but I liked it.

[teamplasma]

GamerNamerJJ

The firs thing hat I noticed while grading the Wartortle was that he outline was so close to the main color that a lot of the details weren't visible. That is a problem that you do not want while spriting, that is really bad. So you need to choose what colors can be outlines more carefully if you are going o make the dark color the main color. So he way you could fix that is use darker outlines or use a lighter main color. C+

This one is a lot better, though it has its ups and downs. his pokemon has A LOT of colors, so you couldn't have made it perfect. The blue by the pink is a little hard to see, but that is really it as for things that are hard to see. And then he blue and pink at the bottom have really bad outlines and you might want o look that over next time, they look like random pixels. B

Okay, this is going to be a little harder, and then if you do well on it you can take the test if you want.

Recolor Quilava with Klink and Shuppet

Recolor Ivysaur with Tirtouga and Trapinch

[btpoke]

Uh... I'd like to re-enroll. I'm pretty sure I had Syra as a teacher with basic recolors previously, but I'm pretty sure, at this point, I'm about ready to take a test, because I've been doing a lot of practice in my absence.

So, yeah, would it be ok for me to just take the test?

[Gamernamerjj]

Originally Posted by teamplasma

Gamernamerjj

Okay, this is going to be a little harder, and then if you do well on it you can take the test if you want.

Recolor Quilava with Klink and Shuppet

Recolor Ivysaur with Tirtouga and Trapinch

Here they are!



Pretty purple. I love the purple. <3



Nothin' else to say, I guess.

[teamplasma]

GAMERNAMERJJ

QUILAVA: There is ONE MAJOR problem. YOU DIDN'T RECOLOR IT ALL! That is one of the biggest rules. You should always and every time recolor it all. Other than that it looks so good, and it could have beenbetter if you recolors all of it.
Please remember the biggest rule in recolors. D

IvySaur: This is a whole lot better! It is all very pleasing and very well colored. Not much to say in this but you did a good job!

I am going to give the test upon your request. You seem to get the concepts really well, but be forgetful occasionally. So just say what you want to do next.

[Gamernamerjj]

Okay, I'll take the test!