As much as I am skilled in art, I do not know the proper way to create a professional, good-looking, Metal Slug-ish Sprite. Could anyone be kind enough to make a tutorial on how to make the perfect sprite. I don't mind how hard it is, I'm willing to melt my brains out.

To be honest, everyone has their own style. I know It can be difficult to get the sprite looking good with a small space, but you have to just put different colours for detail. Just look at other peoples sprites, and practise.

I would recommend sprite edits for a start. Try to edit them until they look like something completely different, then you can try going from scratch.

That russian guy (You know the one... the one with the awsome mod with bears and gunz) does very good metal gear-looking sprites. maybe he can do something for you.

Thnx guys but are there any programs that specialize in sprite creation?

I have that mod ^^ it's called Bear Faction, I like it alot. Spetsnaz FTW! woo! >_<

Also thanks for the fast replies

GraphicsGale may be what you're looking for. Free version will do just fine.

omg its soo pretty!

lmao, thnx man ^^ going to try it out >:3

MS Paint is a very good one too, and one of our most respected modders (now recruited as part of the DRL team) capnbubs somehow makes photoshop co-operate with pixel art, but nobody knows how he does it.

Any program that lets you work at pixel level and saves indexed .bmp's will work, so if you're already familiar with such a program, I'd stick with it. Spriting is more about being able to constantly zoom in/out (preferably with multiple views) and having quick access to the pencil/eraser tool/palette than anything else.
As for a suggestion, GIMP does all of the above. I think the Emporeans was made with it.

You say you're skilled with art in general...care to post any of your work?

I use Photoshop for my sprites.

Making sprites from scratch is fairly simple. You should start with the outline and the basic features of the sprite (if you're basing it off of something, having references helps a ton), then work from there on adding detail, color, and shading.

Fixed.

Really, Photoshop is great and very easy to use once you get to know it a bit.
MS Paint has everything a person needs to make sprites for this game, but really is too basic in my opinion.

Wow, well with everyone's advice I'm sure I can do it I have all the necessary programs, MS Paint (obviously), Photoshop CS3, and sometimes I even use Corel Paint but not often. I even have a graphics tablet not sure if thats really needed for pixel art. But a cool trick I would do sometimes is get a realistic picture off the intern33t and change the size to about 45x45-100x100 to get a nice pixely version of the image. Only thing is I like designing my own things and not to good at drawing nice pictures with a tablet (hard to get a feeling and can never get a perfect line )

I think I figured out my best method for making good sprites. By 3d modeling and rendering a side view ^^ only thing is I suck at skinning. But if someone wants to partner with me in making sprites, add my msn, xfire, or steam and let me know with a pm in the forum.

My Info:
-MSN- theoriginal_khunter9@hotmail.com
-Xfire- Khunter9
-Steam- Khunter9
-Yahoo- yuchan016@yahoo.com

MS paint is the best spriting app ever. i use it with all of my sprites, exept when i need to rotate big sprites

How i sprite:

1.Make a palette (group of colors) that you want to incorporate in the sprite

I have 4 outline swatches

And i have between 3-5 base colors for coloring of course. the colors arrangement are like this:
Outline:
Dark(only for shade, I dont use it too much, I use it mainly to make a visible difference of what part of the gun is petruding more) >>Standard (no light or shade)>>and two more for highlights i rarely use the 4 color because its too bright and i dont like it

example of using the dark outline:
Lets say you have a gun sprite, it has a scope, the little arms that hold the scope it self should be dark because the scope is wider than the arms so they dont recieve light

when it comes to highlights:
i use it to define difference in width and height from other parts of the sprites, i mainly use it at the tips of the gun like the end of the barrel

Color:
Should consist of a Dark>Semi Dark>Standard (no light or shade)>Highlight>Super Highlight

i always use an outline.. almost.. so i dont have as much space to add alot of detail but it seems that im pretty good with small sprites


when the sprite gets bigger and more round, that is the part i begin to suck, but i try to make up for it by dithering the shadows and it makes a cool effect

Dithering

cant post pictures now, ill post em later.

I simply cannot Use microsoft paint for spriting. for smaller sprites i work in 1600X zoom at the least. I find zooming up close allows you to sprite it to look better. Thats IMO of course.