I do have a question. The whole pallete system, it confuses me. Obviously, pasting ain't no thang, but whenever I do that then load CC to see the sprite in-game, I see the entire pallete displayed in negative colors. So something is wrong with me.

Exactly how does the process go? I can do SelectAll, Copy, then Paste into the pallete. I tried resizing the entire canvas but that didn't do anything. Stretching the sprite I make to cover the pallete then resizing also did nothing.

If you have Gimp, the process is quite simple. Really the difficulty is finding a program that won't mess with the palette on it's own when you save/open a file, which XP paint does (using the palette of the image that was originally opened).

My myself, I'd recommend GraphicsGale, I prefer it over Gimp. Matter of taste, really.

Duh, xp paint doesn't mess with anything, you mean windows7 paint amirite?

I was using MSpaint, but I have taken a shine to PaintNET. It's easier to use than Paint in my opinion. Do not have Gimp or GraphicsGale. So...

Does anyone know how to alleviate my issue in PaintNET?

should be somewhere near where you set the colour mode.He said it kept the palette of the last opened image, which it does, which is why pasting the image into the default palette.bmp works the way it does.

Since I am clearly not explaining it well enough, here is a screenshot of the issue. Download also attached.

These are the two defining characteristics of a good spriter. Spriting does not require as steady a hand as sketching, or as nuanced strokes as painting, but it does require that one is able to overcome limitations. Size and palette are things you have to consider strongly. You cannot replicate what you see, line for line and colour for colour as you may be able to do with paintings or portraits. You have to be able to suggest what really, is too small to see. Painters can take an apple and recreate it in exquisite detail, sharper and clearer than even the reality can afford. But a spriter merely has to suggest a vaguely apple-like shape. The catch: you get less than half a dozen blocks from a limited choice of colours.

Now spriting at the level that say, I do, is really quite easy. On top of that, your artistic background will certainly be a great advantage. It's just that you can't really tackle spriting with the same mindset.

Your sprite is good for your first ever, but if you were to release an actor that looked exactly like that in-game, the feedback would not be ecstatic.

Edit: I don't mean to say that spriting ability is trivial (look at CroboTech or what Lowest does!) and that it is a shallow discipline, but also I don't mean to sound all serious like it's the most intense art discipline ever.

My my. Certainly an insightful post. Truly though, my sketching and portrait work barely transfers to the world of spriting. Drawing sharp, intricate details the size of a pencil eraser or smaller to every inch of a drawing of an 8.5x11 page is a helluva lot different. I think only my knowledge of colors and very limited color theory teachings are going to help me.

Being able to detach myself from the minutia in the overall piece is going to go against everything I do artistically. If I can teach myself how to make things vague, as you say, then maybe there's hope for this shoddy sketcher after all....

You'll find that your ability to compose images from sketching/whatever else transfers to spriting marvelously.

Also, I know what your problem is and what it looks like It's just an out of palette image. You need to reindex it, you can do this most easily by pasting the image into an MSPaint window(any version below w7) with a working sprite open. It's generally better to start with the image in the correct palette from the get go though, to make sure you're using the right colours etc. I have no idea how paint.NET does indexing though.

It does it poorly. I always index using normal paint.

Also, w7 paint can be used to paint (not sprite, paint) things and you copy it into another image editing software with indexing, that way you can make them look like the sprites in cc.

Alright. I'll have to find an older version of MSPaint because I do run Windows 7.

Also what is this indexing you speak of exactly?

It's paletteing your sprites into CC's Palette.
Or cc's limited colours.

Usually done by saving your sprite and the palette in the same image, then copy pasting it into another 256 colour bitmap file.
To be safe, copy paste an existing cc sprite and paste your sprite over that.

Disclaimer: This is how i do it, if there is a faster way, please do tell me.

I just copy it into palette.bmp and save as over my old sprite.
Also, old xp paint here. Just download it to anywhere and it should work.