There seems to be a distinct lack of enclosed head. Also,
You mean as thin as possible, surely?

Oh I do indeed! Sorry about that.

And don't call me Shirley.

After spending time testing out different types of shading... This is what I have.

How can I improve?

thanks now the problem is when I look to the left, the helmet goes out and in his place appears black lines

1. That's really humongous, but that's ok, most people start out spriting that way (myself included). If you intend this to be for Lowee's Big Dum-Dum, then that's perfect. If you are spriting this to be used by a normal Dummy- no matter how experimental or powerful the gun is suppose to be, it will look silly. What I do is I take the handle off a Vanilla weapon and work off of there, as well as pasting it onto an actor mockup to see kind of how it will look (attached is a brainbot and a gun handle for your convenience).

2. Again, darker outlines. Darker outlines. Darker outlines. Outlines are vital in clearly defining the barrier between your sprite and the background. Not black, and you can make the outlines lighter at the top where the sun will be hitting it most, but generally the darkest colour in that colour-ramp.

3. Shading. I think that shading big areas are really hard, so shrinking it down will make what you're doing right now exactly what you should be doing. The blue energy thing bit is perfect, though.

+BONUS
I made a quick sprite to show you the kind of scale you would looking at for an average sized gun. DO NOT USE. I want you to come back here and show me what you've done.

I actually scaled it up and added detail to it. Thanks for the advice though, I'll keep it in mind when making more random sprites. I'm thinking about posting a whole lot of stuff in the Sprite Dump.
Heres the original version!

I did edit it and made the outline darker. Thanks!

Sorry it's taken me so long to reply- I was sure I already did before but evidently I was wrong...

In any case it looks really good. I am glad to be a help.

love the airplane reference, I used to have a few ring tones from that movie.



Okay here's my latest mod project - Scud the disposable assassin -
I think my sprites look like him but lack finishing touches, also back ground sprites lol.

So how do I make this awesome?

Looks good to me- I'd say working on the head would be the number one thing. Try to sprite it from an angle like most of the heads in CC. Right now it has poor readability- to be frank I thought it was the jetpack originally. An angled view here we can see both eyes more clearly would make it a lot better.

I'm particular impressed with the arms and feet- good work on those. The les look good as well, but based on a quick google images search, you see very little red in his legs. It kinda should look like he's wearing shorts.

The gun is a little big- but it wouldn't be completely unacceptable to have it at the size you have now.

the head is a showing both eyes but the white eye is harder to see... maybe I could substitute white for a near white that's more visible. (one eye is black, one white)

thanks

Hi , I even have problems with sprites , i made this and in the game just appears black lines and dont appear the weapon , can someone help me?

Read this.

thanks , now i know how to fix.

I'm working on a hoverboard sprite, anyway I can improve?

Hmm... Feels a little small, no?



Love this thread BTW, why can't we sticky this?