MLC's edit is better, but it is -still- flat looking. There are no shadows showing depth, and thus the sprite looks like a piece of paper, especially the engines (except the actual exhaust port). Since according to the cockpit the light is hitting the sprite dead on (as if the player is the light source), there should be brighter colors in the middle, with darker shades outward on either side.

This is my dropship that I've been working on. There are some parts, such as the wings, that I can not get to look right shading wise. Any help would be appreciated.

Since your sprite is done with light coming from above, it makes sense that the entire top area of the wings would be bright.

Basically make the shading you've done on the wing, just -bigger-.

One tip: practice with smaller images so that you can try to get them looking as good as you can before you try to make large sprites.

Spent some more time on this. One problem was things looked very blocky, there were many sections, completely disconnected. I connected parts of the ship to make it seem more coherent, as well as messing with the cockpit area some more. Like LFoW mentioned, there are some shadow problems, and I tried to fix it with some more contrast. I decided to cut out the ... thing on the top because I couldn't get it to look good. Hopefully this will provide a better example to study.

Quick Edit for your Hull, I think you did Excellent shading wise it was just you needed more small shading detail to it.. Shadows is almost what i mean. Also i found your shape and corners a little odd. So i fixed those up a bit.

Right side is mine
Left side is yours

I would do it more like this really, with flat planes being flat instead of a gradient towards one point.

Hello, here's another edit:



- I thought that the shapes of the vents were a little awkward, so I changed their shape to something slightly more realistic
- I added more highlights on the main window/eye
- I added some greebles, such as doors on the side and some screws
- Instead of having gradients on all the shapes, I gave them diffuse and specular areas, which instead of being uniform, have sharp changes that better approximate real materials
- I got rid of unnecessary colours in the ramp that looked too similar to each other and made it look kind of muddy.

Probably the most important thing I did was add AA. Though I admit I am not masterful with this technique, I was better able to approximate the shapes. If you diagonals, curves, or areas of sharp contrast (like near outlines) it helps to change the colours of some pixels that stand out to an in-between of their neighbours. This more closely resembles the shapes you intended , instead of pixels made to look like those shapes.

Very nice as usual Jon, but I'm not too fond of the highlights on the window, and the vents could use a little separation, I think.
I might do an edit, actually, never minding the uselessness of an edit of an edit.

Huzzah this is pixelation in a thread.

Thanks for all of the feedback everyone, I really appreciate it and I'm going to use it to improve.

just because pete said he didn't like the window highlights

Wow, way to raise the bar ♥♥♥♥ high guys.

JK JK I'm really happy this is going on. For awhile I was complaining about there not being a thread like this because I wanted to take advantage of its services. It's great to see all you pros up in this joint now.


Well, I guess they left the little stuff to me.

First thing is that you aren't using the palette. You must use the palette as they will be the only colours that show up in-game (except for glows and the background). I edited your sprite to be in palette. I chose a teal-grey because I am lazy and it was the first thing I saw, but a lighter gray would probably work as well. Second is that you have to have outlines. I edited your sprite to retain its shape but incorporate outlines. You can see how much more dynamic it looks now. Notice how the outlines on the top are lighter than the ones on the bottom. You don't always need outlines on the top, though. Third is shading. I shaded your handle; there's no need to have big solid blotches of colour in such a small sprite. Shade it.

Those are just basics, the real problem with your sprite is frankly, its basic design is poor. Always have references. First thing I did is google "pump shotgun" and click on the first image. Even if you are going to make something original it helps to have a basic design just a click away. Essentially, your shotgun is an L with a grip. I'm not being rude intentionally and I certainly hope you don't think less of me, but that is what it is and you need to know. You need to break it up into different parts for the eye to look at, you need little details to make it interesting.

The third shotgun is my remodeled one. Even two pixels for a front and rear sight can make a world of difference. I also made it like I see most shotguns, with the barrel on top but with a sort of support beam attached under it, rather than having just one big barrel like yours. To accommodate this I made the body of the shotgun a pixel thicker. I also made a more standard handle. Handles are fairly standardized in CC. Go ahead and rip one off of a Vanilla sprite.

...And yeah, that's pretty much it. As you can see I compensate for my spriting skills with walls of text. This is an important skill if you intend to be a spriter.

tl;dr: Copy real shotguns for now. Have outlines. Have shading. Smaller handle. Add small details. Put in palette.

I'm not really sure if this qualifies as a try since you basically just took my example, butchered the shading on the handle and pump, slightly lengthened the tip of the barrel, removed the rear sight, and randomly added dots all over the main body. For the record I think it still looks better than your first try.

I think it would be a lot more beneficial for you if you tried to make one yourself, from scratch. You won't learn much by taking other people's basic shapes and deshading them.

Edit: Your colour choice is good, though.

*BONUS I usually go for a low colour count, but I figured I should try making a shiny sprite like everyone else.

Here's your gun in proper palette:


In the future just open up palette.bmp in your Base.rte folder and paste your sprite in there (using MS Paint is easiest). This will automatically put your sprite in palette.