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Mainly posting this to vent. There are a couple things in pixel art I've been seeing a lot lately that just really rub me the wrong way.
The first is mixing pixel sizes. How hard is it to keep them all the same size? You're not "adding detail" cuz that stuff is just going to disappear when you shrink it down to 1x anyway, and if what you show is what's supposed to be 1x, then that means that part of your character is smooth and part of it is literally made of blocky chunks. It just look sloppy and makes the piece lose cohesion. Treat pixels as a quantum unit; they cannot be subdivided, and nothing is smaller. If you want those details present, make a bigger sprite. It's not hard to redraw thin lines over the old ones, and you can just have a single large image to put those details on and leave them out of the small version. Don't worry, people's minds will be able to fill them in. Have a little faith in your audience.
The second is a product of pure laziness. It's what I like to call slinky animation. Instead of actually making new poses, the character is just squished down to make it look like they're bouncing in an idle animation, or parts of the character will just be cut and shifted around like a paperdoll. You may notice it causes some parts to just disappear into others. I've even seen one where the head would just slide up and down, like the neck was retracting into it. They didn't even take the time to squish the neck.
What's worse is sometimes people will rotate these parts and not clean them up. If you're doing a really big sprite, long animation, or just something where redrawing over the frames to fix them is impossible, that's fine, but for small gifs with short animations, there's no excuse. It's like when coloring a normal drawing, you go out of the lines cuz you're moving your mouse too fast, and instead of cleaning it up, you just leave it messy. It's appalling that people actually charge money for lazy work like this. If you're actually gonna animate like this, you should not be charging any more than you do for a still image, cuz it does not take any work to do slinky animation at all.
If you're not going to draw new parts or clean up your position changes, do not charge for animation. You're ripping off your clients, and anyone who wants a sprite made of them, don't agree to pay for fake animation.
I'm probably gonna piss people off with this, but if you are pissed, it's probably cuz you're guilty of this and can't take criticism, so I'm not sorry. If you're not going to improve your work, then at least keep quiet and not be immature, cuz it'll only make you look worse if you don't.
The first is mixing pixel sizes. How hard is it to keep them all the same size? You're not "adding detail" cuz that stuff is just going to disappear when you shrink it down to 1x anyway, and if what you show is what's supposed to be 1x, then that means that part of your character is smooth and part of it is literally made of blocky chunks. It just look sloppy and makes the piece lose cohesion. Treat pixels as a quantum unit; they cannot be subdivided, and nothing is smaller. If you want those details present, make a bigger sprite. It's not hard to redraw thin lines over the old ones, and you can just have a single large image to put those details on and leave them out of the small version. Don't worry, people's minds will be able to fill them in. Have a little faith in your audience.
The second is a product of pure laziness. It's what I like to call slinky animation. Instead of actually making new poses, the character is just squished down to make it look like they're bouncing in an idle animation, or parts of the character will just be cut and shifted around like a paperdoll. You may notice it causes some parts to just disappear into others. I've even seen one where the head would just slide up and down, like the neck was retracting into it. They didn't even take the time to squish the neck.
What's worse is sometimes people will rotate these parts and not clean them up. If you're doing a really big sprite, long animation, or just something where redrawing over the frames to fix them is impossible, that's fine, but for small gifs with short animations, there's no excuse. It's like when coloring a normal drawing, you go out of the lines cuz you're moving your mouse too fast, and instead of cleaning it up, you just leave it messy. It's appalling that people actually charge money for lazy work like this. If you're actually gonna animate like this, you should not be charging any more than you do for a still image, cuz it does not take any work to do slinky animation at all.
If you're not going to draw new parts or clean up your position changes, do not charge for animation. You're ripping off your clients, and anyone who wants a sprite made of them, don't agree to pay for fake animation.
I'm probably gonna piss people off with this, but if you are pissed, it's probably cuz you're guilty of this and can't take criticism, so I'm not sorry. If you're not going to improve your work, then at least keep quiet and not be immature, cuz it'll only make you look worse if you don't.
Category Artwork (Digital) / All
Species Squirrel
Size 256 x 144px
File Size 15.5 kB
Listed in Folders
yea sounds about right vv; and in my case I struggle with working with sprites at times in my own case but I do wish to improve, that being said, would you have any advice regarding working on new poses, I tend to have problems over exaggerating movement or making them too stiff
If you're having trouble with stiff animations, practice with simple figures first. You'll have to do it over and over, and it'll be frustrating and take patience, but it's like grinding in an RPG. Just keep doing it, and you'll get better over time. Also, look up animation references and other sprite sheets. Try recreating some of their animations so you have a point of reference to track your progress with.
ah I see~ alright well guess I better start looking up sprite sheets and animations refs then~ thanks for the advice, it's folks like that you help sprite artists out their improve their work
that being said yea when someone just draws in pixels to sprites that are not even of the same resolution it bothers the absolute heck out of me too ><;
that being said yea when someone just draws in pixels to sprites that are not even of the same resolution it bothers the absolute heck out of me too ><;
I see so many "animations" like that. It really is an effortless way to justify calling it an animation. It's a shame too when the actual sprite looks good, but then the lazy animation ruins it. I relate to the rage and in some cases, disappointment.
I'll admit that I do use a sort-of "paper doll" technique but I only use it as a rough-draft for posing on certain portions of a sprite. I draw over it to make it clean and accurate for each frame. It's either that or I just flat-color paint the character and add the other values as I go. I don't do lines, so I guess it's my own version of sketching the poses before rendering.
I'll admit that I do use a sort-of "paper doll" technique but I only use it as a rough-draft for posing on certain portions of a sprite. I draw over it to make it clean and accurate for each frame. It's either that or I just flat-color paint the character and add the other values as I go. I don't do lines, so I guess it's my own version of sketching the poses before rendering.
Mixing pixel sizes is something I have a problem with when it comes to pixel art, yes. It just.. doesn't look natural when you have like multiple different sizes and it just aflbackjhubgg
And for the second part, doing animations like that with high detailed sprites in in fact lazy
However, it can work in certain situations where the sprite has low detail and can be used as a " test " animation.
You can't have awesome art and a weird animation, otherwise it just looks weird
Third part is a little true as well lol
( Also a reason why my art is free lmao )
Am not angry though, as I can relate
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