Free 8-Bit Ponies!

[BookWorm 47]

 

Here's my OC, Book Worm.

[Critical Hit 69]

...Whoa, didn't expect this many requests at first.

Kay, I'm working on them. NOTE: Becuase of the limited size, they will be recolors of my base pony sprites, but because of that, I'm also going to make an effect sheet for each of you. Just edit your original post with what you want your effect to be. Y'know, like one of these. EDIT: Not the whole sheet. Just like a specialized magic blast or trail or something. Can be anything as long as it can fit in 8x8 pixels..

And Ashbad, I'm not limiting my pallette simply because if I do, then you won't be able to tell the difference between 2 ponies with similar colors. I.E. two red ones with blue manes and cutie marks.

Edited July 18, 2012 by Invader Critical Doompants

[Pix3M 607]

 

And Ashbad, I'm not limiting my pallette simply because if I do, then you won't be able to tell the difference between 2 ponies with similar colors. I.E. two red ones with blue manes and cutie marks.

I believe that the comment could also be applied to the non-pony works you showed us.

(To think that the NES can only handle sprites with 3 colors plus transparency.)

[Critical Hit 69]

Oh, god, I just realized I didn't put a note until just now stating that I'm not the 'Oryx' who made that first sheet. I just love the dude's style.

[Pix3M 607]

Oh, god, I just realized I didn't put a note until just now stating that I'm not the 'Oryx' who made that first sheet. I just love the dude's style.

I figured that you didn't make the sprite sheets after giving it a second thought. I only addressed you as Oryx to indirectly ask if you were the artist of those retro-styled sprites, haha. People will just naturally assume that a work is yours if you just present it to people.

 

One day, I had am image editor opened up editing a work done by a guy who goes by Fool, one of the greatest pixel artists around. His isometric castle piece caught my eye, and the artist left comments that heavily implied that there were flaws in the work, and I was curious to dissect the work and see if I can get past the impact of how awesome his work was and find flaws that he neglected to fix. I was doing this in a computer classroom, and one guy said behind me "Sir, you have waay too much time on your hands". I had to explain that I was not the original artist. I am kind of flattered that I could be mistaken as somebody that good simply because I was working on one of his works.

Edited July 18, 2012 by PixMeister

[Critical Hit 69]

I figured that you didn't make the sprite sheets after giving it a second thought. I only addressed you as Oryx to indirectly ask if you were the artist of those retro-styled sprites, haha. People will just naturally assume that a work is yours if you just present it to people.

 

One day, I had am image editor opened up editing a work done by a guy who goes by Fool, one of the greatest pixel artists around. His isometric castle piece caught my eye, and the artist left comments that heavily implied that there were flaws in the work, and I was curious to dissect the work and see if I can get past the impact of how awesome his work was and find flaws that he neglected to fix. I was doing this in a computer classroom, and one guy said behind me "Sir, you have waay too much time on your hands". I had to explain that I was not the original artist. I am kind of flattered that I could be mistaken as somebody that good simply because I was working on one of his works.

 

Ah, got it. I just don't want people to think I'm Oryx.

He's way better than I am.

 

Also, is this the Iso Castle?

It's pretty awesome. And I don't usually like really high-res.

Hence the sheet of Oryx' sprites I'm modelling my ponies on.

[Pix3M 607]

Ah, got it. I just don't want people to think I'm Oryx.

He's way better than I am.

 

Also, is this the Iso Castle?

It's pretty awesome. And I don't usually like really high-res.

Hence the sheet of Oryx' sprites I'm modelling my ponies on.

Yes, that's the exact one.

[Critical Hit 69]

...I've been thinking of opening a dA account, but there's one small thing stopping me.

I'm afraid to show anybody my sprites, cause, well, I'm afraid better spriters will mock me. What do you think?

Will anyone mock me because I do ultra-low-res sprites?

[Pix3M 607]

...I've been thinking of opening a dA account, but there's one small thing stopping me.

I'm afraid to show anybody my sprites, cause, well, I'm afraid better spriters will mock me. What do you think?

Will anyone mock me because I do ultra-low-res sprites?

Trust me. Most people do not leave nasty comments. People tend to have a 'if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say it' mentality, so if anything, you'll either hear kind words, or nothing at all.

[Ashbad 969]

...I've been thinking of opening a dA account, but there's one small thing stopping me.

I'm afraid to show anybody my sprites, cause, well, I'm afraid better spriters will mock me. What do you think?

Will anyone mock me because I do ultra-low-res sprites?

I more than encourage the notion. Unfortunately, on dA you won't get many constructive comments, so what you'll mostly see are "wow xD AWESOME I luv ur art I wanna have ur babies one day" or "gaaaaaaaaaayyyyyy". So either end of the non-constructive spenctrum. However it's good to have a dA so that you can show your art to a lot more people than what you normally could due to dA groups (ones like #MLP-FiM and #PonyPixelIcons are some examples, the latter of which I think PixMeister is even a maintainer of)

 

On the other hand, to get as much "good" feedback as possible, I'd always suggest hitting up the wayofthepixel.net forums (Pixelation) as they have multiple top-tier, active artists there with a policy that they'll give you the best critique possible. Examples of some of their current members that are both professional-grade and helpful are ptoing, grimsane, facet, Ai (or aicaz or whatever the hell his handle is these days ), Cyangmou, Helm (my favorite pixel artist of all time) and more on top of that. On top of that, some of them are bronies, so there's no problem with posting ponies there. Though heads up, you might get a few PMs from people saying "you might want to try something other than ponies", and while it's good advice you're gonna have to deal with it. On top of that, pixeljoint.com is a great place to upload your finished pixels and they even have their own forums (I'm too lazy to crosspost my pixelation threads there yet, but I really should as they also have some great artists like cure and jalonso who are helpful) so I suggest checking them out too.

 

As for why you're not limiting your palette, my personal opinion on what many call "8-bit" art is that unless you're fully limiting yourself, then it's not real "8-bit". From what you posted it seems as if you're already using very few colors (if that second spritesheet is yours) so I would say, might as well stick within a gamut of an actual 8-bit platform In addition, perhaps try moving up to less symbolic, and more detailed sprites, at a size of something like 16x16 or even 32x32? This is still a very small size for a sprite and then even with such a limited palette you can do wonders, and distinguishing components of the subject shouldn't be as hard.

 

 

 

 

 

Trust me. Most people do not leave nasty comments. People tend to have a 'if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say it' mentality, so if anything, you'll either hear kind words, or nothing at all.

 

I'm too lazy to make my own post so instead I quote other people's posts for truth and then don't say anything new

 

This is very true. dA is a nice community, and while you'll run into trolls every now and then, most of them are pretty lame and you can opt to either mark their posts as spam or mock them for wasting their time trolling over ponies. I generally do both, though most of them aren't worth the time so I just mark 'em as spam and move on. PixMeister loves to have a blast with them however I would too but I already spend my internet time on 4chan's /mlp/ playing with the trolls from /co/ and /b/ so when I get onto dA I'm usually /b/'d out.

 

 

 

And on a final note since no matter what I do this will probably be a wall of text I'm going to agree with Pix about the importance of disecting other's works, looking for problems, making note of the techniques used, and what makes the piece "work" and note anything at all that you feel doesn't make it "work". Personally I've gone down Helm's gallery and disected two or three of his works for an hour or two each, I'm currently going over this one:

 

 

(Probably one of my favorite pixel pieces ever) Less impressive to me for "super largeness" and "super duper complexity" factors as it has neither, but the style and colors used make it incredibly impressive to me, especially the illogical geometry that somehow actually works really well; Not so much to learn about pixel technique from this one as there is the "creativity aspect" and the genius of the elements used. You should definitely be going over other people's works to see what makes them so great, and learn as much as you can from them.

[Pix3M 607]

(ones like #MLP-FiM and #PonyPixelIcons are some examples, the latter of which I think PixMeister is even a maintainer of)

At this point, the group is kind of running itself and since I'm usually preoccupied, other contributers are usually the ones accepting group submissions.

 

This is very true. dA is a nice community, and while you'll run into trolls every now and then, most of them are pretty lame and you can opt to either mark their posts as spam or mock them for wasting their time trolling over ponies. I generally do both, though most of them aren't worth the time so I just mark 'em as spam and move on. PixMeister loves to have a blast with them however

That only happened once. Maybe twice as I was notified of an art thief but taking it through notes =v

 

 

And on a final note since no matter what I do this will probably be a wall of text I'm going to agree with Pix about the importance of disecting other's works, looking for problems, making note of the techniques used, and what makes the piece "work" and note anything at all that you feel doesn't make it "work". Personally I've gone down Helm's gallery and disected two or three of his works for an hour or two each, I'm currently going over this one:

 

 

(Probably one of my favorite pixel pieces ever) Less impressive to me for "super largeness" and "super duper complexity" factors as it has neither, but the style and colors used make it incredibly impressive to me, especially the illogical geometry that somehow actually works really well; Not so much to learn about pixel technique from this one as there is the "creativity aspect" and the genius of the elements used. You should definitely be going over other people's works to see what makes them so great, and learn as much as you can from them.

 

IMO, I would imagine the process to be comparable to my own process for doing hair. For all I know, the artist got the basic shading down first, then the next steps would be manipulating the shape of the pixel clusters to create an intended effect but still adhering to the original basic shading.

[Bari 7,021]

Edit: I recently fixed my OC, so I hope you haven't started on my yet. Sorry for any inconvenience.

Here's my OC:

Edited August 1, 2012 by Coeus

[Mellow 73]

Ooh can you do Mellow and Cotton? that would be awesome if its too much trouble then just doing Mellow is fine for me.

http://mlpforums.com/page/roleplay-characters/_/mellow-r1161

http://mlpforums.com/page/roleplay-characters/_/cotton-r1178

[dq27 0]

ponies in 8-bit?

i fine that annoyingly low for ponies maybe you should do more bits instead of 8 cuz really thats pretty low bit

[Ashbad 969]

ponies in 8-bit?

i fine that annoyingly low for ponies maybe you should do more bits instead of 8 cuz really thats pretty low bit

 

What. I don't even.

 

This makes beyond little sense. It makes NO SENSE. "8 bit is pretty low bit".

 

> You should do more bits than 8

 

What should he do, 13? You can do a lot with a lot less than 8-bit systems' palette restrictions, for example, 2-bit graphics (black, white, and two shades of grey). The only real concern is size.

 

(excuse my jest a bit, I just found what you said rather hilarious )

Edited August 1, 2012 by Ashbad

[The Razor Wing 879]

It would be very nice to see Razorwing in 8-bit form. If you make him i will be very great full and it would be awesome.

[pichu567 2]

Could you do one of my japanese Justice Star?

Is she a beauty! Once she's in 8-bit, I'll faint! PLEASE DO IT!

[Mr. Bojangles 52]

Could you Sprite-fy my OC Brush Stroke? I'd be awesome if you could/would. and now apparently my post is too short. Oh wait, now its good

[Solar Wind 595]

Heres mine!! I wub 8-bits!!

[Atom Flash 19]

Hey can you do mine please? Mine's Atom flash here's the link to his OC page.

 

http://mlpforums.com/page/roleplay-characters/_/atom-flash-r3936

 

Thanks very much for doing this. Can't wait to see it

[Zygen 6,065]

I guess if your gonna do em I may as well post mine and see what happens and how it turns out.

 

If you can do my OC thats cool, if not don't worry about it.

 

Heres my OC reference.