Speed Scratching

[Noxious Acid]

Well, spriting isn't really my forte, nothing is really my forte actually xD except like playing video games and coming up with oodles (And yes, i did just say oodles) of rather odd ideas
Anyways, out of my love for sprites, I tried designing as many sprites possible in a short period of time. 4 mountain dews, like over 29 different songs, and 2 and a half hours later, I came up with this:

The results were... Interesting...
My goal is to get many good, but not completely refined sprites, then with some critique I can polish them up a bit. So over time I'll have some sprites that appeal to the common people. This gives me a collection for programing reasons, plus it tones up my skills and style, both of which I need.
I know I'm going to have to just trash many of my sprites because some of these are just flat out horrible, so please bear with me. I made the outlines in like 5 minutes each, 2 minutes to buffer it up, and a few more for basic shading, then I refined them and it took like 15 minutes tops per sprite.


Info -- Note: to save space I'm only putting info down for ones I where i feel that it is needed,
Doquari, Kashi, and Mahaboro - These are the ones that I spent the most time thinking up. As they mature, they naturally develop eggs. Those eggs have a chance of being shiny. As you see the shiny one was just a mere recolor, so it didn't take too long. I only counted one set of normals and one set of shinnies in the amount of total sprites.

Leo - For those flash game fans, I got the idea from the secret ending in the line simulator game, or whatever it's called. I sprited from scratch though. This one has a different shading style than the rest.

Penguin - The shading is also a little odd in this one. You can see my crappy job with the fat rolling over the feet, further reflecting my laziness. This is my least favorite sprite out of the 18.

Alien - I decided to try out this style of shading, is it good or bad? And i know i did a lousy job on the earth.

ALL CRITIQUE IS APPRECIATED!
Regards, Noxious Acid

 

[Domo-Kun]

I definitely see potential. All of the sprites you've presented have very nice qualities it that is rare to find in someone that doesnt have alot experience in spriting. I love how you know when to use the darkest shade of colour instead of black for the outlines, and it seems as if you can control your light sources fairly decently. No offence intended, but I completely disagree with most of what Jeff just said, your outlines are very decent in most of them. The penguin one however some of the outlined pixels need to be refined, the reason why the outline might look bulky on that sprite though is because the second darkest shade is too close the black, making it seem like it is just one really thick black line, which it isnt.

I can certainly see you spriting some top quality things in the near future if you keep at it. Most of your sprites are fairly decently proportioned, the only one I would look back on is the blue serpent thing, I would make sure that the body is even on both sides because at some points it is very thin and others, very wide. I understand you are trying to make it gradually thicker - and there's nothing wrong with that - but yeah, just look back over that one.

Fantastic work for someone new like you!

Very impressed!

 

[Noxious Acid]

Many of them are too big and completely out of Pokemon style. And pretty much of the outlines are bulky. Some of them have light source coming from the wrong direction, and the propotions are not too good either.

I find that being confined to "pokemon style" is rather boring, and if I made some of them smaller they would have a much different effect. I try not to stick to the standard style; I think it is a lot better for new spriters to keep principals from other styles but incorporate their own style to them. If everyone sprited in the same style this would be a boring subforum my friend
About the outlines, the penguin is pretty much the only one I'd consider bulky. Even then that's only cause I was rushing.
So thank you Jeff for the critique, I'll keep what you said in mind.

Domo, thanks so much ^^ I was worried I wouldn't get anything positive from this first batch of sprites well, except some suggestions or stuff to change, which would be good too. But it still feels good to have a compliment or 2 in there.

EDIT: I finally realized what might be giving the outlines the bulky affect! In order to add shine, I usually go back, and in all the corners I put a shade.
Like so -

I noticed that in my "Leo" sprite and in the penguin sprite it considerably bulks up the outline.

 

[-Raiga-]

I find that being confined to "pokemon style" is rather boring, and if I made some of them smaller they would have a much different effect. I try not to stick to the standard style; I think it is a lot better for new spriters to keep principals from other styles but incorporate their own style to them. If everyone sprited in the same style this would be a boring subforum my friend

I hate to talk about something that doesn't have to do about sprites in your sprite thread, but I disagree. The main reason I see people diverting from the pokemon style is because they can't do it, not because they wan't to expand their horizons.

Add to that pokemon has a mixture of the basics of any spriting style and some of the best sprites of any game period, and its one of the best starting points for any spriter once they do master them.

Anyways I have to question the actual project itself. Is it really necessary? I think you can predict that if you do sprites faster than usual the quality will be lower.

Which begs the question, why not spend the time making a better idea and better sprite the first time around?

Don't get me wrong, I like people trying different things, but its hard to critique someones sprites when I know both that they can do better, and that they're going to be remaking them anyways.

 

[Noxious Acid]

I'll try to make this short, because i tend to rant on...

Anyways I have to question the actual project itself. Is it really necessary? I think you can predict that if you do sprites faster than usual the quality will be lower.

Which begs the question, why not spend the time making a better idea and better sprite the first time around?

I'm doing this whole "Speed spriting" thing for a couple reasons.
1. I'm doing these more for practice than anything else. If all I do is work on 3 or 4 sprites for a couple hours, sure I end up with some fricking awesome sprites, but I only barely improve my technique with outlines, coloring, etc.
2. If i ever want to use these for a programing project or anything like that I'll already have loads of sprites to put in the initial engine. I'll refine them when i have a true purpose for them.
3. If i think too much about a sprite it ends up like utter crap... For some reason they always end up better if i just scribble down a random outline and work loosely on it for a while, refining it later.

And also, about the style thing. I understand most people cant pull off the style, but there is a extremely large group of people that can do it like better than perfectly.
I want to come up with my own style, for uniqueness and creativity reasons. If you have your own style, it is a lot harder for people to steal your work. IF they cant mimic the style with a brand new creation, you know they're stealing.
Most of my work with graphic arts doesn't involve pokemon so I can't really use a style that is related to a monster fighting game for all of my programing and designing needs.