Preparations

Steps detailing preparations

Sizing and Resolution

Depending on the type of sprite being made, you should be aware of the resolution of the actual game first. This is to prevent drawing with great detail for only it to be cropped off or be too small. This can be found in the Art Specifications page.

Art Specifications

Traditional (w/ Digital Sketch)

Omocat tends to sketch out digitally first, to serve to be later traced over.

Advantage:

• Increase cleanliness of the final product, as it's direct trace over

• Effective for sprites involving multiple frames in similar position, like majority of enemy sprites or static mirror sprites.

Disadvantage:

• Require printing paper or using a light board to trace over on paper

Digital

If you are already drawing directly on digital, then there isn't really any fancy step to take here. Though determining the final resolution becomes extra important, as it's going to carry over up to the final product.

One important tip is to draw larger than needed. Double the resolution size would be recommended size. The reasoning are:

• Resizing from big to small is better than reverse. As enlarging small images cause it to be blurry.

• Reduces the inconsistency of brushes, making the specific quirk of digital brush less pronounced.

  • Also helps with problem of jagged pixelated lines in lower resolution in some art programs that does not allow you to control anti aliasing or brush options.

• Recreates the artifact and the later filtering process. This is due to in traditional method, the scans would come in very large resolution