Spriting Tutorials [updates]

Hi, I've decided to make a tutorial for spiriting and such. It's all gonna be in one post so it's easy to find it!

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Spoiler for Please Read:

Updates and such:

April 8th:
First, I'm making a beginner level tutorial and working my way up to advanced. So expect Intermediate Level and Advanced Level once I'm done with Beginner Level.
~Mexneto

Beginner Level:

Spoiler for Knowledge Needed:

Basic Knowledge: Nothing as in sprites.
MS Paint Knowledge: I expect you to know how to change colors, and use every tool. (a bit condescending)
Color Knowledge: Nada.
The GIMP Knowledge: A basic understanding of all of the tool, and such. Colors, same as paint.
Photo Shop Knowledge: (I don't have photo shop, but I can still do Beginner, some of it)
A basic understanding of the tools and colors.
Lighting Knowledge: Nada.
GIF Knowledge: Nada. (GIF is the file type you save animations as)
A Basic Knowledge of everything above the separator.

Intermediate Level:

Spoiler for:

Come Back Later!

Advanced Level:

Spoiler for:

Come Back Later!

Beginner Level:

Stuff you NEED to know!

Spoiler for :

First and foremost: You must know ho to work MS Paint, The GIMP, Photo Shop or anyother program you might be using.

Now, you need to know some more: How to define your own custom colors instead of just the basic two shades of every color. This is Hex. a Six Character Code, each letter defining some color bit. The code digits that are used range from: 0-9 & A-F, defining custom colors  isn't as easy as it sounds, well, making up your own I mean, defining them is as simple as drinking water!
Here are the easiest Hex Codes:
Black: #000000
White: #FFFFFF
Red: #FF0000
Blue: #0000FF
Green: #00FF00
Yellow: #FFFF00
Grey: #DDDDDD


You open up the color mixer and mix away! Aha! Wait a minute though: MS Paint wont show you the Hex Color Code, it shows you the RGB Color Code, lets get to know our friend RGB: RGB, a.k.a.: Red Green Blue. Most things like RMXP when picking the color of a Screen Flash uses the RGB esque system, of a meter with: Red, Green and Blue, to define your color. Also, let the truth be told, there is also more stuff!
Lets meet our friends! Sat, Hue and Lum: Nice, very nice, and easy to know too!

Lets go over what each of these three defining codes do:

Hue: On a scale from 0-239, the hue defines the first angle of RGB, we will talk more about those is a minute. Just remember that Hue is the first angle. (Not the best way to learn it, but ok, none the less, I'll explain more further on)

Sat: On a scale from 0-239, the sat difines the second angle of RGB, after the Lum part, we'll get to more of this stuff!

Lum: On a scale from 0-239, the sat defines the light of a color, Now, we get to the heart of RGB!


If hue defines the first angle, WAIT! Slow down here, what is the first angle anyway?!?!?!


Ok, think of it as a scale from zero to eight: 0  1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8
                                           
                                            0Red 2Yellow 4Bl/grn 6Prple 8Red
                                               1Orange 3Green 5Blue 7Pink

Get it? 0 Hue is Like normal. Also, Hue goes from left to Right, the more Hue, the farther right, the less Hue, the farther left. (Horizontal)

Now, if you didn't know what hue was, than you might not know what Sat is. But if you do, skip this.

Ok, Sat is like Hue, only it goes Vertical, so, because there are not enough colors, lets just say this:
The less sat: the more grey and then black, the more sat: the more color and more light.
So, if you have your color to dead on red: the less sat, which you can only go down, will make it darker. Interesting. Not at all.
Get it? No?!?!?! Ok, here's more:

Say, if you want a nice ice blue, leave everything the same and put it on a blue, but lower the sat and lower the angle vertical wise.
If you are still confused or just don't get it, wikipedia it.


Lum: Now, every color so far is defined by Hue and Sat (RGB wise). Ok, but I hear you talking about this thing called Lum. What is it?

Lum is for further defining colors, see the side bar with the lever esque thing that you can raise and lower, that's lum. It defines the colors light. Lum I assume standing for Luminescent, like lights. Or something a long those lines!
Got it? Ok, I'll explain more!

If the Lum is set to 239, no matter what the color is, it'll be white, yet if the Lum is set to 0, it'll be black, and in between those, are a wide range of colors. Just check it out for your self.

Now that you have that down, time to dig into the fun stuff!

Lighting!

Spoiler for:

First off, when EVER you do a sprite, the light ALWAYS comes from the north-west. a.k.a., you're upper left hand corner.

When you're lighting something, make sure that the color you are using to lighten it with is good and visible and well rounded, most people have their own style of lighting.

First, here's an example:

Looks nice? Right, it does look nice, lets call this: Blending while not using too many colors. (Blended Beginner) (1)

Ok, now this type:

Looks nice? Yeah, it does, this is the most common type of sprite style lighting that you'll see. Let;s call it: Common Type (2)

Ok, the final one:

AHHH!!! It's burning my eyes! Well, it's pretty uncommon to find ones like this, it looks ok, but need to be improved. Well, we'll get to that later on.
Let's call this: Too Much Light (3)

What do you think looks the best?

Well, in my opinion:

(1) Looks the best. Pretty sleek and clean, and can easily be improved to look sweet and cool.

(2) Looks pretty good, but i don't really like this kind, too much work for something that looks half ass (Mind my swearing). It me, it looks very mid evil.

(3) By far the worst of the bunch, very gritty looking, yet can look better if you improve a few things here and there.

Try and make those above, what ever looks the bets to you, try and re-create it.

Please read:

Spoiler for Ending Notes:

April 8th: 10:07 Pacific Time
Well, this is my first day at writing this tutorials, and I think I covered enough for the night.

April 15th: 12:19 PM Pacific Time
First update includes grammatical corrections and spelling corrections. Also an update on the lighting section, I'll do more tonight.

nice that you finally made one of these! You promised me to learn this, remember? Well, I haven't actually read it yet (I'm going to when I've written this) but I think it's going to be really good. Isn't itr?

this should be in tut database, not computting xD

Well, sorry!  Didn't know. This is dead I think. Maybe I'll get to more of it.

And Kess, I'll help you out when I get some sketches for olivine pokemon done.

It's not dead until people see it, and nobody goes in the computing section

Hopefully it will get more views and more people will comment.

Well, I think posting some of your own sprites would help the tutorial, instead of all just text.

I will, in fact, I'm too lazy right now, but I'll get to in very very soon.

Well I was trying to get tips on spriting, since people posted I should come here and learn a little. It seems this is finished and I learned all this post has to offer. I'll look for another.

Hi.

I recommend people to use Graphic Gale for spriting, at least that's the one I use. It's user friendly and more spriting oriented than the other ones. Just my 2 cents ^^

Wow....this has been dead for months...I think I might update it ^^