Chapter 3.6: Creating the Sprite Assets Part 1

In this post I will be demonstrating the process of creating one of my character sprites, Jebat. However do take note that this same process is applied throughout the other sprites that I have created.


References

The first thing that I searched was a reference for my character sprite. Since I'm focusing on a top-down RPG game, I have to use a sprite sheet that has the up-down-left-right movement for me to refer to. There were a few games that stumbled into my mind which were :

• Pokemon series  (Game Boy series)
• Legend of Zelda: Link to the Past (SNES)
• Dragonball Z: Buu's Fury (Game Boy Advanced)
• Earthbound (Famicom)
• Final Fantasy series (SNES)
• Dragon Quest (NES)
• Kingdom Hearts : Chain of Memories (Game Boy Advanced)
• Fire Emblem series (Nintendo DS)

These are a few game titles that I just wanted to list down. There are more though but let's just take one from here. I was interested on how the Dragonball Z: Buu's Fury game was made due to the simple controls they had. Also I felt that the game I'm making fits with the movement they made in the game.Therefore I took their sprite sheet as a reference. 

Once I found it, I cropped them in Photoshop and bring it into Piskel like this : 

The grids in Piskel eases me to design the characters. It also shows which boxes that has darker or brighter colors so that it helps me in creating tones in my character design.

I also create a custom palette in Piskel using the colors I used to design Jebat's portraits. In this case I just the major colors as the sprite only requires 4-8 tones color. Once that's done then I'm all set to create the character.