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SOME GRAPHIC TIPS FROM FISHHEAD
-A little guide for creating nice sprites-
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WARNING : this is my first article here

First of all, everyone has his (or her?) own style, I only give one way to create nice sprites, there are thousants of other ways and other styles.

Secondly, to create a decent sprite you need some talent. If you never succeeded in drawing something attractive just give it up and specialise in coding or something.
If you have some talent there is hope, and it will probably be a good idea to read this article.

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1: THE SHAPE
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When you want to make a sprite for a game, you first have to think about some things. What shape does it have?
When you know this you can start drawing the shape.
Just think about the different parts of your object, It may even be a good idea to draw them all apart. When you are done, it should look like a piece of crap, if not, start again

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2: Adding details
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Well you have a shape now, now lets add some details.
I dont know what object you are creating, I am doing a rat right now. The rat needs eyes, a nose, and a lotta more things. Just draw the shapes of the details on the big shape of your object.
(your object should still look like a piece of crap)

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3: Shading
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Here it starts to be difficult, you will have to shade the shapes. The most easy way is just to draw one or two (according to the size of the sub- object) darker lines all along the edges of the graphic. So the shape will have a normal colour in the middle, getting darker to the edges.
(Your sprite should look a bit better already now)

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4: Shining your sprite
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Now you will have to make your object shiny. First think about what material it is made of. If it is really shiny you will have to pick a real bright colour now. Shining is done the same way as shading, but then totally different.
Just make the object brighter to the middle of the object.
(If your object still looks like a piece of crap, you probably dont have talent)

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5: Some other tips
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Here are some other tips that can help you:
- Dont make your sprite too big if not necessary, It will be harder to shade (and animate)when its big.
- Keep things simple
- Dont let yourself be discouraged by arrogant clickers who tell you to fu(k off, they were once newbies too (or still are)
- Try to create your own style when you are getting better at spriting (this is the most stupid word I have ever heard)

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6: Want more?
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well this is a whole buncha words, if you didn't want to read it all, or want some examples, download this tutorial I made a year ago here:
http://www.geocities.com/tgfdev/tut/graphicstut.zip