To make good sprites for you projects that you use, you need several things.
First off, you need time!!! In order to make decent sprites you need to have time and
patience. You can't expect to have a drop dead awesome looking sprite if you put 15
seconds into it. You need to take your time and make sure the sprite looks good and that
there isn't any pixelation or blur on the sprite. You can reduce this by using a smaller brush
and zooming in on the sprite to get the best rounded detail. If you can do this part alone
you can start making your sprites look better immediately.
Secondly, you need practice!!!! If you don't know the tools that you are working with, then
you don't know what limitations and possibilities you are limited to or not limited to. You
should just take some time drawing things to get used to the tools, interface, and
controls of the program. Also get used to what each tool can do and what it does. If you
know what the tool does then you know if you will need it for a desired effect that you
want to achieve. If you know your program then you know what you can do. That is a
very important skill that you must develop to make good sprites.
Third, you need a good image/photo editor!!!! There are many free and open-source
image editors that you can get if you don't want to pay for Adobe Photoshop/Adobe
Fireworks/Adobe Illustrator or any other commercial grade software. Some of the
image/photo editing software comes on Macs and Windows. I suggest Adobe products for
your programs but, you can get almost the same quality of images/sprites without them.
I use Gimp which is a great image/photo editor which is for Mac/Windows and possibly
Linux. You can get it at gimp.org It is pretty much the free version of Adobe Photoshop. I
mostly know of Mac image editors (because I have a Mac). Gimp requires X11 which
comes on a Mac if you have Leopard for your Mac. If you don't have Leopard then you can
get X11 off the Apple website apple.com free for download. If you don't want Gimp you
can get Seashore which is based off of Gimp but doesn't require X11 to run. It is pretty
good. You can get it at http://seashore.sourceforge.net/download.php I suggest getting
it if you want Gimp without an X11 environment. The next program is called Pixen. Pixen
like it's name suggests it a pixel-editor. It is pretty good at making sprite sheets and
sprites. You can get it at http://opensword.org/Pixen/ The next program is Paintbrush
which is practically MS Paint for Mac. You can get it at paintbrush.en.softonic.com/mac
The next programs are for Windows. The programs above are for mostly Mac. The first
one is MS Paint. It comes standard on Windows computers and it decent. I have seen some
great stuff made on MS Paint. The next program is Gimp again. It is almost exactly like
the Mac version and is awesome. I suggest getting it. You can get it at gimp.org The next
program is paint.NET It is a pretty good piece of software that a lot of people on Scratch
use. It has a great user interface and is easy to use. You can get it at paint.NET The next
program is photoscape which is a feature packed image editor. You can do further
research on it on google.com but the download is here
http://www.photoscape.org/ps/main/download.php The next one is called ImageForge.
ImageForge is a freeware image editor with painting and editing tools. Allows you to
import images from scanners and digital cameras, apply special effects filters, and
create photo albums and slideshows. Although this is teaser program for the shareware
ImageForge PRO, it's probably a few steps above Microsoft Paint. You can download it
here at http://www.shareup.com/ImageForge-download-1999.html The last one that I
am going to talk about for Windows is Ultimate Paint. Ultimate Paint is available in both
shareware and freeware versions for image creation, viewing, and manipulation. It has
been designed to be fast and compact, and if you're familiar with the old Deluxe Paint
program from Electronic Arts, Ultimate Paint is said to be very similar. The freeware
version is an older release of the full-featured shareware product. You can download it
here at http://www.ultimatepaint.com/
Conclusion- Basically all of the programs are the same. I suggest Gimp, but that is just
me. Just search around and find a photo editor for you. If you don't want to download one
you can go to photoshop.com and sign up for a free account and it is the Photoshop
program online for free!!! I am sure by the time that you have finished following all of
my tips you will be making better sprites faster! Also you need to know the difference
between a bitmap editor and a vector editor. Vectors keep there same resolution and
quality through resizing and other things because they aren't pixels like what bitmap
editors are. All of the programs I mentioned above are bitmap editors except Adobe
Illustrator. If you want a Vector editor and you have a Mac then get Inkscape. It requires
X11 like Gimp and is pretty good. You can get it at inkscape.org I don't know of any
Vector programs for Windows because I haven't looked any up. So basically take your
time, get a good program, and practice to make good sprites. I hope these help.
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