Super Mario Bros. X Forums

So I've just started making my own sprites/pixel art (with 0% experience; never tried it before), and somehow they're looking really good for first timers. I was wondering if people could give out criticism, so that I know where I need to improve and how I can improve.
First up, I have two characters, basically me and... someone else, who I plan to use for a future SMBX project. I tried using a SMW style, since most of the graphics for the game are SMW already. I had a bit of trouble with these, especially when making a female body, since I had a set space I wanted to work with, and I didn't want things looking too big or too weird. (some stuff that I've noticed are off will be updated later, this is just what I have now)

I plan to work on more poses for the playable characters and NPCs, but I need a completely finished sprite for both characters before I start working on different poses.

Next I have this Sonic pixel art that I finished earlier today. (the head was traced, everything else was based off of reference images) Wanted this to be included as a larger sprite, since I would most likely be making more of those later on.


Again, I've had no experience with working with/creating sprites (as well as shading anything), this is my first time making them, and yet they look good. Of course, I still need some criticism to know where and how to improve.
(this was originally posted somewhere else, but I thought it wasn't relevant to a certain thread and decided to post it as a main topic)

Im not an expert myself, but I've noticed a 'rule' in the SMBX sprites. (This doesn't HAVE to br followed but it helps the SMW/SMB style).

If you are using a colour, you want to use 3 shades of that colour. I know that isn't worded well, but what I mean is that there are three colours to use when shading. Your colour, the lighter version of that colour, and the darker version of that colour. Keeping this rule in mind, look at the mario sprites. You may notice that they use three shades of red. The darker red is used only in places like corners, and then the nutreal red is used the most to pad out the sprite, and the lighter red is used in the 'opposite' corners of the sprite.

Im very sorry if my bad wording confused you, so it might be best to just analyse the mario sprite im talking about if you got confused.

Quick edit: This rule does not have to be used for all your pixel art ever, since your sprites using 2 shades look good. This rule is only for the style of mario games.

You might need more shading & highlights on the sprites...

The guy's arm looks kinda awkward. Also, why can you only see one of them, while the girl clearly has two visible?
Sonic looks really good though!

HenryRichard wrote:The guy's arm looks kinda awkward. Also, why can you only see one of them, while the girl clearly has two visible?
Sonic looks really good though!

Yeah, the arm was already planned to be fixed, since the screenshot is a tad bit outdated. As for only one arm showing, I thought it would be useful later on when making running animations, so that while running, that same frame can make it look like the other arm is being swayed backwards, causing it to go unseen for a bit before it comes back into view.