Have people made sprites by hand so far?

[printz]

Are there sprites done by hand on a sheet, then scanned and retouched? Have such pieces of art been included in large mods/TCs?

'Cuz I don't feel like modelling stuff out of clay (or computer matter while I'm at it) right now, then take shots. Sure, the originals were 3d, but I'd take the challenge to draw by pencils/paints/markers, which is faster IRL than the IPC Paint way, and more precise (feel free to contradict me :). I also want to stay away from mythological monster fusions (unless they come from MRW or the "Beastiary"), easily processed thru Paint and photo editors.

Do usual game sprite artists avoid drawing each pic by hand?

[Vegeta]

Nmn told me that his sprites (done from scratch, not the edited ones) were first draws on paper, then scanned and edited.

[printz]

So far what I've seen done by Nmn in /idgames are textures. Still, no matter whether handdrawn or not, they're good, thanks for directing me to them.

[Vegeta]

He did many weapon sprites from scratch.

[Scuba Steve]

Weapons are easy. 5 sprites maybe? Drawing a completely new enemy for doom requires 30+ sprites of different angles and actions. It's a massive undertaking and shows why there are few, high quality completely new enemies for Doom.

[Kappes Buur]

Go to the ZDoom forum and search for posts by ERIANCE. He is a most talented sprite maker.

[Vegeta]

Eriance is a great sprite artists, yet his monsters aren't made from scratch, and I may be wrong but I think his editings aren't done on a paper and then scanned (which isn't a must for good quality sprites as he and other demonstrates).

[Gez]

Vegeta said:

Eriance is a great sprite artists, yet his monsters aren't made from scratch

Like all sprite artists, he started by modifying existing sprites; but his most recent monsters have been made from scratch.

He explained his method in the Demon Eclipse thread at the ZDoom forums. From what I remember, he does start with sketches on paper, then scan said sketches, but only use them as reference and model and make the final sprites entirely on the computer.

*looks around*

Nope, not the Demon Eclipse thread. This one!

[Scuba Steve]

Yes he is... but it takes him a LONG time to make them. Even just editing a sprite takes a while. My comment stands just as accurate as when I last said it... because of the difficulty of drawing new enemies, there are few total enemy replacements.

[Stupid Bunny]

I suppose this kind of relates to the question at hand...

If I were to make new textures and flats for doom, what program would I use? I've done a few with MS Paint, but they're all pretty simple and are just edits of existing textures. Is there a recommended method for producing new textures or doing edits of existing ones? I have plans for a WAD that will use new textures and (maybe) edited sprites.

[Kappes Buur]

StupidBunny said:

I suppose this kind of relates to the question at hand...

To find new material for textures I usually do two things:
1. take digital photographs myself
2. browse galleries of photography websites, such as fotocommunity.de

To turn this material into textures I use Paint Shop Pro 8 by COREL. Although some people use GIMP or the "big one" Photoshop.
I found that PSP8 had a very shallow learning curve, IOW it's easy to use.
The results are then merged into the wad with XWE between TX_START and TX_END.

[Vader]

Gez said:

Like all sprite artists, he started by modifying existing sprites; but his most recent monsters have been made from scratch.
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Yeah true, some of his latest monsters were made entirely from scratch!
Btw, the shadow also isn't based on anything!
Although it looks similar to the Imp, the sprites are also completely new.

Personally I think it's much easier to just draw sprites on the Pc, rather than making a hand drawn sprite sheet and then scan it.
The advantage is that you can easily change things without using a rubber and have better ways to compare and afjust the poses and dimensions of the single sprites.
I also believe, that Nmn and Eriance own a drawing tablet (or whatever these are called), so if they make a drawn sheet of the sprites first, it's also not done with pencil and paper!

[KuriKai]

StupidBunny said:

I suppose this kind of relates to the question at hand...

If I were to make new textures and flats for doom, what program would I use? I've done a few with MS Paint, but they're all pretty simple and are just edits of existing textures. Is there a recommended method for producing new textures or doing edits of existing ones? I have plans for a WAD that will use new textures and (maybe) edited sprites.

I use Gimp to make my textures.

[printz]

Vader said:

The advantage is that you can easily change things without using a rubber and have better ways to compare and afjust the poses and dimensions of the single sprites.

Ya, but with hands I've got more precision putting the lines. It'd also remind me of kindergarten.

[Ezxariarch]

Vader has More Sprited monsters than anyone, I believe. Simply becauses his edited monsters are so heavily edited they might as well count for ones done from scratch (i.e. the KDiZD Soul Harvester and New Cacolich).

As for the spriting, it's easier for me to hand drawn bigger and more complicated monsters, like ones the size of the Cyberdemon. Smaller and simpler monsters, such as Caco-like ones and imp-ish ones are easier done if you just draw them in MS paint. It's not too hard, just extremely tedious.

Weapons are all pretty easy, aside from weapons with rotating parts, like a chaingun. Cuz then perspective comes into play when you make the rotating barrels.

[Jonathan]

Scuba Steve said:

Yes he is... but it takes him a LONG time to make them. Even just editing a sprite takes a while. My comment stands just as accurate as when I last said it... because of the difficulty of drawing new enemies, there are few total enemy replacements.

I agree, but I think it's more than just the time they take that is the problem, in my experience sprites require a level of "proper" artistic skill beyond what's required for weapons. Pretty much anyone should be able to read your tutorials and produce a decent looking weapon sprite, but to do a decent enemy replacement you'll need a grasp of perspective, foreshortening, anatomy and motion that take a long time to acquire.

[40oz]

I could do it, I can make pretty decent looking monster sprites from hand. It's just that doing one monster can take me weeks. I'm working on a skin from scratch for skulltag and I'm almost finished, but I started well over a month ago. Of course I dont work on it every single day, working on it is just really boring and tiresome.

[leileilol]

I usually do a lot of my sprites by hand. I'm not a fan of recoloring a doom/heretic/hexen monster then pasting my name all over it like i'm the king and i own all rights to it

[printz]

Ya, that's something I want to avoid, too. If I modify, say, an imp, giving it more attacks, they'd probably look boringly the same, but what it spawns should be all new...