Learning to scratch

[Lorem Ipsum]

Okay, so, I'm trying to learn to scratch because I have time on my hands to kill and it's something cool. So I've been doing mostly established Pokémon but as I get better I'm going to try to do some fake ones, but yeah.

Comments and especially tips on how to make them look more realistic would be really appreciated!

Voltorb:

Electrode:

Numel:

 

[Monoking]

:o

That's pretty good. They're actually adorable.

 

[Keldeo]

For some reason, the Voltorb's eyes look weird... Maybe it's just me. Also, why is there no shine on the Voltorb?

 

[Psychic Kobra]

Woah, those are much better than what I could ever do. If you want to see my scratch sprite, pay a visit to Sabrago, Desert Ruler.

 

[Torronto]

Seems like you're getting pretty good, Numel's legs could use a bit of work and electrode's eyes look out of place, but the Voltorb looks really nice.

 

[Aisling]

Not a bad start! For some individual nitpicks, Voltorb could use a little less shadow and a little brighter highlight. Electrode's shadow has the same problem, and also his eyes seem to be spread a little too far apart. Numel's nose needs to be a little more round... I think it's the markings that throw off the shape, the outline is probably fine. The legs are also a little too long, and the front legs too close together, I think, for the angle it's at. The B/W sprite has them close together, but you're looking at it more from the side whereas yours is more rotated towards the front- more like RSE's Numel. Like I said though, this is a pretty good start.

Some general advice: look at the official sprites. Look at them a lot. Zoom in reeeal close. Take note of the shapes they use, and how many pixels are in each line in the outlines to figure out how to make smoother curves. Electrode, for example, looks slightly like it has corners even though it should be circular. Voltorb looks fine though. But basically, studying official sprites is something you should definitely do, and in doing that you can learn a lot of things faster than if someone just made a list of little details or something.

 

[Blastoise Fortooate]

Also, just to point out something. The numel's right front leg (from our perspective) has a vertical line and a horizontal line that meet like this:

l_

There's pretty much always gonna be a pixel (l._) in between them in any official sprite.

 

[Aisling]

There's always exceptions, though. Feathers sometimes have a hard L-shape at the very tips to make them look pointy, for instance. Same with claws and beaks.

I kinda want to make some kind of graphical guide to stuff like this. A style guide, you could say?

 

[Blastoise Fortooate]

Indeed! Sometimes lines can make an L shape, that's perfectly alright. But doing a l_ tends to make things not look as good as either a L or a l._, so.

I would love to read, that, it sounds like it would be interesting if you did that.

 

[Mumzy]

That's great! I can't believe your just learning. I'd like to see you do some more detailed Pokemon. Remember just googling tutorials can help you find some pretty great stuff, I like going to dA for tutorials.