Making The First Sprite - Tiny Spice

Creating a game goes with baby steps, and who's better to perform those steps that someone of the appropriate size - you got it, me. While others are working on a basic framework (the hinges on which the game relies), I have just finished the first sprite of the game: a mountaineer that the technical guys can implement to test the basic engine and player object.

It doesn't have animations as of today, but that will be the next thing I'll work on. For now, let's walk through the steps it took to create this sprite.

We decided on a standard size of 32x32 pixels. This allows us to uphold a cartoony style with a considerable amount of detail, while still being small enough to be doable for us, relatively inexperienced in making sprites. We also chose the sprites to not be too realistic: again for accessibility, but also simply because a game based on Ice Climber simply can not be too serious.

With these things in mind, I started with the (rough) outline. I started with the head, which, simply stated, is shaped like an upside down, vertically squished egg. Because of the cartoony style, I sized it about half of the image. Then, I added the mouth and the eyes and the rest of the body. After about five minutes of retouching that, the result was this:

The basic outline

The next step was adding colour. This was relatively easy: just pick a colour, fiddle with the settings until it is perfect, and then just fill everything in. Of course, a sprite with clear, flat colours is boring: you need shading. To start off with that, I deleted the black lines inside the image to allow room for more detail, while keeping the outlines black: that way, it's easy to distinguish between separate sprites. Then, I applied some basic shading: lighter on top, darker on the bottom. After that, I added some details: I gave him ears, a simple nose, creases on his shirt and trousers, and when I still wasn't happy with it, I figured out what was missing: a belt.

Before and after. Trust me, it looks way better in-game.

The final stage is accessorizing the character. Using the previous technique (outline, retouch, colour, retouch, shading, retouch) I created three separate new layers for his accessories: a pickaxe, a backpack, and a hat. The reason I used three separate layers is that, when they were done, I could easily make one layer invisible while still keeping the rest intact. The pickaxe was relatively easy: just a shade of red with metallic (= light grey) ends. The backpack was a little trickier: I wanted to make a standard traveller's backpack with a rolled up sleeping mat on top, but a spiral is really not that easy to make with such a low level of detail. I, however, think it has turned out fine. Then the hat, which was again very easy to make. That gives us the finished character:

Neat, huh? Animations are relatively easy to make from this point: just delete a part of his body, his legs for instance, and redraw it in the position it needs to be. All the other sprites in the game (especially the ones made by me) will be made in this way, and if you want, you could try it for yourself!

Well, that's all I have to say today.

Tiny out.