Great competition. I honestly thought I was going to lose because I had no idea saiZero could produce such a fake.

I understand more than one person wanted more blood in my fake... but if you think about it, if bees are eating you alive, there isn't much blood to be spilled.

Thanks for the honest critique, Veno.

Well it was a good run =)

Next time ill be ready and make a fake specifically for a kontest in mind

Wait til I finish my current ermac fake tomorrow! Like I said bs ill show ur ass and I promise; no more google images K?

I wasn't expecting there to be massive pools of blood smeared across the floor, but it would've been nice to see some blood soaked into Cage's pants and/or a little spilled onto the floor in front of him. Again, that's more an issue of personal preference than a knock on your editing ability. You know better than anyone that I've always been a glutton for realism, chief.

May I punch you in your left eye?



Yeah yeah. I started on this fake before there was going to be our little kontest too. So there's no excuse.

I probably deserve that (and feel like punching myself in my right eye for good measure), if only for the fact that I blew sixteen bucks on a bag of cigarette tobacco (I roll my own cigarettes, since it's supposed to be cheaper), and now have to settle with a diminutive amount of funds until I come into some cash again. Curse you, gas station tobacco prices! *sigh*

Edit: If you two would like to partake in another FPK, I'll seek out a third or fourth participant in an effort to create the same level of anonymity that this one maintained. I'm delighted that there was absolutely no form of bias exploited in the decisions of the voters. That's something the previous FPK failed to accomplish, which led to (at least) two voters opting to vote against one entry in favor of another in hopes of ensuring that a specific entry wouldn't win. Oh well; I'll just chalk that loss up to voter discrimination.

How do u make custom sprites???

I really loved how u redrew shinnok last time and this one is equally impressive if not more.

I know there was a thread on how to sraw MKDA sonya but that was drawing ontop of a preexisting sprite. Or is that what u did in this case? I know on ur shinnok fake u showed us how u used shang tsungs legs but from ur quan chi I can't match it to anything I've seen before.

Thanks.

Oh, well... y'know... I just re-sized a render

Seriously, though; I pretty much stare at my reference image while I draw an "outline" in MS Paint. From there I start drawing different shades of the same color until it looks like cloth for example. I go online a lot to look at what cloth looks like and how folds should be drawn.

Since I am artistically declined (that means I couldn't draw a stick figure on paper if my life depended on it, IOW I suck at drawing) I try to keep height/width ratios the same by resizing my reference image to the same size of the sprites I want to use.

I also refer back to official renders, ESPECIALLY in this case, since my initial reference image was a shitty pencil drawing with hardly any valuable detail for a sprite.

I am terrible with skin. My only hope was that Quan Chi's tattoos would hide that fact, but it didn't. Luckily Quan Chi has gloves, so I didn't have to fuck with fingers.

This is all I have left of my sprite editing progression:



I am sure there are better ways to do this... but this is the way I figured out for myself. I am not saying it's the right way to go about it. You're better off asking MKR or Veno.

One thing I can tell you is this: your background and your character sprites should be different layers in PSP. That way you can always reposition the sprites or edit them without touching affecting other parts (layers) of your fake pic. Special effects/blood ... same thing. New layer. I learned that the hard way.

Congrats blacksaibot! And thanks Veno for organising this little komp.

Essentially, what BlackSaibot does is what I do, but with a little different in certain processes. Depending on the idea in mind, I will refer to existing sprites, renders, and other game related content. Once I get what I think will be helpful I search for sprites to frankenstein together to create a pose I can work with. This helps me keep the ratios and perspective close. Like BS, I'm not artistically inclined and I'd rather spend an hour getting a base generated from existing sprites than to pencil my own lines.

Once I get the base worked out, I get my references resized so I can see how pixels relate to the end result so I can either mimic or get an idea how to go about shading. This is especially helpful with faces, an area I'm trying to improve upon. It's amazing yet irritating how something can look right when zoomed in at 16X, but look like garbage at the original resolution. References will save a lot of stress.

I would make more examples of my process, but considering how much of what I do comes down to trial and error, I would have about a 8 frame transition from base to final for one section of a sprite. Also, when I'm in the zone, I rarely take time to catalog a step within a process. Though, I've given some thought to setting up an autosave to generate something like BS's example of the steps.

Anyway, I'll just say that once you iron out a process that works for you, it comes down to knowledge of shading and how to represent details on such a small medium. If I had fool-proof method, I'd share, haha.

One last thing, the whole working in layers thing is especially helpful. I try to incorporate multiple layers in sprites so I can create something and be able to adjust positions and areas more effectively.



TL;DR: I use references to know how to appropriately mimic shading and details for materials/subjects I am not familiar with.

I would also like to note something. When I reviewed this fake in the voting thread I said something to the effect of "This seems to borrow from existing content." Now, I didn't mean this as an insult in terms of "Lol copy/pasted r3ndarz." I studied the Quan Chi sprite and surmised that there was no use of pre-existing content. Seeing your steps and you explaining some of your method, I see why certain aspects look so close to existing content. I mean this all as a compliment. If I feel like something has come from pre-existing content and turns out to be custom, you've done your job as an artist to impress me.

And while Quan Chi's pants have shading that is more appropriate to convey spandex/leggings/shiny yoga pants, I still like the sprite.

So, in all, congrats on the win. Can't wait to see what the next FPK entails. Now if I could finish something I'm pleased with and post it. Sigh..

Great write up.

BTW I knew what you meant, MKR. My sarcastic comment is left-overs from the last FPK where some n00b said my Shinnok sprite looks like a resized VS screen render. I found much pleasure in showing him wrong.

Seriously Veno? There wasn't any votes for 3 months, I had to end it, and picked the one i liked best. I didn't even remember whose fake was which. So there isn't any "voter favoritism", I was the last vote. There were no "two voters."

First of all, I wasn't referring to you. Don't be presumptuous.

Second of all, since you're clearly unfamiliar with how bias factored into at least two of the votes, then you shouldn't be making such senseless and misguided statements.

Thirdly, there are a number of reasons as to why I haven't requested that you host another FPK. There was a more sensible manner in which could have gone about breaking the voting stalemate, one that would have been fair to both parties involved.

Finally, there was no need to bump this thread, which is damn near two weeks old. You simply could have PMed me.