I'm thinking of making a 2D action-RPG. I wanted the graphics to look like those for classic SNES games like Final fantasy VI, soul blazer, and legend of zelda.

I wanted to learn about how to make 2D sprites of this kind. Does anyone know of any resources (like books) that provide information about making sprites like this. I am a beginner and really want reseources taht can teach me from the basics.

Scipio7

Not sure what you mean? It isn't a matter of being taught, it is a matter of having the artistic talent to draw the images. The games you mentioned didn't have the highest quality graphics, so making sprites like those shouldn't be too hard. Provided that you have the ability to make them.

Quote: Original post by maspeir
Not sure what you mean? It isn't a matter of being taught, it is a matter of having the artistic talent to draw the images. The games you mentioned didn't have the highest quality graphics, so making sprites like those shouldn't be too hard. Provided that you have the ability to make them.

I disagree. Of course it does take some artistic talent to learn how to sprite properly, but just having talent does not mean you can automatically make awesome sprites. And the fact that the games at the time were very limited does not make it easier to create graphics like them. It makes it harder.

The best advice is simply to practice, practice and practice. Get an image manipulation program that supports layers, and you're good to go. Google for sprite tutorials or something like that, and you'll find plenty of resources on how to do it. It does take a lot of time, however.

There's actually a lot of stuff online about this -- there's some links here...

http://graphicssoft.about.com/od/pixelart/Creating_Pixel_Art_Painting_Pixel_by_Pixel_Tips_and_Tutorials.htm

I'm always dubious about talk of "talent". I used to think I was talented when I was younger, but looking back, my art was often pretty awful - but I was enthusiastic.

Even a talented (read: enthusiastic) artist will fall into all the amateur pitfalls in the world - you can spend ten years making all the mistakes, or you can do the work of learning and be taught what those mistakes are and how to get around them in just a couple years. There are whole conceptual structures an artist should learn about how to approach image-making.

In short, I highly recommend taking classes. It'll take a while before it all clicks (if it does, if it's what you really want to do), but it's important to get a good, broad foundation -- I'd strongly argue that the best pixel art is built from a broad foundation rather than focusing on some formalized notion of pixel art.
...if you are serious about doing this long-term and at anything approaching a professional level, that is.

Otherwise, sure, online tutorials can probably get you far enough to make something usable to build the framework for a game.

There are sites like the charas-project that work out just fine and there is collaboration encouraged as well.

You could also go the stop motion animation route using pose-able action figures. Everyone has access to some form of digital camera these days and a few pieces of construction paper taped together suffice as a "green screen". Seems to have worked well for the original Donkey Kong Country on SNES and the first 2 Mortal Kombats (so it was key frames from live action - same thing).

Surely So you want to be a pixel artist