Building a STICK FIGURE into a SPRITE

Creating pixel art sprites from stick figure skeletons can be a simple and useful way for generating interesting character poses, and in this video I outline this workflow with a pose study of Spider-Man!

#LookOutHereComesTheSpriterMan

————

0:00 Intro
0:06 Neutral Pose
2:40 Jump Pose
4:26 Swing Pose (1)
5:42 Swing Pose (2)
6:35 Checkpoint
7:15 Colour/Shading
11:39 Final Artwork
12:15 VID OVER

————

Check out my art here:

————
Software used: Adobe Photoshop (CS6)
————

Title sequence theme music by Failpositive:

Chiptune music by mcguy215/Concrete Castles:

Other music featured throughout this video was obtained from the Youtube Audio Library.

[KyleSzklenski]

This is massively helping me with my "noodle appendages" issue on my sprites. Thanks!

[gamedevmanti]

It's wild to see how well you can capture those posed at such a small resolution! Yiu managed to capture the art style from that X-men game really well.

[erikjohnson]

Although I have a pretty good grasp on these concepts at this point, its always useful to be reminded of the fundamentals because fundamentals are everything

[Ryan_Thompson]

What I learned from this is that 32px superheroes are bloody hard to draw. I usually work with bigger sprites, so I tried this resolution and while I ended up with something decent at the end, it was painful, and the result was a bit messy.

[saultoons]

This approach is really neat, and spiderman is my favourite superhero so double win :D
I can see a lot of similarities in these approaches and traditional media too. This stick figure approach is a lot like drawing, where you construct a line of action, define shoulders/hip lines, and add in the body/limbs to correct proportions. Like you mentioned in the video, it gives a solid foundation for the rest of the piece.
And in difference, starting in silhouette seems more like painting, where you are sculpting away or add to the overall blob, fixing proportion as you go. You can arrive at the same final point too which is super cool, no matter your starting preference. I personally prefer silhouettes as a start, but I will definitely try this in the future to see what it's like. Awesome, insightful video as always! :D

[CKTDanny]

2:35 IC what u did there 🕸

Really good video on the process of building up a character sprites in different poses! I found myself more intrigued by the step just before the colouring than anything else - it's just so cool seeing how omitting pixels creates a cleaner look. That's never gotten old yet 😁

The final sprites came out great too! You really managed to capture the energy in those "dynamic" (and iconic) Spider-man poses. It's just a look that's always super fun and inspiring to look at! ✨

[ronomgenuff]

I like the idea of leaving gaps in the silhouette, that's so good for helping remind myself of the form... I feel like I often loose some dynamism in the street between the pose and the coloration. Very cool!

[angrypotato_fz]

Gold, precious gold! :D I enjoy these little comments (and window's headers / file names, Spriter-Man! ;)) a lot! And I tend to leave such comments in my project files - in case I or someone else reviews them later, it's always good to bring a smile :)
The final effect with these poses and colors is quite impressive, nice work! (as usually :)) Good idea with shifting this dark-red/brown into more purple hue!

[Skarzx]

Would love to see another one of these or he'll even a series ! Love your videos man keep it going!

[DirtRed]

I just started pixel art and this is perfectly timed tutorial thanks a bunch

[brandonjacksoon]

Thanks, Brandon! Always informative and useful videos!

[jacobharvey]

I watch all your new videos... but regardless, you had me at Spidey thumbnail.

[cuboembaralhado]

its kinda fun how spider man has a cyclope face in the first two

[ninsebas]

This is by far the best method to make characters
I just started almost a month ago and this explanation and process was easy to understand and very useful
This channel deserves millions of subscribers.

[CrusaderGabriel]

This is for sure one of the best resources I've found about character construction in pixel art, other of the best ones I've found is a blog from a game dev who explains the process making a 96 x 96 character... Aside from those, most pixel art tutorials i find focus mostly on super small pixels (like in the original Pokemon) or any size but basically undetailed (which is totally understandable if you're either an absolute beginner or a solo gamedev that has to do code, sprites, sounds, testing, and everything else i forgot to mention)
Anyways thank you for the great video

[leonsteinbach]

Great job in capturing the details on spiderman. Looks freaking awesome.

Also thanks for the idea of reducing the pixel count of the leg in your final pose.

I will try to implement this in my next piece

[czesionyo]

I love Spider-Man. He is one of my top 3 superheros along with Bats and Wolverine. IT is so amazing that U can create such high quality stuff so fast.

[fusingfrog]

This is what's gonna let me translate all of my current art skills to pixel

[wjjam]

I've always really struggled with drawing pixel art of characters. I've got weapons, and landscapes, and tilesets down, but people have always eluded me. This video makes me wanna give it another go.
The third pose, the swing with his arm down, looks really excellent. The first couple sprites didn't really seem to have a defined light source to me (don't get me wrong, they still look excellent), but that third sprite's shading is just great, and really helps the pose pop.

[Wimpiethe]

For someone who's been taking basic drawing courses lately this method speaks to me. I have yet to take the plunge into anatomy proper but this sprite method seems the obvious way to go.

Also, the sprites in this video turned out really well!