Pixel Joint Forum: The Greek myth character Echidna

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Hi. I'm Michael. I'm trying to become a pixel artist for fun, but I just want to make characters in my spare time.

This is my first big character. It's 71 x 82. The canvas and sprite is based on enemy sprite style of the game Dragon Warrior.

In the link below, does my character look any good? Are there any improvements to be made?

https://imgur.com/a/5zqvQZS

I can't get the image to show itself from Imgur, if someone can tell me how to do that, please.

Author	Message
thesydneylad Seaman Joined: 21 March 2025 Online Status: Offline Posts: 8	Topic: The Greek myth character Echidna Posted: 25 March 2025 at 6:46pm
	Hi. I'm Michael. I'm trying to become a pixel artist for fun, but I just want to make characters in my spare time. This is my first big character. It's 71 x 82. The canvas and sprite is based on enemy sprite style of the game Dragon Warrior. In the link below, does my character look any good? Are there any improvements to be made? https://imgur.com/a/5zqvQZS I can't get the image to show itself from Imgur, if someone can tell me how to do that, please.
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Trigonomicon Rear Admiral Joined: 20 October 2024 Online Status: Offline Posts: 155	Posted: 26 March 2025 at 5:06pm
	Hello, welcome to pixel art! To embed an image from imgur, you need to right click the image and choose "copy image link" and use that with the insert image button on the post editor. One thing you can try out if you want to improve is to add some shading. Pick out a darker shade of green and try to figure out which parts of the body would be blocked from the light.
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thesydneylad Seaman Joined: 21 March 2025 Online Status: Offline Posts: 8	Posted: 27 March 2025 at 10:34pm
	Thank you. I'll try out shading and post it, but I should have given more information. I'm trying to draw 8-bit. I've recently learnt that I must have either black or white as a transparent color, so I'll swap out the purple outline for black.
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thesydneylad Seaman Joined: 21 March 2025 Online Status: Offline Posts: 8	Posted: 27 March 2025 at 11:07pm
	Here's the updated image. I think it's best that I leave the purple where it is since I gave her black eyes. It'd just look real bad if I changed the eyes to white. I really don't want to give her red eyes, either. I tried the Insert Image link, but I don't think it's working. I already tried Insert Image a second time, as well as Preview Post. Try the link below, otherwise: https://imgur.com/a/QzuNiJk
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Trigonomicon Rear Admiral Joined: 20 October 2024 Online Status: Offline Posts: 155	Posted: 30 March 2025 at 2:43pm
	That image displays fine for me :) I'm no expert, but as I understand the technical limitations a NES sprite could have 3 colors + transparency. The limit was sometimes bypassed by constricting a character out of several sprites which were using different palettes, so using 6 colors + transparency isn't out of the question. There isn't a rule for what background color you have to use if your image editor can't do transparency, not sure what you mean by that. I looked up Dragon Warrior and it seems like that game used mostly flat colors without shading, although I see a couple exception. It also didn't use outlines, at least not in the same way you are, so you'll have to change that if you want to mimic the style.
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