Meet Lightning Robe (she/they), the first player character of this challenge series! :D I'm making an asset pack full of characters and creatures whose detail sprites are interpretations of randomly-generated 7x7 prompt sprites. Overworld sprites are then based off of the detail sprite.

Here's the detail sprite rules:

• The detail sprite must fit in a 64x64px canvas
• That includes a one-pixel black outline
• The palette is three colors plus black and transparency
• Three colors are randomly generated, but I'm allowed to change one to a color of my own choosing (I'll show the original random colors in the prompt, below)

For the portraits, the sweatdrop and angry marks could be mixed and matched with the different expressions, but I've paired them for display purposes here.

For the overworld animations, I've got idle and run animations for four directions, with and without a lightning orb, attack animations in four directions that can be paired with either of two effects: A looping projectile and a resolving melee hit. For the front-only animations, I have hurt and defeat animations with and without the lightning orb, and transitions between the two idle sets: No orb to orb on the right, orb to no orb on the right.

Prompt:

This took A While, so I can't really walk through the process on this one. They have three horns, but the middle one is smaller and has a bit of jewelry on it. Went with paw hands and hoof feet because I like to draw those. Lightning Robe is a more explicable being than whatever the False Calf really is, but their shared design elements point towards a mysterious connection.

Originally I was just planning to let Lightning Robe be a blank slate, since it's an asset pack. That's why they're just named Lightning Robe. But when I was making the overworld sprites, I decided some things about this character that informed some of my choices, and I want to share them:

• Lightning Robe is left-handed
• Lightning Robe is autistic and the lightning orb is a stim/comfort item. The sprite sets without the orb are for situations where carrying around ball lightning might be unsafe or prohibited. Note how she rocks her hands up and down and fidgets with her foot in the orbless idle.

The choice to make Lightning Robe autistic is pure unabashed self-indulgence. I'm on the spectrum myself. I have Loud Hands. And what is an idle animation--a repetitive motion engaged in to fill the absence of other movements--if it's not stimming?

(If you're unfamiliar with what stimming is, here is a good article on it, but be warned that it includes a history lesson on the violent and abusive "treatments" aimed at eliminating this completely harmless behavior.)

Inspired by this Tumblr post by Mossworm. Prompt generated by the 2draw.me Random Ship Generator