Drawing the Nik Tiddles way!

[NikMik]

A user by the name of Dryicefox asked me to make a video showing how I draw my sprites "so amazingly true to the game". So I quickly just downloaded the free version of bandicam (couldn't be bothered searching for anything better) and made a little video of me drawing an orange peanut the way I draw my sprites, and a picture of Maxwell's head the way I draw bigportraits. If you don't like the music, too bad!

 

For both:

I have 4 layers:

Black

Shading

Colour

Background to leave blank

 

In-game Sprites (the peanut)

I use paint.net for this because it feels better for this purpose to me.

Since I suck at spriter, I find an already existing entity that looks similar to what I want mine to be.

I copy their build and edit. For this I used a bunnyman.

I'll usually enlarge the texture by 300%.

Because you can't go out of the lines, I draw a little black outline to show a rough area of where I can draw (sometimes I can go out, sometimes I can't).

I then get a blob of the base colours I'll be using.

I mold the colours into the shape I want, then get a rough black outline.

Then I do the patterns and details.

Then I shade.

Finally, I fix up the outline, and anything else that needs fixing.

 

Bigportraits (Maxwell)

I use photoshop for larger images.

I do every part of the body seperately, on their own layers (Head is 3 layers, body is 3, arms are 3, legs are 3. I end up with a lot)

First, I do the head.

I make a big blob in the rough shape of what I want it to be. Even though it doesn't look like it, that blob still helps me get the shape I want.

I then draw the black. Most of the time it'll be much closer to the shape of the blob, but not this time.

I make sure the lines aren't to thick, but very rough.

Then I get rid of the extra white.

then I do the shading. I set the colour to a darker shade of the colour I'm working on, and the brush's opacity to around 70(This was 80. a bit too much:/), and the flow to around 88. The brush size is usually around the 10-20s.

 

 I save the Maxwell picture, but I forgot to save the peanut.

 

Edited February 11, 2014 by Mr. Tiddles

[GranzGinz]

I hope i can drawing like that...amazing and cool !

[Dryicefox]

I shall use this in the future! Thank you Mr. Danninghar's assistant, I shall refer to this when I play tiddlywinks with GIMP and spriter.

[CoffeeBoo]

Dat music tho

[ImDaMisterL]

Sorry for reviving this but thank you a lot for this amazing topic Mr. Tiddles!

 

I tried to make a Deep-sea fish following your example, I'm not the best at coloring and shading but I think it's alright.

 

Edited March 15, 2015 by ImDaMisterL

[Silky-Inc]

Ok so the whole resizing the picture to 300% weirdly helped with my biggest problem with drawing, whole outline anti-aliasting (yknow, don't starve has this weird anti-aliasting with no transparency and yet still has some)