I changed the necks after hearing multiple critiques that they were just too long. Hopefully, this looks a little more compact, while still having the zig-zag look of lightning.
I'm not sure if I'm going to make this a full-blown submission or not (backsprites, shinies, the whole nine yards). I've intentionally taken quite a few liberties with artistic license. That's a very risky tactic in CAP sprite competitions, since most people want to see the sprite rendered in close accordance with the base design. But, I simply can't figure out a way to do that, and achieve the look I want with this sprite.
Like Wyverii said -- this design is very difficult from a spriting perspective. The whole reason I made my sprite was to try and put a spin on it that would make it look less awkward. But, I'm finding that VERY hard to do. Almost everything I try, just doesn't look "right".
For those of you that have never sprited before -- spriting isn't really the art of drawing something -- it is the art of making a collection of pixels that
looks like a drawing. For most details in a sprite, that means placing pixels in such a way that the observer's eye is tricked into thinking it is seeing a certain thing. The key to tricking the eye, is that the viewer has an implicit idea of what they are supposed to see in the first place. The spriter just places a few key pixels to "nudge" the viewer to see what they want to see anyway.
With this design, that is incredibly hard to do -- because very few things in this design look "normal". The body and feet are big and amorphous, which means there is no inherent sense of proportion like in organic pokemon. The legs and necks have no organic analog at all, and they are intentionally asymmetrical in the design. So, there is no real anchor for the spriter to work towards. Basically this design is a big free-form blob with free-form appendages. At least the heads are organic-looking...
The sheer number of appendages present problems as well. Considering that we only have 80x80 pixels to work with, it's incredibly hard to work 8 appendages into the frame. We had the exact same problem with Fidgit, which almost put me in the nuthouse trying to fit in all those arms and hands. But at least with Fidgit, all the hands looked like, y'know, HANDS.
On top of that, all the appendages are supposed to be made of energy and be "not solid". That takes another tool out the spriters bag of tricks -- shading and highlighting. Without the ability to shade, you lose the ability to convey shape. So, you'll notice that all the sprites fall into two categories -- those that are shaded and therefore the sprite is "too solid". Or those that do not use shading, in which case the sprite looks "washed out". There's not much middle ground.
So this whole design presents an enormous challenge for the spriters. It's certainly a challenge for me, and I think I'm a fairly competent spriter. As you can see from all the great submissions, obviously the spriters are coping with the challenge and coming up with some awesome stuff. But, keep the above points in mind when issuing critiques and suggestions. Lay advice is fine, but you might be able to help the spriters more, if you understand the challenges they are facing with this design.
