WONDERPUP'S PROFILE

Okay, I'm trying to plug away at these sprites, and I'm not having too much luck when it comes to coloring them properly. Practice will make (nearer) perfect, and I was wondering what I should do to improve on these. As they are now, the ahriman and ogre are particularly bad.

Slime
I posted this one in the "Whatchu workin' on" thread, and SorceressKyrsty was kind enough to edit it and give me some tips. The second one here is the one I submitted to the thread, with the third being the one Kyrsty fixed. I made some adjustments to that and ended up with the fourth. I feel I may have made it worse than hers, though.



Sample animation frames for slime:


Ahriman
Here is where it starts to go downhill rapidly. I don't find too much issue with the initial outline, really. In the end, it will have a shadow beneath it, and the wings will flutter when animated as he hovers. When I add color, though, it makes him look like a creepy play-doh character. What am I doing wrong here? How do you do fleshy tones with a light source? The third sprite here has had the lighting source dampened some to make it less grotesque, and I rounded its head/back more.



Sample animation frames for ahriman:


Ogre
I haven't really tried to finalize the coloring on this one, because I can't get the color of his skin correct when shaded. I guess it's the problem I'm having with the ahriman carrying over to here. His hair, horns, and...everything...look terrible. That's supposed to be a caveman-type tunic on him, but he looks more like a voluptuous woman than anything else.



Sample animation frames for ogre:



And for reference, here is the concept drawing I had posted before:



Wild boy:


Sample animation frames:


Wild boy concept drawing (which was heavily strayed from):



I don't find too much fault with the outlined drawings, really. It's the calamity that happens when coloring comes into play. If anyone is willing to critique what is going on here, I would appreciate it.

I know it may be a faux pas to post a new thread for what I'm working on, but I'd like to just use this thread over and over to bring up my sprites. "Whatchu workin' on" just didn't seem to be the appropriate place to keep posting these.

Thanks!

Which program is best to use for spriting? I've heard IDraw recommended numerous times, but when I try to change colors (the default seems to be white), I get an error:

IDraw Ver3.32.3
Exception EAccessViolation in module IDraw3.exe at 0006985B.
????? 'IDraw3.exe' ????? 0046985B ????? 00000024 ??????????????????.

I don't expect anyone to know what that means or know how to remedy the problem, really. I've tried reinstalling it, but it never seems to work, and I always get the same error.

What other tools are good?

Why are these tools better than something like Paint?

If I am pulling tile sets and character sets off of threads here and elsewhere, what do I do with them? Do I copy them into IDraw/whatever program gets recommended and save them?

Or - the more direct question that I should have asked first is, is there a comprehensive guide or tutorial on how to begin spriting? I'm not too worried about technique(s) right now. I'd just like to start experimenting.

Thanks!