Part Four: The Outline

A black outline will provide a good, basic structure to your sprite, so it's the perfect place to start. The reason we choose black is that it's nice and dark. Later on, I'll show you how you can change the color of the outline for more realism.

Two Approaches

There are two ways to approach the outline. You can draw the outline freehand and then clean it up, or you can start by placing the pixels as you want them from the start. You know, like "click, click, click".

I think which approach you should use depends on the size of the sprite and your skill at pixelling. If a sprite is very large, it's much easier to sketch the outline freehand to get the general shape and then clean it up later than to try and get it right the first time through.

In this tutorial, we're creating a fairly large sprite, so I'll demonstrate the first method. It's also easier to illustrate with text and pictures.

Step 1: Crude Outline

Using your mouse or tablet, sketch out a crude outline for your sprite. Make sure it's not TOO crude, though - it should resemble more or less the final product that you want.

In this case, I'm basing my outline almost entirely on my sketch.

Step 2: Clean Up the Outline

First, crank up the zoom to around 6x or 8x magnification so that we can see each pixel clearly. Then clean up that outline! In particular, you want to trim away stray pixels (the outline should only be one pixel thick all the way through), get rid of any jaggies, and add any small details that were passed over in Step 1.

Even large sprites never usually exceed 200 by 200 pixels. The phrase "doing more with less" never rings more true than when pixelling. And you will soon find that one pixel can make all the difference.

Keep your outline simple. The details will emerge later on, but for now, concentrate on defining the "big pieces", like muscle segmentation, for instance. It may not look like much now, but be patient.