This is a technique that, though I have no actual evidence of, can be frowned upon. Unfortunately, this is what people who lack artistic skill, such as myself, must rely upon.

Firstly, I reccomend going to Sprites Inc. if you're looking into trying this. They only offer Megaman sprites, but they really should be enough.

URL= http://dynamic4.gamespy.com/~mmm/spritesinc/

Ok. Now the step-by-step procedure.

STEP 1: "Cleaning"

What I mean by "Cleaning" is removing what you don't want. Say you have a sprite that has wings, or horns, or something like that, but you want the character in your game to not have those wings, or horns etc. Just remove all of those first. It will make things... easier...

STEP 2: "Primer"

Color in the general areas of the sprite (Head, Arms, Legs etc.) with the general color that they will have.

STEP 3: "Detail"

Add simple features now, E.G. Eyes, hair, different colors in different areas etc.

STEP 4: "Changes"

Now, make the massive changes that will occur between the original sprite and your character. Say, changing a Megabuster to an arm holding a sword, or covering the character's face with a visor, or perhaps just taking part of a sprite and changing the animation alltogether.

STEP 5: "Shading\Lighting"

I am certainly not the authority on this, so I reccomend you look up Fishead's Article.

STEP 6 and beyond...: Repeat the past steps for every frame.



As I said in the begining, many may frown at this method of sprite "creation", but it's neccesary if you lack the skills of creating your own.

I would request that if you write a complaint saying how terrible this article is, please don't call me a lazy @$$. I don't need to be told anything I already know.