Custom Sprites: Then and Now
Games included: Final Fight

Credits: Capcom, PrimeOp

ScrolBoss: Then and Now

Then and Now

Many new spriters or sprite editors get discouraged when their early work doesn't look the way they want it to. Spriting takes a while to learn just like any other form of art. I've put a few examples of how I've gone back to my older work and made it a bit better with my improved skills. Look at those first Hal Jordan and Titania sprites. If there was hope for the guy who made those, there's hope for you too!

Mike Haggar: 2003/2014
Eleven years! I'd tried different methods of making Haggar sprites in the past and the 2003 sprite is a product of tracing a resized version of the original Final Fight sprite's shape and detail before trying to make it into my style. The 2014 version was made the way I've made most of my sprites for the past few years: penciled on cheap paper, scanned, shrunken to scale, pixel-traced and shaded. I'd made another Haggar sprite the same way in 2013, so I had the colors and scale ready, along with a head that I modified to fit the pose.
Nick Fury: 2001/2006
One of the first sprite edits I ever did, this was before I knew about things like checking the colors to make sure they match the rest of the stuff in the game. The 2nd version of this does just that AND smooths out the suit to look more like the comic version.
Green Lantern Hal Jordan 2001/2002
That first one was done before I developed my sneaky sprite resizing techniques. That's why he looks bloated and still very much like Magneto. The head on the 2nd one was from scratch and doesn't look very 'Capcom-ish' but the guys that using these edits as a base for the full MUGEN character are fixing that up anyway. So I can just be lazy and not fix it. Maybe.
Guy 2001/2002
I think 2002 was the year that I started thinking more about the colors. Besides other improvements, the colors here were copied and modified from his Final Fight colors.
Poison 2001/2003
2003 was when I went 'shade-crazy' and started putting extra shading details into the sprites. This Cammy-based version of Poison was redone with all that.
Wonder Woman: 2002/2005
Quickie job done for old JLA group sprite. Also another case of not having enough experience to get the sprite to turn out the way that I wanted.
Aquaman 2002/2005
A quickie job done for old JLA group sprite. The second one still needs some work, but is still much better than the first attempt where I barely fixed up the face based on the Capt. America sprite.
Martian Manhunter 2002/2005
Other than being a quickie for the old JLA group sprite, this one was before I learned how to make the right changes to sprites. Oddly enough, this second one is a rush job since it'll (hopefully) be for an animation I've been planning.
Titania 2002/2005
Dang, that first one looks like pure crap. The worst parts of that one were done from scratch at a time before I could do that stuff well. Besides the redone hair and head, the second one really shows how much the color contrast can make a sprite look nicer.
Thing (from scratch) 2001/2002
I still can't believe I was proud of that first one for a little while. Eh, it was one of my first sprites to come from a scanned sketch, so it was part of the learning process. I still want to take a 3rd shot at this.
Ms. Marvel 2001/2002
I loved the Storm pose, but I just think that Storm is too short for Ms. Marvel. I care less about how much a character base has been used than I do about keeping things in scale. So I slightly recreated the pose using Capcom Psylocke sprites.
Taskmaster 2001/2006
While the original was done back when barely anyone on the message boards knew who he was (which never stops me from spriting a character anyways), this time a few people may actually know who he is for once. Sadly, they'll probably complain that he's not in his Udon outfit.
the Flash The Flash 2002/2006
I'd been meaning to do this one for a while. The only reason that I ever used Captain America as a base the first time was because I thought that his sprint dash animation could be looped and I could make an animation. Unfortunately, it isn't and all of my attempts to make it loop have failed. My recent attempt to loop Cyclops' run was more successful, so I did further editing to make it a more Flash-like pose before turning it into the Flash. One day, I hope to do an animation of this.
Ant Man Ant Man 2001/2007
So back in 2001, I had a ton of custom stage ideas that I'd never do. One was the outside of Avengers Mansion. I put together a sprite group that I planned to reshade as metallic to be like the statue in the comics. I also planned to fix the helmet, but I only got around to it six years later. And it STILL looks bad. But now you know why I really didn't give a crap about the colors in the group sprite.
Johnny Storm 2002/2010
This was mostly a reworking on the old Spider-Man-based body with better shading and a head made from scratch (though the new head looks a bit too big).

2001

2002

2004

2010
Cody - street clothes conversion
Editing Cody's SFA sprites into his street clothes is my March of Progress chart of skills even though he's always a hunched over. The first two sprite edits kept the SFA colors because I was going to make a custom win pose where he transformed into his street clothes. I don't know why I've done so much work on my least favorite hero from Final Fight but it's probably made me a better pixel artist. I have a sprite pack of different Cody animations that you can download from this page and other people are finishing the sprite sets in their own ways.

2001

2002

2009
Superman
The head on the first version turned out horrible but the cape, made from scratch, turned out surprisingly well. The 2002 version has a slightly improved head. I made better Superman heads later but on other poses until I came back and made a new one for this pose along with slight tweaks to the cape and work to remove more shading left over from the Magneto base. sprite.

(if used in a project, please remember to credit original company and editor. Unless noted, all sprite edits were edited or drawn by PrimeOp.)

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