The Art of the Shell

I'm Ridge and I make pixel art, animations, some 3D models, and drawn artwork.

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Swellow, 50x50 Icon

Commission for tooshaley

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Sir Bate, 50x50 Icon

Commission for Rhylem

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King & Queen Nimbus - ML:SS

Commission for gold-ring-951

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Just a little remake of an old animation I did, Mallow's Battle idle in BIS style.

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Commission for Fawfulthegreat64 - Fawful Wants Applause [M&L:DT Remake]

I'd heard lots of complaints that Fawful didn't make at least a cameo in Dream Team... He's kind of dead though so I don't see how that would have happened. Regardless, maybe this remake of one of Fawful's signature animations from Bowser's Inside Story will make up for that.

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Even more Dream Team! This time, I referenced what I could from Kylie Koopa and whipped up my own Koopa Troopa, which was then edited heavily into Dry Bones. Also threw in some new angles of Boo.

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For more practice with Dream Team style, I wanted to start with something simple - so here's my custom Boo! This was perfect practice because it isn't in the game and has a simple shape.

Thanks for sticking with me despite really infrequent updates; I've been pretty busy with real life things lately.

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Spriter's Resource doesn't have any references for the Dream Team style. Any other places that might be of help?

Aside from looking closely at good quality game footage or playing the game itself, there unfortunately isn’t much else out there right now. Hopefully someone who’s cracked the 3DS will extract the sprites from Dream Team eventually.

Until then, I may as well post what I’ve managed to grab from the game, either from AlphaDream’s Miiverse posts or using my capture card to copy what I could. (You might have to view this post on my blog, tumblr likes to resize images attached to asks.)

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I'm loving that Wart pixel art. I was actually wondering if you would try spriting in a Dream Team-esque style. However, are you considering doing Dream Team sprites from now on, or will you continue a few BiS sprites?

Thanks! Recently I've been working on more Dream Team stuff, but that's not to say I won't occasionally sprite in BIS too. They're two vastly different styles, after all, so I don't see why I wouldn't still play around with both sometimes.

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After my first play-through of Mario & Luigi: Dream Team, I was a bit surprised not to find any references to Super Mario Bros. 2... so it seemed fitting to try out a certain frog king in DT's side-scrolling style. I was originally going to make an animation out of this, and I might still at a later date.

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Grubba and his Macho counterpart (from Paper Mario 2) were originally going to cameo in a dropped fan-game project of mine. These sprites are a few months old, but I'm particularly fond of this character's design and how these sprites turned out, so why not post them?

Also, I need more stuff on this blog haha... not sure where my time has gone but I've hardly arted recently. We'll get there!

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Any tips for spriting? I've always tried to make some, but they've always felt flat to me. :\

The best advice I can give comes in two parts:

Use good references, whether they're shots or 3D models of a character, or official sprites/artwork of a similar sprite style.And then there's of course practice. Just keep at it! - the more you work with your own artwork the happier you'll find yourself to be with it.

As for sprites feeling flat, perhaps practice with light-sources, depth and just shading in general will help you out. Giving a character or object volume is completely dependent on shading. Hope this helps!

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Normal size

A little Skellobit animation in BIS style! I had a lot of fun reinterpreting him into a non-paper style; that’s probably part of why I’m still happy with this one despite it being older than some of the other stuff I plan to upload.

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Hi. U take requests cuz I want M&L styled Sawnic?!

yes taht is y i take dem. to make for U. SONIC!!

but givhe credt pleasing

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Out of all the Koopalings you've sprited, which one is your favorite and why? (I'm assuming Larry, though)

Actually, Ludwig’s revamp is my favorite. While I have made a bunch of Larry animations in the past, the second version of Ludwig is a vast improvement over the original version and I’m just very pleased with the turnout.

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Revamps of my Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story Koopalings! (The old versions are the second row of the second image.)

Thanks to my friend Elliot/Shouty for some parts of Morton and Roy and also overall criticism.

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Who are you??? XP

im rudge make m&l