My upcoming website is pixel-art themed, so I want to make a pixel-art version of my avatar. I always thought the character portraits in Chrono Trigger were really cool.
Brandon James Greer did a sprite analysis of these portraits on YouTube.
He did not try to re-create them, but he noticed some useful things. Even though they are based on drawings, they're not simply resized. They're hand-made. And their palettes are less saturated to make it easier to re-use the same colors in different parts of the picture for things like anti-aliasing.
I'm going to be re-creating my avatar. The Chrono Trigger portraits are zoomed in on their faces, so I'll crop in close.
When Greer makes a sprite, he often uses a technique where he draws the silhouette first and then draws details into it. For larger pictures, he tends to hollow it out to create an outline first.
All of the characters in the portraits have intense personalities with these confident battle glares.
... so I'll try exaggerating my expression a little.
This shading is looking too ominous. Let's try it on the other side.
This is really coming together. Although I think my expression looks a little sinister.
Gee... I wonder why.
Humbird0 Makes NSFW
@humbird0@aethy.comLet's soften it up. And I'll restore my original ambiguous expression. This could be a smile or concentration. We'll let my words decide.
... aaaand done.
In retrospect, maybe I should have zoomed-in more. I think part of the reason why the Chrono Trigger portraits look better is because the original drawings have everybody is in these dynamic action poses. Apparently Akira Toryama is good at action poses... what a shocker.
