Jessica Mora here! John and I worked on this tutorial, but I don't think anyone will mind if I'm the one who types this part

Too often do I hear that sprites are "not art" or "for people who can't draw." I believe we at the Fortuna Saga have demonstrated that we do know how to paint and draw, but we choose not to. To be honest, I think it is easier to use oils than pixels. I don't have to be as creative with oils.

Think of a sonnet. The Shakespearean sonnet uses four divisions: three quatrains + rhymed couplet for a conclusion. The quatrains can have different rhyme schemes, but the typical pattern is abab cdcd efef gg. When I first looked at those restraints I thought, "What the hell?! How are you supposed to be creative if you have to follow that crap." But once you try it out and explore this area of restrictions, you find that there is a lot of room for variation and innovation. With the same base sprite, you can make heroes, villains, monsters, angels, men, women, children, animals, werewolves, ghosts... it goes on forever. You just have to be clever enough to figure it out.

I think sprites get a bad rap because they are easily misused. If you must, attack the writer not the genre.


*Some images property of Square-Enix.
Some images property of John Cutting.
Some images provided by st0ven ([link]).