Digimon Chrono Sprite Test

Chrono Trigger sprites with Takato and Renamon added

Downloads

Contains

Furry
chrono_trigger
digimon
renamon
takato
boy
grown_woman
sprites

About this project

walkstand

# I’ve been in a Renamon x Takato mood lately. Meanwhile Brandon James Greer on YouTube just made this video about how he recreated Final Fantasy 7 sprites in the style of Chrono Trigger. DUDE! This is 100% my jam!

# Video on YouTube

# His sprite construction approach is a bit different from mine. I like to focus on shapes first and then draw outlines around them. He starts with outlines first and then fills them.

# So I tried his approach and figured out the outlines of a bunch of Chrono Trigger characters. For Takato and Renamon I know I needed a boy and a woman. For comparison I also studied sprites for grown men and various women.

# My outlines ended up different from Brandon’s because I noticed that Chrono Trigger generally has 2 different head shapes. A sleek one and a round one. Marle has a tight hairdo, so tracing her revealed the true shape of the game’s heads.

# I wanted Takato to be somewhere in between Chrono Trigger’s “boy” sprites and the “young man” sprites.

# For Renamon I decided to use Ayla’s proportions, because she is slightly taller then most women in the game, which will help exaggerate the height difference between her and Takato.

# So I followed Brandon Greer’s approach of connecting the limbs together and then turning it into the intended character.

# Brandon also made an interesting observation about the game’s palettes. They’re smaller than they need to be. Most characters only have about 12 colors even though the Super Nintendo draws sprites using a 15 color palette. (16 if you include transparency)

# So I imitated these restrictions for Takato’s color palette. In general most things only needed 2 colors. I discovered his hair only needed one color because I could re-use a skin tone for the highlights. And the dark grey can also provide shading for the green. Chrono Trigger characters often reuse colors like this.

# They also always use this off-white color and a faded dark color for the outline. Usually a very dark purple.

# I think I managed to pull off the Chrono Trigger look pretty well.

# I also tried exaggerating the hair in the style of Chrono Trigger. This looked authentic, but it didn’t look like Takato anymore, so I kept his hair short.

# Now it’s Renamon’s turn. Her palette was easy to figure out because she only had 3 overall colors. But I still limited it to 2 shades each to match Chrono Trigger’s style.

# I decided to cheat a little bit and add some bright pixels at the end of her tail’s outline to make it curl at the end. This is slightly risky because it can blend into medium shades in some backgrounds. But for a tiny detail like this that’s not enough to prevent the sprite from working.

# How did I do?
Ideally I would have given them asymetrical poses like most Chrono trigger characters, but this was mostly just a style test.

# Maybe some day I’ll get around to drawing all of their walking sprites. Then I’ll have some REAL fun with these two!

# There! Asymmetrical poses automatically make any kind of art look better. Having Renamon look to the side fits her detached personality better.

# But even when you don’t know how a character’s personality would translate into a standing pose, just put one foot and arm slightly in front of the other. Everybody leans a little when they stand. This also gives me an excuse to bend Renamon’s knee for a slightly sexier pose.

# Okay that’s all the standing poses for Renamon. Gotta add the tail too which is a shame. I gave her a pretty good ass.

# Hmm… It looks like the original artists snuck in a 3rd skin tone for Ayla. They REALLY wanted to detail those legs!

# That finishes all the standing poses. Maybe I should make Renamon’s legs slightly longer in the side view to match the height of the front and back views.

# Something tells me that Renamon will be fun to animate, especially with that graceful tail. But that will probably have to wait until after the weekend.

# The asymmetrical pose was pretty good, but I think I can make it just a little bit sexier. I notice that Ayla actually bends her leg a little bit… kinda like a supermodel. Let’s steal that idea!

# After adjustments I think I nailed it.
This seems to exaggerate the lean in her hips, which somehow draws attention to them.

# Taking even more inspiration from Ayla’s sexy oiled-up bod, I decided to punch up Renamon’s 3D shading some more.

# Also the side view had somehow ended up being shorter than the front and back poses so I lengthened the leg to fix that.

# So basically all the improvements are ideas copied from Ayla’s pose. Which makes me really admire the skill of the original artist who didn’t have this amazing sprite to refer to.

# Yeah I know the game itself had multiple artists, but I don’t think they were all crowded around one desk working on Ayla’s sprite at the same time… or maybe they did? She was clearly very popular.

# That’s one walk cycle done! I referred to Ayla’s animation frames pretty often to figure out how to make those hips swing. For the arms I originally tried imitating Marle’s graceful movements but it just ended up looking like Renamon was slapping her hips with noodle arms, so I just went with my gut and gave her strong swinging fists instead. Sexy and strong.

# Here’s a time-lapse of the process.
It took about an hour and a half. (2 seconds = 1 minute)

# That’s two walk cycles down. I’ll add the tail later after they’re all done. I kind of want to figure out how to transition the tail between standing and walking if possible. But I feel like that should be a separate task. But it’ll probably be easier than I think.

# And here’s a time-lapse for Renamon’s left walking animation.
This was also took about an hour and a half to do.
(2 seconds = 1 minute)

# There. I think I managed to give her a nice graceful swaying motion.

# … now to cover it all up with a tail.

# I also moved the hips up higher. The proportions just look better.

# Here’s the new walk animations with the higher hips.

# Here’s a time-lapse of Renamon’s upward walk-cycle, without the tail.
I’ll add the tail later.
It took about an hour and a half.
(2 seconds = 1 minute)

# It seems a shame to cover all that up, but there’s no getting around it. Renamon has a tail. At least I made it flow gracefully.

# Here’s a time-lapse of the process making the tail. I’m not sure if people might be getting tired of these, but figuring this out actually resulted in an interesting process, and some of the finishing touches are not obvious.
(2 frames = 1 minute)

# I was curious to try and see if I could “cheat” my way into showing more ass, by shortening the tail and making it swing wider.

# This looks slightly less graceful but it still flows convincingly enough. But I think I made the tail a little too short. In the end this only manages to show the legs. But to be fair that does help the walk cycle.

# It kind of exaggerates the overall sway of her hips, but ironically the flailing silhouette obscures her sexy undulations.

# I’ve actually tried this trick before.

# I redrew the tail to be slightly longer. It still feels slightly on the short side to me, but it doesn’t really stand out. This seems like a good compromise.

# This tail works… I guess? But something doesn’t look quite right. I might try again.

# This tail animates better. I think it’s because of 2 things.

# The previous animation had the base of the tail billowing upward against gravity. This animation keeps the base of the tail aligned with her hip instead, and no part of the tail goes higher than that. This gives it more weight.
# Now the tail curves downward on the same frame that Renamon’s head and body dips down, and curves up on the same frame her body rises. Intuitively this just feels right. Moving with the body makes it feel like part of the body. I just shifted the animation frames to match that moment.

# Finally done with Renamon!
It’s hard to make myself to do this much in one day.

# A little test to see how well the frames transition between standing and walking.

# The tail could use a little adjustment for the standing poses. I added it to the standing poses before creating any of the walk cycles. But I think the body itself transitions well enough.

# Maybe I could make an animation for the standing pose to transition the tail from being in the air to resting on the ground? Tails create interesting and unique challenges for sprites.