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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!
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KFp_FSTD2bs
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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.
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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.
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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.
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I wanted Takato to be somewhere in between Chrono Trigger’s “boy” sprites and the “young man” sprites.
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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.
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So I followed Brandon Greer’s approach of connecting the limbs together and then turning it into the intended character.
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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)
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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.
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They also always use this off-white color and a faded dark color for the outline. Usually a very dark purple.
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I think I managed to pull off the Chrono Trigger look pretty well.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Maybe some day I’ll get around to drawing all of their walking sprites. Then I’ll have some
REAL fun
with these two!
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There! Asymmetrical poses automatically make any kind of art look better. Having Renamon look to the side fits her detached personality better.
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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.
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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.
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Hmm… It looks like the original artists snuck in a 3rd skin tone for Ayla. They REALLY wanted to detail those legs!
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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.
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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.
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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!
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After adjustments I think I nailed it.
This seems to exaggerate the lean in her hips, which somehow draws attention to them.
