The Simplified Guide

At the special request of Marshall, I have rewritten the Character Base Making Tutorial, shortened it and sectioned it for easier reference. It is now ‘find’ friendly to help you quickly reach each section using the CTRL + F keys. Consider yourselves lucky he made the suggestion; otherwise I’m sure most of you would be crying your little hearts out at the 8 page forum post spanning 4383 words... but let us get on with it.

Preparation
Right, before you start the guide properly, here is the preparation for the process. So I am giving you a small but insightful idea onto what tools and programs you might need, giving an explanation as to why to use them.
Programs: 
I recommend using one of these programs (although if not possible, Microsoft Paint will do): 
Photoshop
GIMP
Photofiltre
Paint.net
The reason for this is because of the amount you can zoom in on these programs and the wide variety of tools they offer. Except for Photoshop I believe they are all free as well, giving you a powerful program to make sprites at your disposal. My suggestion would be if possible though, to get a portable version of Photoshop CS4 (which can be found free when you search Photoshop CS4 Portable Free in Google) or to buy the package. I say this because I believe it to be the most powerful of the programs and possibly the best laid out or easiest to use in my opinion. All of these programs have the tools you need.

Tools: 
The tools on the programs that you will need are: 
Pencil tool
Brush tool
Fill tool
Magic Wand tool
Blur tool (not absolutely necessary)
You will need most if not all of these and that is why I suggested the programs I did. I am aware that Microsoft Paint does not have the blur tool, thus I am not making it an absolutely necessary tool. Although it will help if you have a program that can use it for your shading towards the end. The only other tool you may need is the bar guide I have made, which is 100% necessary for this process. You can get it from the attachments at the bottom of the guide. I would also suggest getting the drawn tutorial from the bottom of the guide as well, this may come in handy when you’re stuck or cannot understand what I have written.


Setting up: 
Right, now we’ve got the tools we need to set up the page, here is how we’re going to do it:
1.	Create a new page 79 pixels wide by 79 pixels high. This is the standard Little Fighter 2 size grid for creating characters.
2.	In the bottom left hand corner, add the bar guide to the grid. Make sure the bottom of the bar guide is exactly on the bottom of the grid. This will be used for character heights and proportions.
Simple process wasn’t it. Now let’s get down to the fun part – actually creating the sprites.

Bar Guide
This tutorial depends completely on the use of the bar guide. Whilst you are using this tutorial it shall be your only true friend, nothing else matters in this world. So now I will introduce you to the bar guide.
Each section is coloured specifically to maximise the chances of reaching the correct height and proportions for each component of the Little Fighter’s body. So here is the list of colours on the bar guide and what they refer to:
White Section - Head
Purple Section - Neck
Dark Blue Section - Upper Torso and Upper Arm
White Spot Section - Chin
Green Section - Abdominal Region and Lower Arm
Red Section - Waistline
Pale Blue Section - Hands
Pink Section - Upper Leg
Brownish Green Section - Lower Leg
Blue Section – Foot

Head
This is the main part of the Little Fighter characters form. The head is always done first because it is the component that allows you to map out the rest of the body. To create the head we use a 15px pencil tool with a white colour. You then do two strokes or points with the tool, the top of the upper stroke being in line with the top of the bar guide and the bottom of the other stroke being in line with the white spot on the bar guide.
This is where we change to the 1px pencil tool. On the right hand side of the characters face draw a diagonal line that goes up roughly 4 pixels higher than the white spot section on the bar guide and about 6-8 pixels wide. On the characters left hand side of the face, go up about 6 or 7 pixels and out about 4 or 5 to reach the heads widest point. This forms the front of the face and the jaw line from a ¾ view or the standard view at which you speed Little Fighter Characters.
Just above where you did the jaw line on the right hand side of the characters face you should draw an ear coming out about 6 pixels as the widest point and possibly around 5 pixels high. The top of the ear appears closer to the head than the bottom of the ear and so maybe 1 or 2 pixels from the edge of the ear you can start to finish off the top of the head by bringing it around to peak at the top of the bar guide and all the way back round to connect to the front of the head. Remember to round it off so if you didn’t have the ear the head would look relatively egg shaped.
Skeleton
For the character to support their head or to stand up, they’re going to need a frame. We’re going to produce a simple skeletal frame upon which we will add the flesh and rest of the body. To start off we are going to add the spine to our sprite. The spine is the column of vertebrae (bones in your back) that runs down your back from the back of the head all the way down to the pelvis (the bone to which your hips and backside is). Normally the spine would take the natural curvature of a slight S-shape, as you would be able to see if someone stood properly without forcing their back to be straight. In this case, we are going to go against official anatomy and use a straight line. This is because it isn’t necessary for us to draw the S-shape on the sprite, as it helps us in no way whatsoever. So from the right hand side of the chin (on the white spot line of the bar guide), using a 1px dark blue pencil tool, draw a vertical line going down all the way through the dark blue section and down through to stop at the very bottom of the green section on your bar guide. This is going to act as the characters ‘spine’ or more properly referred to in this example as the ‘centre line’.
There is no need to overcomplicate the sprite by drawing a full pelvis, so we are not going to and instead are going to use a line to judge the size of the hips. So, using a 2px red pencil tool, draw a line (in line with the red section on your bar guide) roughly 8 pixels outwards from the characters left and roughly 9 pixels from the characters right. On smaller characters or thinner characters this may be decreased by a pixel or two on average or maybe more, whilst on a larger character this may be increased by one or two pixels either side. The reason it is larger on the right hand side is because it is closer to the camera or to you whereas on the left hand side it is further away from the camera or you, therefore appearing smaller. Artists use something called point perspective to bring across this idea.
The broadest part of the body is the shoulders and so is true with Little Fighter characters as well. The male upper body it is triangular in appearance, being widest at the shoulders and most narrow towards the waist and hip region. As said before about point perspective and distance from the camera, the shoulder that is furthest away will seem smaller and less broad than the one that is closer, in the case of Little Fighter’s – their right shoulder. Using a 1px blue pencil tool draw a horizontal line that is wider than the hips, just under the jaw. On the characters right, the shoulder should be a fair bit wider than the hips, whereas on the characters left, the shoulder should be only slightly wider. For average sized characters, similar to build of Davis it is good to have a 4 pixel and a 2 pixel width above the hips respectively (that is the character’s right is 4 pixels wider and his left is 2 pixels). The difference between shoulder width and hip width is less apparent on thinner characters and is often reversed on the more fat characters. It is however emphasized on the larger characters. Women are a different story though; this is not a good technique for the body of women. Women have a more hourglass figure and their body tapers in towards their waist, and then comes back out at the hips. With women, the hips and shoulders tend to be the same width, but that will be discussed in another tutorial.
Now to stop the character floating about randomly they need to come into contact with the floor. This is where the legs come in. We’re going to use the pink colour 1px pencil tool at first as it is the upper leg colour to draw them. Now, the legs don’t start at the very edge of the hips and instead start a little more towards the middle otherwise your legs would just out at the side and have a huge gap in between. I suggest using a 4 pixel distance from the edge of the hips on either side of the body. Draw a line going diagonally down from just under the hip line to the very bottom of the grid at roughly shoulder width. I say shoulder width because the character requires some form of balance. When the feet are closer together than shoulder width, they are slightly taller and so the centre of gravity is raised higher. This makes them easier to knock over. The further the legs are spread apart, the lower the centre of gravity of a character and therefore the more stability and balance they have, although this may come at the cost of speed. Shoulder width is the medium at which you can get a decent amount of balance and a good amount of speed. You should separate the legs into their components using the colours on the bar guide at the correct heights.
In real life you will find that when you have your arms ‘straight’ down at your sides and hanging loosely that they are not actually ‘straight’. There is a slight bend at the elbow at which the forearm comes forward. However, in Little Fighter characters, most standing positions have straight arms completely. I for art and realism sake made the arm of my base slightly bent. So we’re going to do a basic length of the arm, which is roughly 21 pixels from shoulder end (the skeleton of the shoulder) to the very tip of the hand (very bottom of the pale blue section on bar guide). So using the 1px pencil tool set to dark blue, either draw a line ending at the bottom of the dark blue section on the bar guide or have it end 8-9 pixels from the shoulder edge. This is the average size of the upper arm on standard Little Fighter characters. The forearm can then be done from the top of the green sections to the bottom of the green section on the bar guide or is also roughly 8 pixels – you would do this in 1px green pencil tool. Finally for the hand, it’s only about 5 pixels in length for Little Fighter characters and is drawn in the same direction as the forearm in light or pale blue down to the bottom of the pale blue section on the bar guide or as a 5 pixel extension to the lower arms direction. This is also done in 1px pencil tool.

Body
It is time to give our base some shape. Padding out the character to the right proportions is the crucial when making the Little Fighter character. The neck is probably the most left out and unnoticed component of a Little Fighter characters body. This is because it’s a tiny section just under the ear of the character. You will do this in a purple 1px pencil. Just under the ear do 2 to 3 pixels down and 1 or 2 pixels towards the chin from there. That is your finished neck, wasn’t that easy?
Now we’ve done the neck, we can fill out the shoulders and the trapezius muscles. These muscle groups perform the function of lifting your arms and shrugging. Trapezius muscles in general are part of your back and act as assistors to shoulder based movements – that is they help the shoulders raise the arms. The trapezius muscles start off attached to the neck quite high up and then slope slowly down towards the shoulders. Using a dark blue 1px pencil tool, start off the trapezoid muscles just under the neck on the right hand side of the character. They should come out quite a fair bit from the neck, maybe 2 or so pixels before it slopes down towards the shoulders and ending at the shoulders edge or end points. On the other side, the trapezius muscle shoulder only is 1 pixel higher than the shoulder and end 2 pixels or so away from the shoulder line end of edge. This is because that shoulder is further away, so it appears smaller. The same applies for the trapezius muscle going down to it. More muscular characters will have higher trapezius muscles and higher shoulders, causing the neck to be more hidden. Less muscular characters or thinner characters may have a longer neck and smaller trapezius muscle.
It is time to do the main torso or upper body of the character. Although looking at the character from near enough the front, using a ¾ view you actually see some of the thickness of the back as well. As you go up from the hips and waist, the size of the torso widens because of the large muscles in your chest and your laterals. Your laterals are the muscles at the sides of your back that help to form your underarm or armpits as they are commonly referred to as. On the left hand side of the character, still using a blue 1px pencil tool draw a line going vertically up from the characters hips and only outwards 1 pixel or so about half way up. This side of the body remains relatively flat, especially with the fact that the arms can come across it, it doesn’t spread out much. On the characters right, draw a line from just above the edge of the hip up towards the shoulder edge, but not reaching the shoulder edge. It should be short of the shoulder edge by about 2 or 3 pixels otherwise the laterals would be too wide and could restrict arm movement. I would suggest filling in the body using the fill tool after doing the first part of the legs section, you will need the centre line for it.



Legs
First, in the same line as the centre line or spine, using a pink 1px pencil tool, draw a 5 or 6 pixel line going down from the hips. This is where your legs are going to meet; you should now fill in the body using the fill tool set to dark blue before continuing.
Okay, let’s start with the characters right leg. Still using the 1px pink pencil tool draw a diagonal line going downwards from the centre line where the legs meet to the bottom of the brownish green section on the bar guide. This should be roughly 4/5 pixels away from the skeleton leg line you drew earlier. On the other side of the same leg, starting at the hip edge instead of the centre line, repeat the process. This should also be roughly 3/4/5 pixels away from the skeleton leg. Join the bottoms of the leg across using a horizontal line.
On the left leg, you once again start from where the legs meet and go down to the bottom of the brownish green section using another diagonal line. This should be roughly 4 or 5 pixel distance from the skeleton leg as you progress towards the bottom. Repeat as before on the other side of this leg, only using a 2 or 3 pixel distance from the bottom, starting at the hip edge. Once again, connect the legs off at the bottom.
Now fill in the legs using the fill tool and a pink colour. You can then shape the legs a bit by rounding them off at the bottom using a black 1px pencil tool and taking off bits of the leg you do not like.

Arms
Arms are normally the hardest part to draw on the sprite. This is because of allowing yourself to put them in any position you chose earlier on, making it hard to imagine or reach the exact end product that you pictured. So I can only suggest the small part of making them 6 or 7 pixels wide on the characters right, as is standard for most Little Fighter sprites that I have looked at. They should be 1 pixel thinner on the characters left roughly or exactly the same, but once again that is based on how far the arm is from the camera compared to the right arm. My real suggestion is to do 1px layers in dark blue pencil tool either side each time to build up the arm. This way you can get to a size that you think is suitable or you like. Do not worry of the arm overlaps the body section; we will use shading to fix that later.

Hands and Feet
Next is probably the easiest part – the hands. For the hands, start off using the light blue 1px pencil tool and draw a circular shape on the end of the forearm. This should be about 5 pixels long at most, assuming that you’ve followed the bar guide measurements up until now. It should be 1 or 2 pixels wider than the forearm as well. This is because, if you look at a clenched fist (as we’re going to assume that Little Fighter characters all have rounded clenched fists – tensed to those who do not understand) or any style of hand in fact, it comes outwards slightly at the palm leading to the little finger and on the other side leading to the thumb. You can then fill in the hand with the pale blue fill tool.
As for feet, it gets slightly trickier than the hand. This is not where you should do the same as you do with the hands; the feet are to be treated completely differently. You use a blue colour 1px pencil tool for this. The right foot of the character, assuming you are using standing position for your sprite, should be facing towards you. The bottom of the foot should be wider at the bottom that at the top, around 10-11 pixels compared to 9-10. The shoe should gradually go outwards either side towards the middle reaching a peak of about 13-14 pixels and then slope back in towards the bottom.
The left foot is facing slightly to the side, so you get a view of the back of the foot and the slightly lengthier front of the foot. The back of the foot should be done flat, going out 1 or 2 pixels more than the top and bottom of the foot whereas on the other side it should slope outwards from the top about 3 or 4 pixels before coming back in 1 or 2 pixels at the bottom. You can now fill in your feet using the fill tool.
Shading
We’re going to do shading before we do the final touch ups. So right now you need to pick two colours, one that is darker for the shaded regions of the character and one that is lighter for what got hit by the sunlight. Using the darker colour and a 1px pencil tool, go over the whole of the head. This is optional, but I used a yellow 1px pencil to draw a sun in the top right hand corner of the grid, this is just to remind me where I will be shading and where the sun will hit. Now, using the lighter colour and a 1px pencil tool, add a lighted region to the face. Around the middle of the head I leave around 6 pixels of shaded region, then round the shaded region into the unshaded towards the top of the head and completely across the bottom of the jaw. This is because the jaw is hit least by the sun.
Now we’re moving onto the neck region, which is probably the darkest region of the body in terms of shading as the head stops it from getting light. I would suggest getting your darker colour and darkening it a little more for this part. You then go around the bottom of the jaw using this colour and a 1px pencil tool. The shaded region should then be 2 pixels all the way around the bottom of the head.
Using your original shade colour, go over the rest of the body entirely. Then, as we did with the head, we’re going to use the lighter colour and once again using the 1px pencil tool highlight all the area’s where the sun hits. Shading will be explained better in another guide.

Touch Ups
Now is the best part, finishing touches. What you’re going to do is use the 1px brush tool, using the correct colours in the correct regions (unshaded and shaded) and finish or perfect the shape of your Little Fighter base. For parts you want to erase and do over, use a 1px black brush tool to erase some of the parts. This will give you your finished shape.
The next part depends on whether you have the blur tool or not. If you have a program that allows you to blur using filter (such as Photoshop or GIMP) then using the magic wand tool set at a tolerance of 100 highlight the body of the base. The whole of the base should then be selected. Go into filter – blur – blur. This will allow the character to have a more realistic shading finish, instead of an extremely sharp shade. If you haven’t got the blur tool, using the 1px brush tool and the shaded or unshaded colour, go across the line at which the shading ends. This will allow the colour to slowly fade through into the other one, producing your less sharp shading.

Credits
These are the people that credits go to and the explanations as to why they deserve the credits:
Marshall – for suggesting the CTRL + F friendly method of creating the guide. Making it easier for all of you to flick through the guide to find the points you need help on.
Reaper – for suggesting a less defined method of approach to proportions and shape. He has helped you all in receiving a guide that is not 100% fixed and allows for varying positions and proportions.
Eddie – for spending 2 days solidly working on producing what was meant to be a shortened but more useful and helpful guide. Admittedly it isn’t shorter at all, in fact it’s even longer, but still the task is done.

Hopefully this helps you all,
Eddie