Hello all, I'm Deciton_Reven and I used to frequent these parts. I was never in the best spriter running but I was an active member that constantly tried to participate in any sort of community event and often posted my own work. I don't really do either anymore, but I still feel a kinship to this place so I thought, since I'm doing something special with sprites for October to match daily challenges that friends are doing with pen and paper for Inktober I'd share it here and invite people to do it to, if they wish.

What sort of challenge am I doing you might wonder? Well, spriting everyday using a limited palette of 256 colors. If that seems like a lot to you well, here's the catch, use a color from the pallete on a sprite and you lose that color for the rest of the challenge. This challenge is designed to make you use colors more sparingly for those that always use too many shades, as well as pushing you to use colors don't normally, hopefully in interesting ways.

The palette you chose can be any 256 colors, either hand picked by you, or a pallete you find, but it's important to finalize the palette you are going to use the whole challenge before spriting your first sprite. As for what you sprite any given day, it's up to you, but I recommend taking a suggestion from someone else or finding another way to challenge yourself with themes, perhaps follow Inktober's list, it's pretty good. Most importantly though, show off what you have done. Post it here, your own topic, social media, or just show a friend. Put your best foot forward, and listen for critique, I guarantee these simple exercises will challenge and increase your over all abilities as a spriter.

And without further ado, The palette I'm personally going to use and my day 1 sprite: Ray B's 256 color palette:

And a hammer lady:


PS: If you find this late, or miss a day, don't worry, any 31 days will still work, your palette isn't going anywhere!

Very charming sprite there!

I think I'm gonna try this too at some point! I tend to overcomplicate things.

Count me in as well! I'm gonna make my palette now and start tomorrow.

Looking forward to it you guys!

ummm lets try this

Day 2. Chat was being dumb and kept saying tanks instead of thanks. I asked them what to sprite; "tank". Fine then, I think it's important to sometimes be real dumb with your sprites.

Hmmm... This looks fun, but I have a terrible track record of sticking to month-long challenges.
Is there a guideline for how detailed these sprites have to be? Like, should they be about 64x64?

Nah, I'd encourage you to try all different sizes and styles throughout, but if you feel the need to improve in one specific area, there is also no rule against self imposed challenges. Something like this is a great excuse to cut lose and just do. It's about improving, not creating something amazing each and everyday. See my day 2 tank sprite, it's terrible, but I fall into bad habits of just not doing anything spritewise somedays, and it certainly felt better to make something stupid and low effort than to not create at all.

Maybe do a mini challenge and grab a 64 color palette for a week of sprites if a month feels like a mountain.

Thanks. You really know how to inspire. I'll see if I can get my first submission in today (and maybe catch up a little.)