Sprite Discovery Discussion

i will say, i respect all of the art staff for how hard they worked on these, heck, i even remember when it started! i feel so bad being negative about some of them, but i promise there’ll be no open hate. most of the melans have changed from black and an accent color, usually a bright color (although not neon mostly) to a dulled down blue or green or purple. i understand why this is done, but in the case of pokemon like skuntank, who’s based off of a skunk, the black fits better. for my example, skuntank, the old melan looks like an actual skunk! now it doesn’t have that feeling. skuntank isn’t a bad melan by any means (in fact, it’s one of my favorites of the revamp), it was just the easiest to point out. another example is finneon, who changed from black & (either blue or pink, depending on gender) to a weird green-ish color. i’ve brought this up before with a completely separate sprite, but it really looks like the shiny sprite + the tail dots of the albino all put under a green filter. i understand why this happens, as mochafox said previously that since the shiny and normal sprite weren’t too different, there wasn’t much they could do. with all due respect, though, it feels like that was just an excuse she used to try and explain a quickly done melan that might have been a bit rushed. as said previously, i understand why you change the bright colors, but the dulled down new colors just feel… underwhelming. i can’t seem to think of the right words for whatever reason, so feel free to discredit this point, but in my mind they feel more empty. i’m not trying to claim that every new sprite is bad or anything, i love albino hippopotas and the whole melan buneary line, i just think there are a few that don’t fully work. again, i’m not trying to slander the art team in any way. they worked so hard to get these out and i respect that fully.

I feel like using an algorithm type method to get the colors for the albinos and melans sort of takes away the creativity that is very important in Pokemon. They're colorful and unique even in their normal and shiny sprites. I feel like now, a lot of the melans and albinos just feel really similarly designed, and not often in a good way. It does work very well for some of them, I am totally in love with melan Shaymin's new colors for example, but it mostly just causes a blandness in them... Not to discredit the artists, and I know the algorithm probably makes designing them a lot simpler, but they feel less unique overall and mostly I have been disappointed with each update that has come out. And RIP to everyone who hunted gender color differences, that sucks a lot...

I agree with Voide. I understand that uniformity can be nice to make everything look like they go together. I also agree that an algorithm likely does really save some time in some areas, and that some of the sprites really do look improved. Even I would say I'm definitely a fan of the Shaymin formes and their new colors... But as I've seen mentioned elsewhere before, many of these melans and albinos just don't... appear Melanistic or albino anymore. Many of the albinos prior had the pale creams, and the red eyes... but now they just look like a made up shiny color scheme, with mostly the same shades or purples, blues and greens for all of them. Not albino vibed at all, most of them now anyways. Not to mention, even with forewarning, many seem to of hunted certain mons before due to their prior color schemes. Now I see many feeling they wasted their efforts, or perhaps may want to stop a hunt all together due to the new colors. I'm all for updates. I appreciate the work that everyone does, and I don't mean any ill will twords anyone, this is souly just my criticism if you will... but I don't know. As other's have said, this felt very short noticed, told off handed before or not, and leaves some very mixed reviews. I respect the work and those that enjoy the updates. You're definitely entitled to enjoy them, as even I enjoy some. But now my Turtwig hunt on and off for the past 4 or so months is likely done.

Really depressed over some of these changes. I know it doesn’t matter in the end, but I’ll have to put off future hunts until they get updated too. A lot of my faves disappoint me now. I understand the idea of a cohesive color palette, but all the charm in a lot of the melans and albinos are lost.

I am with you about skuntank. I absolutely wanted to melan hunt a black one before it changed. Now, I'm not interested at all.

I really don’t want to complain, it’s not really my thing, I just. The two melans I have that I loved so so dearly are so drastically changed and so are all the albinos that went with them. I no longer feel that connection with them now that the colors are so different. I have an exclusive melan too..and now I’m actually scared that they’re going to change him too. I’m really disappointed in all of the albinos. What’s the point of calling them “albino” if they really are just alternate shinies? They should all be pale with red/pink or even blue eyes. Spiritomb was my first hunt, my first melan, my first everything. I’m literally depressed. There’s no appeal to taking away something as simple as “albino”. The new melans look so washed out compared to the imaginative, colorful and creative ways people had provided them before. I literally cannot even think about doing another hunt for any of my favs now knowing they could be changed so drastically. It would be nice to know what color something might be if they know so that people could adjust, but even now I just. Barely want to hunt anything. At all. ;;

Can... can I just say I'm glad Shaymin has an actual eye now. Also Palkia's thumb returned and so did Torterra's fourth leg.

I think there are a lot of changes I like, and a lot I dislike. I agree with a lot of whats been said, a lot of things start to feel 1 color because the same shade is seen too often (or the shade is very similar) in Albinos, like for example if pink is used it's the same shade/very similar shades of pink across all albinos, same with blues its a lot of "ice blue" There are a few I enjoy that others dislike! Chimchar, Rotom, Mothim, Azelf, Heatran - the changes to those lines I quite enjoy, while others seem to have issues with them here and there. It becomes about taste in a lot of situations, and color preference. Shinx, Buneary, Riolu, Carnivine melans are not my favorites, they give off "one tone" vibes, where the colors across the whole pokemon are so similar, it's almost like it's just 1 color with a little bit of shading. You can't tell what is going on with the sprites because it looks very muddled, the colors need to be seperated a bit better IMHO I will say I'm going to miss the different colors on Rotom's Melan, I'm happy that it's moved over onto the Albino & we still have that at least but I still think it being on the melan made it more interesting and it felt better to hunt, motivation for me to hunt for more than 1 melan is a bit lost considering they are all the same color now. (Though I really enjoy the color choice & understand why it is the way it is, I'm still just slightly disappointed) I'm also really disappointed with Cresselia changes. The albino is so bright, I just personally feel though the colors are fine they are just much too vibrant (this applies to a few others such as the Gible line, its a similar Green/Blueish color and both are just way too vibrant) - I really don't even know what to say, or where to begin with the Melan. I know the old melan might have been kinda rough, but the colors made sense for a "pokemon of the moon" - the recolor just makes me not want to hunt it anymore and I've speent so much time and money on that hunt, it really is depressing to me. I can't tell if I feel the color is too bright or too dull, the green on red just really bothers me it contrast so hard it doesn't look pleasing personally. I don't think I dislike the green, or the blue on part of the body - it's just the red that is throwing off the entire melan for me because of the other colors involved. I appreciate all of the artist hard work in releasing sinnoh my only major dislike is a lot of the Albinos just remain too vibrant, some melans suffer from "one tone" and Cresselia melan needs some major adjustments/changes which is of course just my personal opinion.

there's one thing in these recolors that i noticed that seems kind of odd. shiny cresselia's back aurora was changed. pfq on the left, canon gen 5 sprite on the right the pfq version changed the yellow-ish (it looks pretty grayish) color on the very back of the aurora to a lighter blue. but... the yellow is just how shiny cresselia looks, so changing it to blue just seems odd. here's the gen 7 model for comparison.

I can explain that! If you look at pokemon home's model, it's actually a pale blue/white. It's the newest, so we are using that, if I recall correctly.