Sprite Discovery Discussion

I also miss old albino Pichu. The only reason why I wanted one was because it looked like a lab rat. Now, no offence, but it looks like it was covered in grape bubble gum. 😣 I'm affraid of what will happen to Emolga, the last Unovan melan I like. Whoever decided that albinos and melanistics shouldn't be white and black anymore (you know, those nice colours that go with everything and what everyone would expect from albino and melanistic creatures).

I adore the new Minccino and Cinccino. Now I have to get back to hunting them at some point

... This guy? Are you sure? /lh I get that some people DO like the old neon sprites, but I think most of us here can loosely agree that current melan Emolga is... Not Good, Actually. I find the bright golden eyes unsettling, the flat greys boring, and the blight sky blue wing pockets in stark contrast to the eyes jarring and overall just not a very aesthetically pleasing sprite. Hence why staff is currently redoing a lot of the old melans-- they firstly don't look like melanistic creatures and secondly often just don't look great. It's not that they "can't be black and white anymore" (they can, actually, and there are several new albinos and melans that use desaturated colors) or even "what everyone would expect" (do me a favor and google melanistic animals, several of them are not just straight black, and albino animals often have lots of pink) but that don't you think if every albino or melan was just flat, desaturated colors with occasional pops of bright color, that'd be kind of boring? I like that now there's a wider variety of color palettes art staff is using to recolor pokemon, as opposed to Way Back When when melan sprites were various shades of dark grey with occasional out-of-place sections of bright color. Plus, there is still a place for dark greys. Like look at new Arcanine-- especially the Hisuian one! That one's pretty nice, with the dark greys and blues! Or Cofagrigus, which also has a lot of neutral tones amongst darker, more harmonious blues as well.

I won't do you a favour and Google anything because I know melanistic animals ain't 'straight black' and that's why I said 'what anyone would expect' and not 'what they are'. Plus Pokémon aren't animals. There's no melanin in Beldum, but a black one is what I would expect from a melanistic one and I believe I ain't alone. Since you're asking, I don't think these special recolours being predominantly white or black would be boring (that's why I posted my comment 😉) and I think shinies are already funny enough. And I get you taking my wording as 'harsh'. We see people policing each other's opinions everywhere on the internet, but I still think dark shades of brown and moss could be put under the 'dirt colours' umbrella term. If you think I need to learn another word to call these colours you could send me a PM with suggestions (though I'd prefer you didn't). In the "Sprite Discovery Discussion" I only wanted to express my impressions on discovering these sprites' colours as the artists might care about them as I'm one end user and not, if it really needs to be said, insult anyone nor anyone's art (the new shading is absolutely amazing in every new sprite and I'm very aware that I couldn't sprite a plain square if I tried) It's really just the colours. It's really just my opinion.

This thread is being locked so people can calm down and relax. Please step away and take some time to ride out the high emotions that are very clearly showing in this thread. Staff will reopen this thread again in 24hrs; just like the last time we closed it for a cooling-down break. Thank you for your patience.

The staff would like to remind all participants that getting heated over pixel sprites is not constructive behaviour. Please keep calm and carry on. We would also like to request that posts are kept to respectful, constructive criticism. It's fine to dislike something, but that dislike should still expressed with respect. Instead of insulting a sprite, suggest what you think would make it better. And finally, the Staff would like to apologize for the delay in reopening the thread. Thank you for your patience.

While I'm not going to be as caustic about it as the user above me was, I do think that locking the discussion thread was rather pre-emptively combative this time. Last time, I could understand, things did get unduly harsh there, but - and maybe I'm just naive - I couldn't see even at the time the problem with Sunnelion and Seejey's responses. It kind of formed a controversy where none really existed at the time. Though of course, if there's something that I just didn't get, I'm happy to be proven wrong /shrug Veering back to the sprite discussion part of the thread: I miss the old albino Minccino line red eyes white mouse-dragon, but the added perkiness to its tail does mitigate this somewhat. And the melan looks cool, which is in some ways more important. I also have to give major props to the new Solosis line shading. It looks extra amorphous now, extra squishy~

To talk about the sprites: It isn't simple recolors. The art team is revamping the sprites! They are enhancing them, making them more cohesive with the rest of the site by giving them updated shading! Gen 5 is notorious for their still sprites being subpar. Keldeo is missing a leg for crying out loud. It takes time to make a sprite look nice and blend with the rest! They are fixing things like colors too. So thank you for all your hard work staff, because I know how much time and effort goes into spriting, and I know how talented you guys are.

Some of the revamped sprites actually don't blend at all and just stand out even more. Lillipup is really jarring when it appears in the shelter among other pokemon. Ducklett gives me the same energy, although I haven't seen it with the other pokemon yet. On the positive side some of the sprites actually look better (but only in regular and shiny forms).

while i’m all in favor of the sprites getting updated in regards to shading and other such matters, i do have to agree that changing the colors of the melans and albinos feels really arbitrary most of the time? although it can be a good thing- i think the current vanillite line albinos and melans are way better than the original, especially the albinos because they lean more into a neapolitan gimmick- it can also end in disaster, like the fiasco that was the original vanillite revamps, which lasted all of… 43 minutes before they were changed again. i don’t remember who, but i’m pretty sure someone said a while ago that there should be community input on these things, which i’d like to echo again. if the art team thinks some albino and melan palettes are bad and need to be improved, they should poll the community and see what they think, too. i know that there’s no way to make everyone happy with them, but as seen in the aforementioned vanillite line fiasco, there are definitely decisions that can be made by the majority of players. and i really don’t think every albino and melan color scheme needs to be completely recreated just for the sake of newness- if the community largely decides that they like a pokemon’s current palettes, they should stay the same, just with better shading. (i mean, not to stay stuck on the vanillite topic, but it really baffled me because it already had a solid idea behind it and almost nobody liked the original recolors. it felt like it was changed just so they could say they updated it, though if there was a solid reasoning for it behind the scenes i’d really love to hear it and get a staff artist’s perspective) plus, if the community got to collectively decide on new palettes before they were finalized, i feel like it would lead to people having more genuinely positive things to say about the final products, instead of the positivity needing to be strictly enforced by staff.