The Jawa Spriting Process

While I didn't plan on keeping tabs on the full process of drawing my Jawa sprite, I did manage to keep a few layers that I felt might be important to show you.  I cannot stress how important it is to get an idea of what you want in your head before you start designing.

In the process of creating the Jawa, first I looked up some Jawas on google.  I wanted to get a good idea of how their cloth folds look and what type of accessories they typically have.  After getting a good idea of how I wanted it to look, I took the traditional route and started with a basic skeleton of how I wanted it to be positioned.

I knew that since a Jawa is typically a short creature, I would want him to appear to be short as well, so I created a much larger head than the typical Jawa had (in the movies at least).  This would give it the appearance of being tiny without having something to compare it to.

After creating the skeleton, I began drawing it's outline on a separate layer.  The separate layer would help in case I make a mistake and need to erase some of the outline.  The outline was also done in a different color than the skeleton.

After the outline was completed, I began work on the final draft.  This final draft included tracing over the outline once more on a separate layer, allowing me to re-proportion the character in a slightly more natural pose while keeping the same general idea that I wanted from the beginning.  After retracing the outline, I began coloring.  At this point, you can do however you feel most comfortable.  Since I was in no rush, I just colored everything in on the same layer as the final draft outline.  This saved me from having to swap layers constantly to select all of the sections that I wanted to fill in with base colors.  I began adding the shading, keeping in mind a general idea of where my light source was coming from.  The end result all came out on this final layer.

I figured I would include an animated gif with the post to show you how the process went without going too heavy into detail.  It isn't totally a process image but maybe it will help some of you get an idea of how to start your sprite (or sprites) if they are all coming out to look a little unnatural.