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Check it out! Princess Peach is ripped! Absolutely shredded! … no not like that. Oh sure she acts surprised, but what else is she supposed to eat in the “mushroom” kingdom? I guess she will just have to get used to this. How tragic. What a shame. 😁
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The main inspiration came from this amazing picture by StunnerPony.
Inspiration
Created by: StunnerPony
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I was sorely tempted to just copy the pose exactly. After all how can you possibly improve on that!? I did look for some reference for a more human hand, and noticed this picture had a more delicate princess-y pose for the other arm.
Hand pose
Created by: BigDad
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So I sketched this up…
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… Inked it in Paint Tool Sai using its amazingly intuitive “curve” tool…
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… Shrank down the ink lines to half size, and then traced over them in Aseprite.
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The last dozen sprites I made had quick solid outlines and cel shading. But I’m getting bored with those lazy shortcuts. I miss my anti-aliasing. So instead let’s crank this sucker to 11!! I colored and shaded this one in Photoshop. Then I assigned a gradient map for each color, posterized each color area, and manually adjusted the shading until it was juuuust right. No dithering this time, just crystal clear details. I also brightened parts of the outline to give it that “painterly” look. Some people prefer crunchy 8-bit pixel-art, but my nostalgic heart longs for the days when they pushed the limits.
