World's biggest...
Skeletron
Very late reply but I wanted to give some pointers regarding palettes... wall of text INCOMINGthank you for the nice comments!
also it's ok if you think the color palette is bad, but i'm a really big fan of light blue, which is why i used it, and the purple i personally think it goes good with the blue.
also i was just wondering, am i allowed to use parts of the sprites you guys make? i don't want to use the whole thing, but parts of it, so i can get a better understanding of how to make the shading good, as that's really the only thing i'm not 100% good with
and does anyone have good color palette suggestions? i'm not really to good with coming up with color palettes soo...
Use hue shifting (look at the top of this page where I have some palttes. They aren't perfect examples so maybe have a look around). Hue shifting just looks better than a non-hueshifted sprite. IDK why because I know nothing about colour theory. If you are unsure how to do hueshifting then look up a tutorial, will save your life. If you still dont know then looking at examples and copying them (for the sake of learning ofc) may help.
For two tone palettes use colours that complement each other well. Often this will be colours than are seperated by only a few steps. For example red and yellow look good togetherbecause:
RED --> ORANGE --> YELLOW
On the other hand red and green will look like together because they are on opposite ends of the spectrum. Unless the sprite is done very well. A few pages back on this thread someone (Giga iirc) made a gun with a green and orange palette that still looks pretty good. That light blue-and-purple sword you have might look better with a darker blue but IDRK.
Know when to have higher/lower contrast. Basically contrast refers to the differenxe between the brightest coloir on the palette and the other colours. Brighter highlights make things look shiny because more light is beimg reflected. Less bright highlights are good for (very) flat shapes or non-shiny materials like plastic and cloth. Adding bright highlights and dark shadows onto a blade makes it look sharper.
Generally, colours with lower saturation look a bit more professional. But only slightly less (very slightly) otherwise the sprite may end up looking foggy and unclear. Probably you shouldn't give this tip much thought and maybe I shouldn't have typed it. Aaarhhh just ignore
Don't use greyscale except for drafts. This includes black and white too. Black outlines usually make it look like less effort was put into the palette. Its the same with white highlights. Instead of these colours use very desaturated versions of the sprite's main colour/s.
I hope I helped also I hope that some experienced spriter isn't gonna come alomg and say something like, "What? No." and proceed to put my advice to shame.