Petalwick — sprite quality progress

Dragon weapons (work in progress): Emberfang, Wyrmstring, Pyre Staff

Three fire weapons with 7 skills, all working in game. Emberfang (sword): a flaming combo; Searing Stab (a fire lance through a lane); Dragon Rush (dash through enemies, drag them along, leap and slam down in a blast of fire). Wyrmstring (bow): burning arrows; Twin Fang (two arrows at once); Ember Rain (volleys of fire arrows plunge onto a target area). Pyre Staff: firebolts; Dragon's Breath (a cone of flame); Meteor (a burning rock falls on the aimed spot); Blink (teleport, with an explosion where you land). Work in progress: the effects are still being tuned, and only the shots that already read well are shown here. Still to come: Ember Rain and Twin Fang shots, and the hotbar, where icons go almost black during cooldown.

Ignareth, the Ash King (mon-dragon): the Dragon's Nest boss

The dragon is too big to show whole, so he's a puppet of separate painted sheets laid out in the ravine: a horned head glaring down at the ledge, a neck chain, armoured chest and shoulders with folded wings, forearms, and two hands gripping the ledge. Each claw is its own target and crumbles apart when broken. Painted in code like the other monsters (ash-black and oxblood scales, molten seams), but at 16 px per unit instead of 24, so he reads as chunkier and enormous.

Switched to your Time Elements packs: clothing vs equipment, armour replaces clothes, skills from gear

Characters are now built from the three Time Elements packs (core plus two expansions; about 1,000 layered sheets in 4 directions). Equipment: weapons (swords, axes, greataxes, hammer, paired daggers, spear, bow, flintlocks, wands, pickaxe), shields, body armour (plate, brigandine, fur mantles), plate greaves, helmets, crowns and backpacks. Everything else is in the character creator: faces (including fox, wolf and lizard folk), hair and long hair, beards and animal ears, tails and wings, skin tones, and everyday tops, bottoms and hats in their own colour variants. Armour replaces the clothing on its layer instead of being drawn over it. Skills now come from what you have equipped: each weapon type has its own basic combo and grants 1–3 skills, a shield grants Shield Bash, and plate, leather and hide armour each grant one more. The hotbar (keys 1–5) rebuilds when you change gear, and the server rejects anything your gear doesn't grant. Bows fire the pack's arrow sprite. The old hand-built sprite painter, judge loop and paperdoll tools are archived.

Back view fixed: near and far were backwards

You were right: the first back view didn't make sense. I had mirrored the front, but turning someone around also swaps which side is near the camera, and in this camera the near leg reaches lower on screen. The mirror left the foreground leg short and the background leg long, and the blade pointed down-right, i.e. back toward the camera. Fixed by reasoning from depth instead of mirroring. Legs: the near leg in front (screen-right, long) is still the near leg from behind, so your front legs are used as they are, shifted 2 px under the hem; the far boot is turned to point the way she faces and tucks behind the near leg. Sword: from the front the blade drops 12 px over 10 px of reach, roughly half 'down' and half 'toward the camera'. From behind, 'forward' points away, which cancels most of the drop, so the blade now points right (forward) and only slightly down from the near hand, foreshortened, with the guard upright. The back-view canvas is 8 px wider on the right to fit it, with the same origin.

Back view derived from your paperdoll's pixels

Built from the layer data, not redrawn: the front (facing down-left) is mirrored to face up-right, so the sword stays in the same hand, now on the near side. The hair depth is swapped, so your back-hair mass covers the head and falls over the shoulders, and the face-framing locks go behind the body. Front-only details are replaced with the back of the same garment in your colours: the blouse loses the bust shading, neckline and lacing (a plain back panel lit from the upper left, with a cast shadow from the hair, a faint spine crease and the far side in shade); the belt runs on without the buckle; the tunic is one continuous back panel with two folds and a hem, since the slit and shorts only show at the front; and both boots point the way she faces, heels toward us. Reproducible with tools/paperdoll/derive_back.py.

Paperdoll base — palette cleanup, sword hilt, proper front/back hair

Your picks from the round-9 fixes. (1) Palette: 74 → 33 colours in one shared palette. Each near-duplicate merges into the more-used colour, so the dominant colours stay exactly yours; the blush, catchlights, iris and buckle are protected. On average pixels moved only a barely visible amount vs your original (mean ΔE 3.1; the only bigger changes are 11 stray dark pixels inside the hair that were smoothed). (2) Sword: a brass crossguard perpendicular to the blade just below the fist, as thick as the blade, in the buckle's colours, and the blunt tip tapered to a point. There's no pommel, because on this pose it would sit hidden between the fist and the hip. (3) Hair redone the way you described: a FRONT piece (crown, bangs and the face-framing locks over the shoulders) and a BACK piece (everything behind the head), with no separate crown cut. The front view is pixel-identical across the split. All of it is reproducible from your original file with tools/paperdoll/*.py.

Judge round 9 — baseline of your paperdoll base

Three blind judges scored your base as it stands: A 4.0, B 4.5, C 3.9. All three labelled it amateur at confidence 4, so it scores about the same as our hand-built round 8 (3.9). Their fixes split into objective cleanup and style choices that are yours to make. The off-centre ground shadow they all flagged was a bug in my export tool, now fixed.

• Palette (all 3): 70 colours with ~10 near-identical outline darks and duplicate skin tones; the references use 21–34. This is image-generation jitter that my cleanup preserved for fidelity.
• Hair (all 3): isolated highlight and dark pixels speckle the mass instead of forming locks; stray pixels on the forehead.
• Sword (all 3): no crossguard or pommel, the blade runs straight out of the fist, and the tip is a blunt 3-px cap.
• Shading (all 3): the skin is nearly flat (no shadow under the fringe or down the far cheek), and the limbs are shaded on both edges (pillow shading) instead of one side.
• Outlines (all 3): the same near-black inside the figure (collar, belt, shirt); the references use darker shades of each material.
• Pose (all 3): the near foot floats 5 px above the far foot; the torso stays square-on while the head turns 3/4.
• Style calls the judges disagree with you on: big-head/slim-body proportions, large eyes, linen almost the same value as the skin.

Blind-sheet answer key: #4 yours · the rest references

New base: your paperdoll

From now on everything derives from your layered paperdoll (48×74: back hair, sword, body, linen outfit with boots, front hair), not from hand-built pieces. Cleanup: the source has about 1,200 slightly jittered colours. Each layer is now reduced to the smallest palette whose worst pixel stays within a barely visible difference of the source (68 colours in total). My first pass merged the pink blush into the peach skin shadow. You caught it, and the blush is now protected as its own material, with both of its tones restored. Hair: the front-hair layer held the whole hairstyle and the back-hair layer was 95% hidden. It's now split into back hair (behind the body), crown (hidden by helmets) and front hair (fringe and face-framing locks), and the front view is pixel-identical to your original. Your base has gone to the three-judge panel as a baseline (round 9).

Judge round 8 — iteration 6, first round against the clean references

Panel average of three blind judges: A 4.0, B 4.0, C 3.75. This is the first round judged against the clean references, which look much sharper and more detailed than the old degraded copies, so it isn't comparable to rounds 1–7. All three spotted our tiles at full confidence, and they agreed with each other more closely than ever. I checked two of their claims myself and both hold: the run and attack frames reuse 88–94% of the idle head pixels, and the tunic's mid-tone (#beac8a) is almost the judging background's tan (#b9a68e).

• Hair reads as a striped helmet: evenly spaced 1-px vertical lines, a smooth box contour, and a ruler-straight fringe line (row 15).
• Eyes are 3-px tall and read half-lidded or scowling because brow pixels sit on the lash; the references' eyes are about 4×5 with an upper catchlight.
• Doubled 2-px outline down the right of the head, a dark slab beside the neck, and a 2-px crack down the back of the head.
• Tunic blends into the tan ground; its shadows are scattered 1–2 px fragments, not folds; the hem is dead straight; there's no accent colour or costume detail (pouch, strap, collar).
• Only one leg reads in idle, back and run (the sword hides the far leg); the run arms don't swing.
• Sword: wide banded staircase with no clear crossguard; the attack arc is a thin, even line that doesn't connect to the blade, and the attack head is unchanged from idle.

Blind-sheet answer key: #6, #7 ours · the rest references

Base character — review fixes, sent to round 8

The four review fixes: the mouth is now a soft 2-px closed line (no dot or pucker), the calm lids no longer form a V with the fringe, the back-view ear is tucked inside the hair as a 2×2 patch, and the crack-like crown strokes and the crown antenna are gone. Colours: 26–32 per sprite. Sent to the three-judge panel (round 8), the first round judged against the clean references.

Base character — round-7 fixes

All ten round-7 fixes are in. Hair: 3–4 large locks with one highlight band that follows the skull, varied fringe tips and a shadow under the fringe. Eyes: two separate lids, a narrower far eye and a ramped iris. Tunic: sleeves sewn into the shoulders, a crescent shadow, folds, hem lip, neckline and cuffs, with violet-grey shadows. Outlines are lighter on the lit edges (near-black edge pixels down from 82% to 54%). Trousers are warm brown-grey so the sword reads against them, and the boots have a cuff, toe cap and sole. A 3-tone blade with crossguard and pommel at the fist in every frame, including the back view and attack. A leather ponytail tie and a split tail tip. Real lean, bob and swing in the run and attack frames. Colours down from 38 to 31. My review found four things to fix before judging: a dot mouth that reads as a pucker, lids that read as a scowl, a back-view ear that sticks out like a growth, and a few crack-like strokes on the crown. Sent back.

Reference sprites rebuilt — the judges were comparing against a degraded copy

You spotted that the references looked artifacty. The judge references had been cut from the 700×600 upload, which is a lossy downscale of the sheet, and the speckle was being read as 'detail'. They're now rebuilt from the clean 2070×1132 upload by recovering the true pixel grid (a 6.354× non-integer upscale). That gives 17 crisp native sprites with 21–34 colours each. The hooded-rogue sheet is an 8× upscale but had been shrunk only 4×, so those references were twice their real size; they're fixed too. Round 7 was scored against the old references.

• Single most-used colour: clean references 10–21%, ours 19%, so we're in range. Judge C's '4–6%' target came from the noise.
• Pixel texture: clean references 11–19%, ours 9–15%, close.
• Colours per sprite: clean references 21–34, ours 32–40, so the professionals use FEWER colours than we do.
• Outline darkness: clean references 15–72% near-black edge pixels, ours 66–77%, at the high end.
• The artist has been told to drop the noise-derived targets and focus on structure: hair locks, eyes, tunic form, boots, sword grip, motion.

Judge round 7 — iteration 5 (first 3-judge panel)

Panel average of three independent blind judges: A 5.4, B 5.4, C 4.5. All three spotted our two tiles at full confidence and labelled them amateur. The poses, the 3/4 back angle and the down-forward sword were not criticised; the judges agree on the remaining gaps below.

• Hair is one flat mid-tone slab (≈19% of all pixels in one colour vs 4–6% in the references): needs 4–6 curved locks with strand lines, a highlight band following the skull, and varied fringe points crossing the brow.
• Eyes: one continuous 12-px lash bar across both eyes reads as a scowl; split per eye with tapered outer flicks, far eye 2 px narrower for the 3/4 turn.
• Tunic is split into a light half and a dark half with square pauldron-like shoulders; needs rounded sleeves, wrap-around shadow, fold creases, a hem lip, and hue-shifted shadows.
• Outline is uniformly near-black; use selective, coloured outlines on lit edges (hair top, lit shoulder).
• Near-black trousers merge with the sword; boots are square stubs with no toe direction, cuff or sole.
• Blade is 2–3 px in front idle but a 1-px needle in back and attack frames; the crossguard and grip are hidden by a skin blob.
• Run and attack frames reuse the idle head/torso: no bob, lean, or ponytail swing; the ponytail tie reads as a white blotch.

Blind-sheet answer key: #4, #5 ours · the rest references

Base character — sword back to down-forward

Front idle/run sword now points down and forward across the legs (≈34°), ~15 px blade drawn bold: bright top edge, mid body, dark underside, full dark outline, crossguard, grip and pommel, tip glint. The fist moved slightly forward so both boots and the gap between the legs stay readable. Back view unchanged. Sent to the new three-judge panel (round 7).

Base character — round-6 fixes

Hair rebuilt as real locks (no comb striping, see the 12× crop); warm linen ramp with a continuous dark outline, V-neck, chest shadow and flared skirt creases; arms with cuffs, forearms and outlined fists; muted iris, lash flicks; torso turned to match the head; run stride with lean; a1 arm reaches the arc; back view spine/shoulder-blade shading. My review: the idle sword now points backward (down and left) as a thin needle — contrary to your 'down and forward' preference — so I've sent it back to point forward across the legs, bold, before the next judge round.

Judge round 6 — round-5 fixes

Lower than round 5 despite the fixes — single judges are noisy, and this one penalised the deliberate 3/4 face placement. From round 7 on, three independent judges score each round and their scores are averaged; the instructions now state the 3/4 design intent. Its concrete findings are still valid.

• Legs still read as one navy block and the blade crosses the trousers like a scratch.
• Arms are skin columns fused to the torso with no cuff, forearm or real fist.
• Tunic: lit-side outline dissolves into the background; linen ramp reads green-grey; flat bands instead of folds.
• Hair still reads as 1-px comb stripes; eyes end in a glowing lime row.
• Run torso identical to idle; a1 smear floats with no arm reaching to it; back-view sleeve juts out as a block.

Blind-sheet answer key: #2, #5 ours · the rest references

Base character — round-5 fixes

Ponytail cut to a 6–7 px lock in three tapered strands; legs separated with a gap below the knee and 4-row boots; real run stride; sword redrawn with a dark edge, crossguard, grip and pommel; separate lash strokes and 3-px eyes with catchlights; clumped bangs with shadow wedges; tapered a1 crescent with the body leaning in; tunic collar, pouch and fold; palette cut from 55 to 38 colours; back-view ear and neck cleaned up. My concern: the idle sword was shortened (foreshortened toward the camera) and now reads a bit like a dagger.

Judge round 5 — base character with fixed back view

Best score so far, but both colourways still picked out at confidence 5. (The off-centre ground shadow it flagged was my export bug — fixed.)

• Ponytail is a 19×25 lobe; head + hair spans 40 px over an 18-px torso, so it reads as a second head at 1×.
• Legs are one navy rectangle; run frame has no stride.
• Sword reads as a 'glow stick': gradient with no outline or crossguard, crossing both legs.
• Eyes: one unbroken dark bar reads as a visor; hair is flat brown with 1-px stripes; tunic has noise pixels and no structure; a1 slash is a stiff column.

Blind-sheet answer key: #2, #3 ours · the rest references

Base character — back 3/4 fixed, round-4 fixes

Back view rebuilt to match the pose guide (right side near on screen-right, spine left of centre, left arm hidden, overlapping legs, ponytail left of centre, sword in the right hand at the flank). Sword moved to the right hand in both views. Round-4 fixes: legs show with separate boots, 3-lock ponytail, smaller eyes, fringe shadow, warm hair ramp, tunic fold and curved hem, longer forearms, full-body a1 lunge with a tapered smear, run bob. I checked the 6× creator view myself before sending it to the judge.

Back view: ground-truth pose guide

Your back-view screenshot showed a square, straight-on back with only the head turned. Part of the cause was my checklist stating the shoulder/spine sides backwards. I built a 3D mannequin rendered with a top-down JRPG camera as an objective reference for front 3/4, back 3/4 (the target) and straight back (wrong), rewrote the back-view checklist items to match it, and the artist must now match the guide's back 3/4 silhouette and show a side-by-side as proof.

Judge round 4 — base character

Both colourways picked out at confidence 5. (Our export lacked the ground shadow every reference has — fixed for later rounds.)

• Legs show only 2 rows and the boots merge into one lump — reads as a head on a sack.
• Ponytail is a rigid block bigger than the torso; eyes are white-and-lime sticker blocks.
• Hair highlights are dusty pink-grey stripes; face nearly one flat tone; tunic has pinstripe folds and a ruler-straight hem.
• Attack and run move only the arms or legs; back-view sword passes through the body.

Blind-sheet answer key: #2, #5 ours · the rest references

Base character, first QA-passing version

Head and body drawn together (no floating head), genuine back 3/4 facing up-right, limbs as separate hand-drawn pieces, sword gripped in a fist and angled down, run holds the same guard, shoulder-rest stance works. Structurally sound, but well below the references in craft.

Process reset after your review

You reviewed the preview and called it deformed (floating head, straight-up back view, weapons out of hands, weapon pointing up). Changes: one artist now owns the whole character; scope cut to a single base character (feminine, linen tunic, one sword, one hairstyle) built from separate hand-drawn limb pieces; a 22-item QA checklist that must pass on inspected pixels before anything reaches the judge or you.

Judge round 3 — true 3/4 bodies and heads

The 3/4 turn now registered, but all 9 of ours were still picked out. Head only ~43% of height vs ~55% in the references; pillar legs; banded armour; same sword hold on everyone.

• Head-to-body ratio too low; pillar legs and flat feet.
• Hair still a helmet slab with straight strand columns; a stray pixel reading as a mole; off-centre mouth.
• Banded diagonal armour shading; noisy midriff skin; one silhouette template for all classes.
• Outlines all navy/near-black; attack arc detached from the blade.

Blind-sheet answer key: #1,2,7,8,10,12,13,15,16 ours · the rest references

Judge round 2 — 3/4 turn attempt

All 9 of ours picked out at confidence 5. The '3/4 turn' had only moved a pixel or two: still a symmetric front-facing figure, legs in a V, sword floating to the side.

• Base pose must be a true ~35° turn: near half of the chest ~2/3 of its width, far arm tucked, overlapping legs.
• Head is a near-rectangular block; hair has ruler-straight fringe edges.
• Attack frame is still the idle body; run frame legs merge into a blob.

Blind-sheet answer key: #1,2,4,5,6,8,10,11,12 ours · the rest references

Judge round 1 — three pilot costumes

All 9 of our tiles were picked out as AMATEUR (confidence 4). The references were still resampled/blurry, which partly gave the answer away; they were cleaned to crisp palettes afterwards.

• Every character is square to the camera with the sword hanging from the hip like a cane.
• Attack frame: the blade stays in its idle place while the slash arc floats over the hair. Run: only the legs move.
• Back views keep the sword on the same side and repeat the knight's front emblem; the hood becomes a pod with a black slab.
• Flat dark shading bands, 86–98% near-black outlines, one shared face with a boxy jaw, tube limbs.

Blind-sheet answer key: #1–7 ours · #8–10 ref · #11 ours · #12–15 ref · #16 ours · #17–18 ref