Latias' Wrath

Latias' Wrath: Custom Trainer Spriting Tutorial

This tutorial should show you how to make an original Pokemon Trainer (mostly) from scratch. Bear in mind that I'm technically a beginner at this, so there may be easier or more effective ways of doing this. I advise you to experiment with the general ideas. :P
I'm going to be making the female Crystal hero in the Diamond/Pearl style.

1/ Get some sprites from the game whose style you're trying to emulate. This not only helps you later on when colouring, it's going to be somewhat vital right now. I suggest Spriters Resource because it is excellent.
2/ Decide on your Trainer's pose. Think especially about what angle the head is at. This isn't necessary if you want to do a full custom. As I'm going to revamp Kris, I found my original Crystal booklet and worked off her official art as well as her sprite.

3/ Find a sprite from the sheet who has the head angle you want. Copy it into a separate file. If you want to do a full custom, don't worry about the head angle - just get a sprite.

Here's what we've got so far.
4/ In the new file, mark the major joints in any colour you want. I usually only end up marking on where the crotch and knees are and where the Trainer's feet touch the ground, but if you think it would be helpful to mark the shoulders and elbows, go ahead. I recommend drawing a line straight across whatever you're marking, making sure it extends sufficiently to be incredibly visible - like so:

5/ Start rubbing out. The blank space looks a little daunting at this point, but don't worry. We now have all the joints marked on, so there's no way you can deviate THAT much from sanity the proportions already laid out. I always seem to start with the legs first for absolutely no reason. Make sure you leave the joint markings - it doesn't matter if you leave a few stray pixels from the original at this point because we can get rid of them later.

6/ Redraw whatever you rubbed out in your desired pose. It doesn't matter if this outline is extremely messy because we'll be going over it later. Get something that vaguely resembles whatever you're redrawing and you're done with this step.

7/ I've rubbed out Diamond's arms and the long part of her hair here so as not to make things more confusing than they already are. We're going to be using her torso for a little longer, as it happens to be facing the right way.
8/ Redraw the rest. In the screenshot, I've gone a step further and roughly outlined where the top of Diamond's head ought to be. You can do this later if necessary.
9/ --IF YOUR CHARACTER HAS NO EXPOSED SKIN WHATSOEVER (INCLUDING THEIR HANDS) APART FROM ON THEIR FACE, SKIP TO STEP .--
Here's where observing the sprites comes in. In Diamond/Pearl, exposed skin tends to be outlined in this particular colour rather than black:

Sample a bit with the Eyedropper tool or equivalent, then go over your outline whilst avoiding scribbly bits you don't want on the sprite.
10/ Continue outlining the arms. Remember to zoom out once in a while to check that your sprite still looks okay at 100% magnification.
11/ We've got the outline for the arms; now for the hair. (If you didn't find out where the top of your base sprite's head was previously, do so now.) Draw a sketchy outline of the character's fringe, if they have one, and erase the unwanted lines afterwards. Your sprite most likely looks incredibly bad at this point, but don't worry. I recommend colouring the hair in very simply now with the Fill tool.

12/ Remember the skin outline colour? Each item of clothing on your sprite will have at least one outline colour. Kris wears a white jacket, so let's find an existing sprite whose colours we can use.

Aha! Bertha! Let's steal her colours. Now outline the item of clothing.

Remember: if the clothing's not skin-tight, there are going to be some differences between the body outline and that of the clothing.

Disclaimer: Pokemon is copyright Nintendo, but fan art/fiction is either copyright ME or its respective owner. Please do not steal any artwork from Latias' Wrath.