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Description
  So after spriting in the Bowser's Inside Story style for 3+ years, I've started to notice a few things.

1. My sprites were pretty awful.
2. Even if they weren't too bad, they looked nothing like the Bowser's Inside Story style (take King Kaliente or Trunkle for example).

  Having taken that into account, I decided to study a few sprites from the actual game in closer detail. I've come to a few conclusions.

1. Mo' colors, mo' problems. It's not necessary to have 4-5 different colors to shade a 20x20 section. More than likely, the audience won't even notice more than about 2 colors anyway. Rule of thumb, use one light color, one dark color, and use one in between color sparingly. For larger areas, 4 colors is also okay.
2. Less is more. Cliché, yes, but still true nonetheless. Feel free to leave large spots of one shade of color in some areas. In fact, that's how it is in game. Take the beak for example. Instead of pillow-shading to make the beak look more rounded, I left a large portion of it just yellow and flat looking. Also, don't just throw in pixels of shading in random spots for the hell of it. That was my biggest issue. Put in shading where it makes sense, or just leave it as is. It may not sound like the biggest deal, but it just looks silly and everything kind of blends together.
3. Feel free to make changes. This one should be obvious, but it's worth a mention. The first outline you make on a sprite doesn't have to be perfect (it is called a ROUGH draft).

  I'm always learning and improving my spriting skills, so don't feel like you have to follow these rules 100%. Just do what feels nice. Now, onto the sprite itself.
  Not much to say about this one. I'm not quite sure what it even is, but hey, it was fun to make. I'm particularly proud of the head. I like how it turned out, even though it was the most difficult part to sprite. The feet are meh, whatever. And I didn't put spikes on the shell because I'm lazy, sue me. Overall, I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. I wish there was a way to make the neck not have to be perfectly straight, but any other position make it look weird and deformed. Oh well.

Description
  So after spriting in the Bowser's Inside Story style for 3+ years, I've started to notice a few things.

1. My sprites were pretty awful.
2. Even if they weren't too bad, they looked nothing like the Bowser's Inside Story style (take King Kaliente or Trunkle for example).

  Having taken that into account, I decided to study a few sprites from the actual game in closer detail. I've come to a few conclusions.

1. Mo' colors, mo' problems. It's not necessary to have 4-5 different colors to shade a 20x20 section. More than likely, the audience won't even notice more than about 2 colors anyway. Rule of thumb, use one light color, one dark color, and use one in between color sparingly. For larger areas, 4 colors is also okay.
2. Less is more. Cliché, yes, but still true nonetheless. Feel free to leave large spots of one shade of color in some areas. In fact, that's how it is in game. Take the beak for example. Instead of pillow-shading to make the beak look more rounded, I left a large portion of it just yellow and flat looking. Also, don't just throw in pixels of shading in random spots for the hell of it. That was my biggest issue. Put in shading where it makes sense, or just leave it as is. It may not sound like the biggest deal, but it just looks silly and everything kind of blends together.
3. Feel free to make changes. This one should be obvious, but it's worth a mention. The first outline you make on a sprite doesn't have to be perfect (it is called a ROUGH draft).

  I'm always learning and improving my spriting skills, so don't feel like you have to follow these rules 100%. Just do what feels nice. Now, onto the sprite itself.
  Not much to say about this one. I'm not quite sure what it even is, but hey, it was fun to make. I'm particularly proud of the head. I like how it turned out, even though it was the most difficult part to sprite. The feet are meh, whatever. And I didn't put spikes on the shell because I'm lazy, sue me. Overall, I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. I wish there was a way to make the neck not have to be perfectly straight, but any other position make it look weird and deformed. Oh well.