Review a sprite before calling it done

"Done" is a claim. This is how you earn it.

Procedure

0. Cold read

Before you look at the brief again: look op="preview", and write one sentence on what the picture shows to someone who was never told, plus the three things the eye lands on first. If that sentence does not name the subject, or misses a part the brief makes central, the sprite fails review whatever validate says. Squint at the same preview for value: the subject's lit side should be among the lightest values and its core shadow among the darkest; everything in the bottom third reads as murk.

1. Mechanical checks

validate

Reports off-palette colours, semi-transparent pixels, isolated stray pixels, untagged animation frames, uniform timing and unsaved state — each with a location where one exists.

Fix every error. For each warning you do not fix, have a reason and say it.

For animation, tell validate what the cycle is supposed to be, and it checks that instead of only the generic rules:

validate expect={ layerFrames: { "sword-fx": [[3,4]] }, mustNotOverlap: [["sword","head"]] }

layerFrames flags a layer that is empty inside its frame range or has pixels outside it (a slash effect leaking into the idle); mustNotOverlap flags any frame where two layers' pixels collide (the blade crossing the face).

2. Look at it

look op="preview"

Work down rules://07-review-checklist:

• Silhouette — recognisable as one flat shape?
• Value contrast — would it survive desaturation?
• Light — one direction, everywhere?
• Ramps — do shadows hue-shift, or are they just darker?
• Lines — even runs, no doubled pixels?
• Outline — one style, applied consistently?
• Banding — long parallel stripes of adjacent ramp steps?
• Detail placement — spent on the face and weapon, not the boots?

If the sprite was drawn from a reference (reference op="list" is not empty), look op="compare" on each key frame too. A mismatch the PixelSpec lists as a deviation is a decision; any other large one — a limb in a different place, a silhouette that lost its defining shape — is a finding.

3. Look closely at anything that felt off

look op="ascii"

This is where you find the pixel one row too low and the line run of 3 in a sequence of 2s. If step 2 left you with "something is wrong but I cannot say what", this is the step that names it.

4. For animation

look op="filmstrip"

Volume consistent? Height consistent? Does it loop? Do contact poses hold longer? Is there anticipation before strong actions?

Then check the in-betweens one at a time against their neighbours:

look op="onion" frame=3

Ghosts of frames 2 and 4 under frame 3 show whether the spacing eases or jumps, and whether a limb changed length on the way — both invisible in a filmstrip.

5. Report

State what you checked, what you found, and what you chose not to change:

Validated clean. Silhouette reads at 1×; value contrast holds desaturated. Two compromises: the plume colour snapped from #e04a6a to #ff77a8 (ΔE 14) because PICO-8 has nothing closer, and the far arm is 2px thick rather than 3 to keep the silhouette from fusing with the torso.

A user can act on a stated compromise. They cannot act on one you hid.

When the user asks "why does this look off"

Run the same checks, then name the specific cause rather than listing possibilities. The usual answers, in order of frequency: too many colours, flat shading, semi-transparent pixels, mushy silhouette, uniform animation timing.

Related

rules://07-review-checklist, and every other rule it points at; rules://92-generated-art-tells; and the Review section of the subject file for what was drawn (skill://studio, Subject rules).