Adapted and expanded from Zarel's initial guidelines and Kalalokki's Team Tour Avatars guide; by Irpachuza and sharpclaw. Edited and GPed by deetah.
Custom avatars are awarded to various contributors across the site, including but not limited to PS! global staff, Smogon badgeholders, coders, and spriters at the discretion of PS! upper staff. They are also sometimes given out as rewards for major events or tournaments such as PSPL (Pokemon Showdown Premier League). If you're curious, you can view the entire list of custom avatars and keep up with new uploads.
Anyone can create a custom avatar (if you’re looking to commission an artist, a great place to start is checking out Smeargle's Laptop!), but CAs must follow certain style and quality guidelines. This guide is meant to outline those guidelines, which have been established by PS! upper staff and the Smeargle's Laptop team. To ensure baseline quality for all CAs, every request will pass through a QC team charged with reviewing the sprite and recommending any necessary changes or improvements.
What exactly are the avatar requirements?
On the technical side: every CA must be an 80x80 PNG with a transparent background.
In terms of content: your CA must be more than "just" a Pokemon, though the addition(s) are largely at your discretion. The most typical approach is to pair a Pokemon with a trainer or other humanlike figure, but your addition(s) can also be other elements, such as clothes or accessories on the Pokemon. Overly prominent background effects are discouraged, and while not expressly forbidden, overly graphic, inappropriate, or violent elements will be subject to rejection. Use common sense.
When it comes to style: the sprite should match the pixel art style of official sprites from the Pokemon games. Most users opt to match the Gen V style, but you’re free to use an older generation’s style as long as the entire sprite is stylistically consistent and cohesive.
What does "matches pixel art style" mean?
The Basics
Here are two examples of official pixel art from the Pokemon games:
That's the Cynthia sprite from Gen IV, and the Brycen sprite from Gen V. Let’s take a closer look:
The Pokemon style is typified by:
Sprites almost always face slightly to the left, and their gaze is directed out and towards the bottom left (to face the “player”). Finally (and a bit obviously, but worth mentioning), no details of the sprite are cut off by the 80x80 canvas.
Color Count and Shadowing
Since Gen III, the official pixel art style has followed a clear pattern wherein each color used in a sprite has no more than 4 shades: the base shade, a darker shade for shadowing, a lighter shade for illuminated areas, and a very dark shade for the outlines of the base and darker parts. Black serves as a catch-all outline color for areas of a sprite that are in deeper shadow, or to further delineate an element from something behind it. Adding too many shades of one color will likely deviate your avatar from the Pokemon style, while relying too heavily on the base color may make your avatar look too flat. (Side note: this Cynthia sprite demonstrates how a “black” outfit doesn’t actually rely on pure black, and is a good reference point for how dark something "black" in a sprite should be.)
Here's Bryce with too many shades of each color, and with not enough:
Shadowing also needs to come from a single directional light rather than multiple light sources. Here are the light sources for Cynthia and Bryce:
While we don't enforce strict color limits, almost every official sprite has 16 total colors per character, so we recommend you be conservative with color and reuse shades if possible (see, for example, Brycen's shoes and hair). There are stricter color limitations for sprites made in a Gen I or Gen II style (often only 4 total colors per character, including black and white).
Here are some examples of “pillow” shadowing, where there are two light sources (left), and a lack of proper shadowing (right).
Outlining
Outlines are key for making avatars match the Pokemon style. Outlines must be 1 pixel thick, and either black or a darker tone of the color that the outline is, well, outlining. Each generation has its own nuances of outline style, so we highly recommend looking closely at existing sprites to find patterns that work with your avatar. The only hard “no” for Pokemon-style outlining is to avoid fully black outlines.
Here’s Brycen again, with a fully black outline, to demonstrate the issue:
While the black outline technically does work as a general pixel art concept, it’s simply too dark for what you'd expect to see on an official Pokemon trainer sprite.
Another major callout is to avoid corners in your outline:
As we can see on the left, an outline with corners produces a jagged effect (and breaks the "1 pixel thick rule"). The right image shows how the original sprite achieves a smoother outline, without corners.
Anti-aliasing
“Anti-aliasing” is the process of smoothing the edges of an image by averaging the colors of the pixels at the boundary. Anti-aliasing often occurs when images are resized—as demonstrated in the image on the right. It often also introduces partially-transparent pixels, which do not exist in the official Pokemon style of any generation. Avoid these errors.
If you do resize an image as part of your art (for example, many larger Pokemon sprites are 96x96 pixels, requiring some finagling to fit them into an 80x80 canvas), make sure to clean up the sprite afterwards. Other strategies for resizing include cutting and reducing some parts of a Pokemon (e.g. large wings or a long tail) or resizing a sprite and then fully drawing a new version over it on another layer. Also, keep in mind that another artist may have already resized the Pokemon in question! Feel free to ask around, but always make sure to get permission before you use or edit another artist’s work.
Composition
While you’re free to play around with the overall composition of your CA, there are a couple of red flags the QC team will always ask you to fix:
1. Your trainer should be looking/facing to the left. Remember that the main role of your CA is to face your opponent in battle.
2. The characters in your CA should be viewed at a 3/4 angle (to get technical for a moment, we’re looking for 1-point perspective, or at least isometric perspective since, at the scale of 80x80 pixels, they’re difficult to distinguish). The characters should not be fully front-facing, nor be seen in strict profile.
3. Your character should match the proportions of the official sprites. Avoid arms or legs that are too thin or too straight, pay careful attention to hands and feet, and make sure that the character’s head is appropriately sized and that the elements of the facial expression are properly distributed (a good rule of thumb: 4 pixels between the eyes). Watch out for arrangements of limbs that put the body in a peculiarly contorted or “illegible” position.
Useful Resources
For an even more step-by-step handbook for drawing sprites in the Pokemon style, check out The Cave of Dragonflies guide, which includes outlining, shadowing, redrawing, and more! Its tips and tricks have helped many artists in the past and will surely help you improve your spriting (and avoid running afoul of the QC team) as well.
Here’s a more general tutorial on pixel art, with more in-depth explanations and helpful terms to learn.
And of course, if you have any questions, feel free to contact any member of the QC team. Happy spriting!
Custom avatars are awarded to various contributors across the site, including but not limited to PS! global staff, Smogon badgeholders, coders, and spriters at the discretion of PS! upper staff. They are also sometimes given out as rewards for major events or tournaments such as PSPL (Pokemon Showdown Premier League). If you're curious, you can view the entire list of custom avatars and keep up with new uploads.
Anyone can create a custom avatar (if you’re looking to commission an artist, a great place to start is checking out Smeargle's Laptop!), but CAs must follow certain style and quality guidelines. This guide is meant to outline those guidelines, which have been established by PS! upper staff and the Smeargle's Laptop team. To ensure baseline quality for all CAs, every request will pass through a QC team charged with reviewing the sprite and recommending any necessary changes or improvements.
What exactly are the avatar requirements?
On the technical side: every CA must be an 80x80 PNG with a transparent background.
In terms of content: your CA must be more than "just" a Pokemon, though the addition(s) are largely at your discretion. The most typical approach is to pair a Pokemon with a trainer or other humanlike figure, but your addition(s) can also be other elements, such as clothes or accessories on the Pokemon. Overly prominent background effects are discouraged, and while not expressly forbidden, overly graphic, inappropriate, or violent elements will be subject to rejection. Use common sense.
When it comes to style: the sprite should match the pixel art style of official sprites from the Pokemon games. Most users opt to match the Gen V style, but you’re free to use an older generation’s style as long as the entire sprite is stylistically consistent and cohesive.
What does "matches pixel art style" mean?
The Basics
Here are two examples of official pixel art from the Pokemon games:
That's the Cynthia sprite from Gen IV, and the Brycen sprite from Gen V. Let’s take a closer look:
The Pokemon style is typified by:
- Low color count
- Shading/shadowing from a single top-left directional light
- Outlines that are a single pixel thick
- No anti-aliasing
Sprites almost always face slightly to the left, and their gaze is directed out and towards the bottom left (to face the “player”). Finally (and a bit obviously, but worth mentioning), no details of the sprite are cut off by the 80x80 canvas.
Color Count and Shadowing
Since Gen III, the official pixel art style has followed a clear pattern wherein each color used in a sprite has no more than 4 shades: the base shade, a darker shade for shadowing, a lighter shade for illuminated areas, and a very dark shade for the outlines of the base and darker parts. Black serves as a catch-all outline color for areas of a sprite that are in deeper shadow, or to further delineate an element from something behind it. Adding too many shades of one color will likely deviate your avatar from the Pokemon style, while relying too heavily on the base color may make your avatar look too flat. (Side note: this Cynthia sprite demonstrates how a “black” outfit doesn’t actually rely on pure black, and is a good reference point for how dark something "black" in a sprite should be.)
Here's Bryce with too many shades of each color, and with not enough:
Shadowing also needs to come from a single directional light rather than multiple light sources. Here are the light sources for Cynthia and Bryce:
While we don't enforce strict color limits, almost every official sprite has 16 total colors per character, so we recommend you be conservative with color and reuse shades if possible (see, for example, Brycen's shoes and hair). There are stricter color limitations for sprites made in a Gen I or Gen II style (often only 4 total colors per character, including black and white).
Here are some examples of “pillow” shadowing, where there are two light sources (left), and a lack of proper shadowing (right).
Outlining
Outlines are key for making avatars match the Pokemon style. Outlines must be 1 pixel thick, and either black or a darker tone of the color that the outline is, well, outlining. Each generation has its own nuances of outline style, so we highly recommend looking closely at existing sprites to find patterns that work with your avatar. The only hard “no” for Pokemon-style outlining is to avoid fully black outlines.
Here’s Brycen again, with a fully black outline, to demonstrate the issue:
While the black outline technically does work as a general pixel art concept, it’s simply too dark for what you'd expect to see on an official Pokemon trainer sprite.
Another major callout is to avoid corners in your outline:
As we can see on the left, an outline with corners produces a jagged effect (and breaks the "1 pixel thick rule"). The right image shows how the original sprite achieves a smoother outline, without corners.
Anti-aliasing
“Anti-aliasing” is the process of smoothing the edges of an image by averaging the colors of the pixels at the boundary. Anti-aliasing often occurs when images are resized—as demonstrated in the image on the right. It often also introduces partially-transparent pixels, which do not exist in the official Pokemon style of any generation. Avoid these errors.
If you do resize an image as part of your art (for example, many larger Pokemon sprites are 96x96 pixels, requiring some finagling to fit them into an 80x80 canvas), make sure to clean up the sprite afterwards. Other strategies for resizing include cutting and reducing some parts of a Pokemon (e.g. large wings or a long tail) or resizing a sprite and then fully drawing a new version over it on another layer. Also, keep in mind that another artist may have already resized the Pokemon in question! Feel free to ask around, but always make sure to get permission before you use or edit another artist’s work.
Composition
While you’re free to play around with the overall composition of your CA, there are a couple of red flags the QC team will always ask you to fix:
1. Your trainer should be looking/facing to the left. Remember that the main role of your CA is to face your opponent in battle.
2. The characters in your CA should be viewed at a 3/4 angle (to get technical for a moment, we’re looking for 1-point perspective, or at least isometric perspective since, at the scale of 80x80 pixels, they’re difficult to distinguish). The characters should not be fully front-facing, nor be seen in strict profile.
3. Your character should match the proportions of the official sprites. Avoid arms or legs that are too thin or too straight, pay careful attention to hands and feet, and make sure that the character’s head is appropriately sized and that the elements of the facial expression are properly distributed (a good rule of thumb: 4 pixels between the eyes). Watch out for arrangements of limbs that put the body in a peculiarly contorted or “illegible” position.
Useful Resources
For an even more step-by-step handbook for drawing sprites in the Pokemon style, check out The Cave of Dragonflies guide, which includes outlining, shadowing, redrawing, and more! Its tips and tricks have helped many artists in the past and will surely help you improve your spriting (and avoid running afoul of the QC team) as well.
Here’s a more general tutorial on pixel art, with more in-depth explanations and helpful terms to learn.
And of course, if you have any questions, feel free to contact any member of the QC team. Happy spriting!
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