Advice on Perspective of Sprites?

[BombHornet]

So I'm trying to make an 8-bit version of the Buster Shot's Blast sprite From Megaman Zero, but I got stuck on the position like front view, back view, etc. So how do you skin makers handle this problem?

[Korby]

Hoo boy.
Okay, so a lot of it comes from guessing how wide your object is. Most of that is sensibility and assuming "well it was this wide in the side/front[r] frames that it's probably this wide in the front/back frames!"

If you didn't start with a Front/R or Back/R frame(these are the 3/4 views), those will probably be the hardest ones for you to make because they are EVIL.
They show a little bit of the front/back but shortened, and a little bit of the side but shortened. The most important thing here is to convey depth without using a lot of colors, which is unfortunately difficult.

To make front/back sprites, aside from that thing in the quote up there, the concept of foreshortening and making sure your thing isn't too fat[for example, most energy projectiles are round, so circles make good front sprites] help a lot.

Side sprites are generally simple enough, but if you're making a skin they usually take a full respriting of just about everything on the character.
Most projectiles' default frames[the ones you use to base everything else off of] are side frames.

If you need a more in depth guide, or if this didn't really make sense, feel free to ask.

[BombHornet]

I think we can go more in-depth. And yeah, some of it actually doesn't make sense to me.

Also, these are the sprites that i'm working on.

[BombHornet]

Ok so i continued on working on the front view of the Buster Shot's Level 2 blast. How Does it look now? If there's anything wrong, just tell me.