- Email the admin: E-mail!!
- Hit me up on the SDB Discord, where I'm happy to answer any questions or talk about whatever.
SDB is owned and operated by one person. That would be me. My name is Paul, but my internet friends call me "Grim". I've been designing, updating, coding, writing for, and contributing sprites to SDB from the beginning.
A little bit about me. I'm 35 years old and live in Long Island, New York, USA. My long-time sprite addiction started in the early 2000's. My hobby at the time was making fake Pokémon trading cards, which is also how I got into learning Paint Shop Pro and Photoshop. Anyway, I spent a lot at the forums of Pokemon Aaaah! where I was intrigued by users creating - what else? - Mega Man edits to be used in sprite comics. From there I bounced between a few different forum communities before starting my own site for both comics and sprite rips. The limits of sprite comics as a medium became apparent before too long, but I retained a fascination with the sprites themselves. The vast array of styles and techniques possible in such a seemingly-constrained medium continues to interest me, along with the ways they are integrated into a larger work (usually, video games, which I'll always love.)
These days I especially like PC and handheld gaming, but I've always got time for retro (pre-HD) consoles, too. My love of games is also what got me into programming. I never became a game developer, but I built this site and made a few apps you might find useful if you're a sprite ripper.
I'm a big music fan too, especially in the genres of indie and punk rock. Some of my favorites are They Might Be Giants, Ted Leo and the Pharmacists, The Lawrence Arms, Direct Hit!, and Bad Religion.
Other than that, I love comics and animation. And dogs. And working on this site. And writing autobiographical paragraphs.
About using sprites
» Can I use these sprites?
» Ok, but can I use these sprites for a commercial project?
» Who owns these sprites?
The sprites in the customs section belong to the people who submitted them, but even so they are generally a form of fan art depicting copyrighted characters.
» Who should I credit if I use sprites?
If you like, you can also extend your acknowledgement to the people who ripped and submitted the sprites. Every file on this site has the username of the person (or people) who contributed that file.
A lot of people ask for credit on their rips - even I used to do it. They are basically asking for a small acknowledgement for the time and effort they put into ripping the sprites and making them available to others. To me, this seems like a very reasonable request, but you aren't under any obligation regardless.
» Is there an easy way to separate sprite sheets into individual sprites?
» What can I use sprites for?
» Is using, ripping, or archiving sprites illegal?
But please, as I've mentioned in questions above, do not try to profit from their copyrighted material. It's probably the quickest way to get yourself in trouble and make all of us look bad.
About ripping sprites
» What does it mean to "rip" sprites?
Other terms like "capturing" or "extracting" are occasionally used, probably because of how negative rip sounds.
» How do you rip sprites?
There are two main ways. The first is by editing them out of screenshots. Using an emulator, one plays the game on their computer, taking screenshots of the desired sprites. Many emulators have features to make this a little easier, such as the ability to disable background layers, or pause the game and advance one frame at a time.
The second way to rip sprites is by extracting them from the game's data. For older games (generally pre-CD) this involves opening the ROM file in a tile viewer such as Tile Molestor, YY-CHR, or GGD. Newer games for systems like the PlayStation or DS may contain individual files containing data that can be extracted.
Some specific games or systems also have more specialized tools for extracting graphics. For example, PSicture can extract graphics from some PS1 games.
If you have any specific questions about ripping, please feel free to email me or post on our Help Board. Also see our Tutorial section - my guides on ripping DS and Capcom arcade games are a good place to start.
» Can you rip (sprite xyz) for me?
This may not be the most satisfying answer, but if you have a request I genuinely think the best thing to do is learn to do it yourself. Ask on the forums or our Discord and you will find that we are eager to share our knowledge.
» Can you tell me where to get roms and emulators?
About submitting sprites to SDB
» How do I submit sprites, graphics, or sounds? What are the rules for submitting?
» What kind of rips can I submit? What can I submit rips from?
You can submit rips from games for any console, handheld, computer, arcade, or mobile game. We currently have received submissions for 36 different platforms, but if you want to submit sprites from a system we don't have yet, I can always add it. More detailed submission guidelines can always be found on the Submit page.
» What kind of customs and edits can I submit?
» Can I submit rips from tile viewers or other graphics extractors?
» I have some sprites I submitted to another site. Can I also submit them here?
» If I find some material SDB doesn't have, can I submit it?
» How do I know if my submission(s) were accepted?
About Sprite Database
» What is the history of Sprite Database? Who created it?
SDB started as the sprite section of my old sprite comic website, which is best forgotten. Eventually it started getting rather popular and by 2005 it was obvious it had to be split off into its own thing. In those days the site was run by me and my brother. Although he's moved on to better things, I'm still here plugging away, week after week. Don't worry, I'm still enjoying it! Here's a timeline of other major events.
2005 - SDB split off from my crappy sprite comic site.
2006 - SDB switches from having sprite preview icons to being text-only after my webhost complained about bandwidth usage
2006 - My webhost kept complaining anyway so SDB moves to Drshnaps Productions
2009 - SDB rebuilt from the ground-up with more modern technology, becoming an actual database.
2010 - Preview icons for every sprite & background on the site were re-added, after being removed years earlier
2012 - SDB moves back to my hosting after Drshnaps Productions closes down (RIP)
2014 - We loved icons so much, we added them for games, too.
2014 - I wrote this VERY FAQ.
2022 - I updated this very FAQ.
» When is new content posted to Sprite Database?
» Can I re-host material from Sprite Database?
» How can I link to Sprite Database?
By the way, the official, permanent location of Sprite Database is https://spritedatabase.net. Other urls such as sdb.drshnaps.com and sdb.neuropod.net were used in the past, but should be considered inactive.
» How can I contact individual SDB contributors?
If there isn't any contact information on their submissions, all I can do is point you to the forums, where they may have an active account. I don't give out contact information of contributors, for reasons that should be obvious.
Considering SDB has been around for over ten years, many of our contributors are no longer active in the community. If you can't find the person you're looking for, send me an email and I'll do the best I can to help you out with whatever question or concern you may have.