STEP 0
The first we have to take in consideration is that we can't make an armor from scratch, if we haven't a previous design. We are going to do that in this "STEP 0"
A common failure when drawing armors is that people don't know how an armor looks like besides from fantasy stuff, or what parts an armor is composed of, and they start drawing an armor, as it must me original, they start missing things or making unprotective armors. This makes the picture look unreal or just "weird".
Let's see some important pieces of a standard plate armor. (I mean a standard armor, not the plate armor in tibia)
1)) Skull - it's the helmet, the headpiece or head covering.
2)) Visor - it's a removable part of the helmet in front of the eyes.
3)) Sight - these are the holes in the visor or directly in the skull so the knight looks through these.
4)) Breaths - Small holes in the visor and helmet to allow knight's breath.
5)) Gorget - Armor that protects the throat/neck
6)) Pauldron - armor piece covering the shoulder. (shoulder pads).
7)) Breastplate - The armor breast plate from the neck to the waist.
8)) Couter - elbow piece that allows the arms articulation.
9)) Vambrace - armor pieces protecting the arm.
10)) Gauntlet - "Gloves"
.11)) Tasset - Overlapping armor plates covering the area below the waist.
12)) Cuisse - armor covering the thigh. (thigh pads).
13)) Poleyn - armor covering your knees that allows legs articulation. (knee pieces).
14)) Greave - armor protecting the leg from the ankle to the knee.
15)) Sabaton - armor that covers the foot. (the boots).
Armor: They must have at least a breastplate and some kind of pauldron. From there you can add a gorget (HARD to success making this in 32x32, if you learn this, you will see your armors have improved a lot!), and also vambraces (at least like sleeves) and couters. The tasset is very tricky, and it totally depends on if you feel like adding it or not. You will find EXTREMELY difficult to add gauntlets to your armors, anyway you don’t need it.
Also, sometimes knights used to wear a chain mail as "underwear" under the armor. You can show it by the armpits if you want.
Those are basic pieces of an armor, the design is up to you. You can add symbols, colors, spikes, cords, ornaments, and whatever you can imagine. Take in consideration:
-Is it going to be an armor for evil people/creatures, a normal armor, or a holy one?
-Should it be cheap, average or expensive armor?
-How much "Arm" value would it have in game? Is it a good armor?
REAL EXAMPLE: Dark Armor
step 1
We pixel our design for dark armor. I use blue color. For this armor, I choose it to be an spectacular dark armor... It must not look like the average armor you find on the floor: you can only find it in black knights, quests and behemoths :O But it's still only Arm:10, so it must not protect SO much. Then I decided I'd cover the stomach part just with a chain mail under the breast plates, and under the arms too. It's not a so good armor after all
note: This next 2 steps can happen or not, you might have liked your first design =)
step 2
We start changing things we don't like, etc. You can paint over it with black color and then clean the picture and color everything with blue, or black, it depends on you
step 3
As it should be a cool armor for evil dudes, I add some features to emphasize this: spikes on the shoulder pads, for example.
step 4
fill with colors
step 5
black outlines
step 6
Create a color palette: select base colors and if you want to do it the pixel art way, create shades for each color, some clearer and some darker ones. I find that doing this you get cleaner, more eye-catching pieces. If you are going to draw with the burn-dodge / lighten-darken tools, it's up to you, just choose base colors.
IMPORTANT NOTE: In game, we need black outline, so I use this color as darkest shade, also because it's going to be a "dark armor" so black is fine for the darkest tone. We'll only need one shade of dark blue, since I'll use a low-saturated highlight color, this way I save space in the palette, in case I have any color limitations and the result is more or less the same.
step 7
Add some details and remove black lines inside the picture, this really helps modeling the shape
step 8
Start shading! This is a fun part, if you have chosen your colors right all should go fine. Contrast + specular reflections are everything when drawing metal. For the moment, we'll shade the plate part first
step 9
Once we finished with the plates, we'll start with the mail. You have to give texture and volume to it, I have not so many time to write something about this issue, it's so long. Anyways the best dude drawing mails for tibia is Oin so you might ask him to give us a lesson or two. In fact, I ask him to do: DO IT OIN!
step 10
That's it! We have completed our armor! Nothing more needs to be done, that's all