AuthorTopic: [C+C] Runensucher's "trying to improve"  (Read 9765 times)

Offline Runensucher

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[C+C] Runensucher's "trying to improve"

on: November 08, 2016, 01:04:02 pm
Hi and hello!

So, where to start? I'm the new guy. My name's Hannes and I'm from Berlin.
A few years ago I started with pixel art. I went for it a few weeks, then I stopped.

Oh, well. There is a long story, but I don't want to bother you with it. Just one thing: If you are a creative person, then all the stuff you don't do will give you a lot of pain. That's what happened to me.
I often have these images in my head and they just ended as that smelly junk that doesn't let you sleep at night.
This time, I want to start with less pressure on myself. I wonder if this forum is the right place for it. ^^

What I want:
- Please feel free to criticise my art. I'm not as sensitive as it seems. It's not possible for you to be that harsh that I am to myself. :)
- My english is "work in progress" too. I forgot the most of grammar lessons from school. If there is something you don't understand, just ask. And if you sense something that wrong that it hurts: please inform me.
- If there are some other german natives: Say "Hallo!". I really appreciate some company to stay tuned.
- I like to talk about other stuff too, especially games, game music, pets, foxes, films, terry pratchett or cookies. ::)

Now let's talk about art. Here is some of mine:


As you can see, there are some animated sprites too. They once were designed for a gaming app. But I got exchanged by a more experienced artist. :)
Sorry for posting this stuff resized. I will keep this rule in mind for the future.


And now, here is something we can talk about. I worked at this image today for about... two and a half hours. The first image is an old one. The second was created to get in touch with photoshop and pixel art again. I wanted to make the sprite look more interesting with a few changes and I worked on the anatomy. I didn't add shading because I liked the art style overall.
My questions are: What can I do to make the straw hat look more like straw? And how can I change the colours to better fit together?
Don't hestitate to give me advise about other topics, too. To be honest, I think there are some things I improved and some I worsened.


If you got some time, I want to ask two questions about this forum:
Can I post future art in the same topic? Or is it better to start a new one?
Do you have some additional advice to "get started" with this forum?

Thank you for your time. Read you soon.
Runensucher
« Last Edit: November 28, 2016, 10:24:37 pm by Runensucher »

Offline AppleGirl

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Re: Hi pixelation, here is my first question

Reply #1 on: November 11, 2016, 02:05:26 am
Welcome!
I also just joined this forum, and I can say that I really like your art style! I'm not very experienced with pixel art (only been at it for a month or so) but I think your shading is very good. I think this forum is a great place for you to post all your ideas! For the last sprite you posted, one way you could make the hat look more like straw would be to make a few pixels stick out. I think all the colors you picked go pretty well together. To answer your last 2 questions you should check this link out.http://pixelation.org/index.php?topic=5624.0
I'm not German sorry  :-[ I think you English is very good! Welcome again  :)

Offline MysteryMeat

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Re: Hi pixelation, here is my first question

Reply #2 on: November 11, 2016, 02:47:49 am
Hello, sorry I missed this thread until apple bumped it! I'd say the first step would be to do normal art first, the first step is knowing the how-to draw. This is coming from a person who started doing pixel art before he started drawing like a normal person first, and let me tell you I wasted a lot of time grinding those gears before I started paying attention to such alien concepts as "Basic anatomy" and "proper shading".

For that end, I recommend starting with the Loomis guides, which are easily discoverable through google. He's an excellent resource for artists of any skill level, his books on figure drawing and fun with a pencil both EXCELLENT tools for people trying to get a grasp on the basics, which are always worth revisiting from time to time.

As for feedback on your current stuff, avoid dithering so much when you shade unless you're going for a texture! For example, on the apple it makes it look like there's bumps on the skin. Instead, look at the pixel clusters part of the general art help masterpost here on the forum! It can help a lot, but the basic idea is to try and keep like-groups of pixels "clustered" together rather than have them spread out as you would with dithering. It creates a smoother, more uniform look overall!

Next, work from reference even for pixel art! It took me a while to figure out that that was a bat, the wings look like beaver tails with how rounded and uniform they are whereas in reality they tend to look like webbed arms!
PSA: use imgur
http://pixelation.org/index.php?topic=19838.0 also go suggest on my quest, cmon
MAJOR BORK TALLY: |

Offline Fieldren

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Re: Hi pixelation, here is my first question

Reply #3 on: November 11, 2016, 03:07:51 am
Dude,i'm pretty sure that all of the nice people here are waaay to better than me doing pixel drawings, but since i posted my first thread i've felt really comfortable, so i'm very excited to see what are your thoughts and work.Since you are one of the newbies like me, can i give my opinion on your drawings? You do have for sure a large variety of styles, like that palm tree,passing through the mushroom and the doge, your art is very versatile.

About your straw hat, i'm looking for something very similar, and i found this:



Hope it helps ;)

and by the way...

 your dog is NEAT.

Gonna name him to myself as Barry.

Praise the sun \[T]/

Offline Runensucher

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Re: Hi pixelation, here is my first question

Reply #4 on: November 13, 2016, 11:30:44 am
Welcome!
I also just joined this forum, and I can say that I really like your art style! I'm not very experienced with pixel art (only been at it for a month or so) but I think your shading is very good. I think this forum is a great place for you to post all your ideas! For the last sprite you posted, one way you could make the hat look more like straw would be to make a few pixels stick out. I think all the colors you picked go pretty well together. To answer your last 2 questions you should check this link out.http://pixelation.org/index.php?topic=5624.0
I'm not German sorry  :-[ I think you English is very good! Welcome again  :)
Thank you AppleGirl! I hope to see more of your art in the future. The hat's on my agenda now. I like your idea with the stalks and I'm going to try how it looks . BTW: It's a wolf. ^^"

Dude,i'm pretty sure that all of the nice people here are waaay to better than me doing pixel drawings, but since i posted my first thread i've felt really comfortable, so i'm very excited to see what are your thoughts and work.Since you are one of the newbies like me, can i give my opinion on your drawings? You do have for sure a large variety of styles, like that palm tree,passing through the mushroom and the doge, your art is very versatile.

and by the way...

 your dog is NEAT.

Gonna name him to myself as Barry.


Hi Fieldren! Your critiques are very welcome. Please don't degrade yourself. Your seemingly strong will and your imagination will let you create great art. Just don't stop. :)
Maybe we can encourage each other from time to time. That's what this forum is about, right?

I'm glad Barry got his name. Now I can write something on the sign at his cage, since he is a wolf.
(See the answer for MysteryMeat for more informations.)

Hello, sorry I missed this thread until apple bumped it! I'd say the first step would be to do normal art first, the first step is knowing the how-to draw. This is coming from a person who started doing pixel art before he started drawing like a normal person first, and let me tell you I wasted a lot of time grinding those gears before I started paying attention to such alien concepts as "Basic anatomy" and "proper shading".

For that end, I recommend starting with the Loomis guides, which are easily discoverable through google. He's an excellent resource for artists of any skill level, his books on figure drawing and fun with a pencil both EXCELLENT tools for people trying to get a grasp on the basics, which are always worth revisiting from time to time.

As for feedback on your current stuff, avoid dithering so much when you shade unless you're going for a texture! For example, on the apple it makes it look like there's bumps on the skin. Instead, look at the pixel clusters part of the general art help masterpost here on the forum! It can help a lot, but the basic idea is to try and keep like-groups of pixels "clustered" together rather than have them spread out as you would with dithering. It creates a smoother, more uniform look overall!

Next, work from reference even for pixel art! It took me a while to figure out that that was a bat, the wings look like beaver tails with how rounded and uniform they are whereas in reality they tend to look like webbed arms!


Hi MysteryMeat! Thanks for your time. Nothing to apologize about. It's not like I paid you to answer me or something.
I started to train my drawing skills two days ago, as you (and some other user of this forum) are advising. I decided to follow "drawabox" as it fits better to me. But there is no reason to try some of the sketches of Loomi later on.

The apple is a one of my first piece. I don't think I'm going to fix it, because I want to look forward. But your tip is very welcome. You don't need any theorie to see what the dithering has done here. But I will not forget about pixel clusters in my future works.

Let's come to your last lesson: As everyone considers my wolf a dog, I got your point. See what I've done to the bat. It's just a short workaround because the whole pose isn't right. But I felt like doing something with all your suggestions. Thanks a lot.



« Last Edit: November 13, 2016, 11:33:11 am by Runensucher »

Offline MysteryMeat

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Re: Hi pixelation, here is my first question

Reply #5 on: November 13, 2016, 12:17:54 pm
Huge improvement on the bat! Good work, and don't forget to draw daily!
It's like a muscle, yo!
PSA: use imgur
http://pixelation.org/index.php?topic=19838.0 also go suggest on my quest, cmon
MAJOR BORK TALLY: |

Offline Runensucher

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Re: [C+C] Runensucher's Topic to get better

Reply #6 on: November 14, 2016, 03:51:20 pm
I decided to use this thread to talk about my next sprites.

Today I started with something I skipped all the time, and that's a tree. Now I know why I skipped it, pixeling trees is terrifying.
I allready lowered the size and just made up a form for the tree top I liked.
But now I don't know what to do next. I tried a lot of possibilities for shading but nothing looked right. This is the best I got.

In all the tree tutorials they add the lighter parts first. Is this what I'm doing wrong? I admit, I don't have an imagination of the form of the tree. It blurred while the process.
Here's the tree without shadows:


Tomorrow is my day off. So your suggestions will be applied soon. :D

Offline MysteryMeat

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Re: [C+C] Runensucher's Topic to get better

Reply #7 on: November 14, 2016, 04:07:56 pm
Consider the nature of trees: big bundles of leaves and twigs, conglomerated into one form.
Try drawing clusters of leaves in shadow, work from that!
PSA: use imgur
http://pixelation.org/index.php?topic=19838.0 also go suggest on my quest, cmon
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Offline Fieldren

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Re: Hi pixelation, here is my first question

Reply #8 on: November 14, 2016, 04:17:38 pm
I'm starting to love this forum, gonna give Barry a good friend in the next weeks.Keep it up my amigo! I'll be gladly here to listen and give you my humble point of view, cheers friend! :y:  ;D
Praise the sun \[T]/

Offline Curly

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Re: [C+C] Runensucher's Topic to get better

Reply #9 on: November 14, 2016, 06:39:20 pm
When making trees you usually begin with a big blob of the darkest color and then add the lighter ones over it, since the leaves at the top will be the ones that receive more light, I guess.