AuthorTopic: Agumon (from Digimon)  (Read 4652 times)

Offline wanderer123

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Agumon (from Digimon)

on: December 05, 2016, 06:06:46 am
Hey I have just begun my pixel art training. Can you tell me is this pixel art good for someone who has just begun?

Here's the image:



Pixel art Agumon before revision:



After revision:



I tried improving his bad tilt, his head shape and his eyes. I am not sure how good I am at shading. Can you tell me did I improve overall in the second revision? How much does this pixel art Agumon look like the Agumon digimon?

Offline dpixel

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Re: Agumon (from Digimon)

Reply #1 on: December 05, 2016, 05:06:50 pm
This is actually a complicated piece for a beginner.  There's a lot of detail with the claws and head, especially at this small size.  Plus there's some anatomy aspects to keep in mind as well.  Every pixel will count!  It's all about defining the shapes. 
At this size and detail, I would eliminate the dithering and reduce the color count by making bolder color ramps.
Here's my attempt at an edit (redraw) of what I mean.


Offline MysteryMeat

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Re: Agumon (from Digimon)

Reply #2 on: December 05, 2016, 11:24:53 pm
To add to the above, dithering is a weird one you might want to avoid for now! It's primary use was to circumvent color limitations to create graduated color ramps without actually adding a new color, like in the example I made here:


While it CAN make for an interesting stylistic choice, for example as an emulation of crosshatching methods, try not to let it become your default method for shading! I used it as that for a good while and most of my early work came out looking very gritty and noisy as a result. Try to work with cell shading more often than not, clarity is integral to pixel art!
PSA: use imgur
http://pixelation.org/index.php?topic=19838.0 also go suggest on my quest, cmon
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Offline wanderer123

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Re: Agumon (from Digimon)

Reply #3 on: December 06, 2016, 01:33:44 am
Thanks for trying to help me out, guys!

Here are some questions, please answer them: What are all the things that make dpixels Agumon better than mine? I think all the shapes including and especially the claws and the eyes. Why do his colors look better on his Agumon than my colors on my Agumon? Is it a trick? Why is the outline so black? I thought it's supposed to be the same hue but darker?

Offline MysteryMeat

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Re: Agumon (from Digimon)

Reply #4 on: December 06, 2016, 03:31:32 am
In order:
dpixels simply has more knowhow and experience with art and that coalesces into a better version of what you tried to make. An understanding of forms, color harmonies, and their use of outlines  are what set theirs above yours especially. There is no shame in this, some people are going to be better than you, focus more on making your way towards these people as goalposts for your own artistic growth instead.
His colors work better because he used (non-dithering) cel-shading, more contrast in his colors, and he added transitions on the outlines to create better color divides. His reduction in the palette also made the individual colors stand out way more with the addition of that contrast. as a general rule I try to keep at least five steps in saturation or value seperate from the original color to create a visible contrast, but it can be better or worse depending on your light source and intentions with the colors.
Finally, that's subjective entirely. Both can work, so long as the art style of whatever you're designing around is built around that stylistic choice. For example, paper mario games use the thick outlines to highlight how flat the characters are and make them appear more cartoony, while in games like Golden Sun character sprites take a more lineless approach to create a sense of higher graphical fidelity. In this case there's no definitive "right way," it all depends on what you're looking to create.
I do reccomend starting with normal outlines though, I find them helpful and charming in a lot of ways and applying line weight to pixel art is one of the more interesting things you see done with subpixeling concepts.
PSA: use imgur
http://pixelation.org/index.php?topic=19838.0 also go suggest on my quest, cmon
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Offline wanderer123

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Re: Agumon (from Digimon)

Reply #5 on: December 06, 2016, 05:46:23 am
Thanks for answering those questions. I have been studying those answers. Seems the colors on his pixel art is better because of contrast. I will study that.

Is there anything specific or special I can do to make my art like this better or should I continue just practicing like I have been? Also, should I first do more practice making of my own simple pixel art shapes as a beginner and once I'm better, do more complex shapes? If so, what can I practice on; like pixel art RPG game weapons?

Offline MysteryMeat

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Re: Agumon (from Digimon)

Reply #6 on: December 06, 2016, 06:31:34 am
That is absolutely a good first step! Understanding how basic shapes interact with light is the foundation for more complex shapes.
As a rule, try to figure out cones, cubes, pyramids, and flat objects. After that, more oblique concepts like texture come: drawing floating tubes of water, dirt, etc.
Shading is easily the one you want to learn soonest though, as good shading is what tends to elevate a drawing from a flat drawing to a 3d object with volume, however basic!
PSA: use imgur
http://pixelation.org/index.php?topic=19838.0 also go suggest on my quest, cmon
MAJOR BORK TALLY: |

Offline wanderer123

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Re: Agumon (from Digimon)

Reply #7 on: December 06, 2016, 06:56:49 am
Okay so how about I take a simple object reference and make it into a pixel art and if it's not good enough, I try to change it on my own? So I play around with it until I make it better.

And when training for more complex objects, I can copy pixel-by-pixel monsters? I have been doing that with Pokemon sprites.

Offline MysteryMeat

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Re: Agumon (from Digimon)

Reply #8 on: December 06, 2016, 08:00:40 am
Don't full-copy stuff! A good excercise is to size-down pictures to better understand the lines of the body, but if you simply duplicate things there's a limit to how much you can learn. Pixel art is also somewhat of a specialty art, best approached with a more basic artistic skillset.
Start with random shapes, and once you get good at that, start drawing cartoons and people. When you're doing alright there,  start looking at skeletons and muscles and try to learn how to see the true mechanical function of the things you draw. It's a bit of a journey, but if you need a good and comprehensive helper guide, a common resource people reccomend are the Andrew Loomis art guides. You can find them fairly easily through google, just type in his name and a few results should pop up!
He's the kindly artist grandpa everyone deserves.
PSA: use imgur
http://pixelation.org/index.php?topic=19838.0 also go suggest on my quest, cmon
MAJOR BORK TALLY: |

Offline dpixel

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Re: Agumon (from Digimon)

Reply #9 on: December 06, 2016, 12:46:19 pm
As far as the colors go, in your palette, the values are very close together.  Aside from some pure black pixels for the eyes, you had really no darks.   I put yours and mine together so you can see what values I changed and what I eliminated. 


Most pixel art looks better with higher contrast.  A good well rounded palette balanced with darks, midtones and lighter colors generally is the way to go.  Also pixel art tends to have a smaller canvas, so there's not a lot of room for lots of different colors without looking messy.
Also darker colors make lighter colors look more vivid.  That's why I used outlines.  The one main yellow color I used from your palette is virtually the same.  It just pops more because of the colors I used next to it.