AuthorTopic: Ooze critique wanted. New Artist.  (Read 3134 times)

Offline Plainedge

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Ooze critique wanted. New Artist.

on: February 16, 2017, 10:44:28 pm
Hello All,

I'm new to the forums here as well as to pixel art as a whole. This is actually my first post and I was looking for a bit of critique on my most recent pieces. It is an ooze and a drop of adhesive that he would drop after you kill him.

I would specifically like critique on hue shifting. I understand the concept of hues becoming bluer as they get darker but I feel that I have significantly failed in that regard here. The original color of the ooze was a milky white similar to the color of common craft glue but I turned the ooze blue by trying to use hue shifting. Would this be because I added too much blue or some other reason?

Another area that I have struggled with is outlining. I don't like the idea of having a solid black outline for my sprites and so I have been trying to just use a dark shade from the palette but I feel that this outline doesn't reflect the light source I have chosen well. I have shifted the outline to a brighter shade in the palette where the light source would be hitting it but it still doesn't feel quite right.




Any other critiques or recommendations are welcome and appreciated. I am still new and would love all the help I can recieve.

Thank you

Offline Cyangmou

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Re: Ooze critique wanted. New Artist.

Reply #1 on: February 17, 2017, 01:45:02 am
don't see "hue shifting" as a techniqu to apply. It's a super simplistic rule of thumb for much more complex concepts which come with color temperatures, light color, reflections, subsurface scattering and much more.

The appaerence of the slime shifted because a milky white as a color behaves different  than putting in a quick hueshift.

That being said I can't see anything wrong with the colors. And the outline also seems fine to me.

But colors are ony one thing and shading and the usage of them is another field. Your shading is just thrown in and doesn't follow the spherical structure of the shape. Therefore it looks really flat.

you could get an image of a waterdrop to get an approximation as a starting point and try to learn the principles. That being said translucent transparent materials are much arder to shade than something solid with a bright color e.g. plaster. Which is the reason why art training usually starts with drawing plaster cast studies.

e.g. google for "water drop on leaf"


Also consider the form of a waterdrop, there should be surface tension, especially connected to the ground

a little edit just with those minor form edits, keeping the exactly same colors and reshading:
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Offline Plainedge

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Re: Ooze critique wanted. New Artist.

Reply #2 on: February 17, 2017, 02:30:04 am
Thanks for the suggestions Cyangmou.

I tried incorporating your advice into this next version. Comparison side by side it looks much better.



I took your advice looking at water droplets and looking on the computer made it hard to see the curvature. To get a better idea of the how the shading curves around a droplet I ended up putting some water in saran wrap and holding it up to the light. After a bit of water on my kitchen floor, I believe I now see what you're talking about. The diagonal lines in the previous version gave the impression that the surface had no contour to it as light did not have to wrap around it.

The surface tension was obvious to me right as you mentioned it and was an easy fix.

I believe in this new version the shading is still a bit off due to the bright spot. I can't seem to find a good place to put that and have it feel realistic.

The eye also looks much better as more than a dot. Thank you.

Offline rocifier

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Re: Ooze critique wanted. New Artist.

Reply #3 on: February 17, 2017, 10:00:28 am
Don't forget the inner reflection

« Last Edit: February 17, 2017, 10:37:26 am by rocifier »

Offline Plainedge

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Re: Ooze critique wanted. New Artist.

Reply #4 on: February 17, 2017, 04:24:54 pm
Don't forget the inner reflection



Hey Rocifier, Would you mind explaining a little more? I'm rather new to art as a whole and all the information I'm going off of is what I've read in tutorials and the help I've received here. Just from my intuition, I believe you mean light reflecting from inside the droplet due to refraction. I thought that was what the bottom right lighter portion was. Are you suggesting making it more noticeable or am I just missing what you're talking about completely?

Thank you in advance. Here is an update from what I did last night

Offline rocifier

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Re: Ooze critique wanted. New Artist.

Reply #5 on: February 19, 2017, 08:35:51 am
Yes I believe I am talking about making that more noticable. I am imagining internal reflections plus reflection from a lighter ground colour below it combined with subsurface scattering due to the opaqueness of the slime blob. It would really light it up from the edges/ground plane. Here are some real world examples of what I mean (if the image breaks, google subsurface scattering grapes):


Offline Plainedge

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Re: Ooze critique wanted. New Artist.

Reply #6 on: February 21, 2017, 11:24:16 pm
I attempted incorporating more internal reflection into the ooze. I feel that I might have gone a little overboard. I struggled particularly with finding the right places to put in the lighter colors around the edge without completely removing my darker colors. An alternative I thought of would be to reduce the color palette by one shade.

Here is the updated version

Offline Aniki

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Re: Ooze critique wanted. New Artist.

Reply #7 on: February 22, 2017, 08:25:59 am
I think it could use a little more contrast:

Offline wolfenoctis

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Re: Ooze critique wanted. New Artist.

Reply #8 on: February 22, 2017, 11:12:58 am
Just a few quick thoughts: