Sword and shield

[KibaWolf]

Hey everyone,

This is my first post here and my third pixel art I made. It is a sword and shield I made while looking at references of pixel swords and shields. I do not feel it is complete yet and I want some critiques to help me make it a whole lot better. I want to get better in pixel art because it is becoming something I enjoy.

Thanks,
Kiba

[thoughtmachine]

If that is your third attempt at pixel art that is really good!

EDIT:
Don't enlarge your art before posting it. People will assume the aliasing caused by enlarging the art is an oversight on your part. Besides this site has a zoom feature.

Here is one that I did a few months ago. You might compare your sword to it.
Spoiler

From this you should be able to learn how to progress though the steps of development.

[Wes]

This is really fuzzy and jpeggy. It's hard to give you any proper critique on your pixel technique. Can you post a cleaner version?

[KibaWolf]

Thoughtmachine: Thanks! I have to say, nice work. That will help.

wes: Here is a clear version with no enlarge lol. I hope this works.

Thank you both again

[Alexanator28]

this has almost a 1000 colors in it!http://akira.hopto.org/pj/?input=http%3A%2F%2Fimagizer.imageshack.us%2Fv2%2F320x240q90%2F540%2F8i9V73.png

try remaking the piece without using 'soft' brushes, but just the 1 by 1 pixel brush so you know you aren't getting all of the extra blur.

[KibaWolf]

Alexanator28: Wow, thanks for the input. So you are telling me that is why my image is blurry?

[Alexanator28]

yes exactly! What program and what brush are you using exactly?

[DawnBringer]

No. The image has been scaled and saved as JPEG at some point.

[ptoing]

Also, please have the common courtesy to crop your images before posting. There is no need to post things with a lot of empty space.

[KibaWolf]

Alexanator28: I used photoshop and I used the pencil tool.

DawnBringer: I have saved it as a jpeg before and png.

ptoing: Thanks for the heads up. I will avoid that in the future.

[DawnBringer]

Yes, and JPEG is a lossy format that will corrupt your image. Only use PNG and GIF.

[KibaWolf]

Alright. I will save my images as an png for now on. I am taking out some colors out of the artwork to make it simple. The last image i posted on this forum was a png and turn out blurry, wondering how to avoid that ?

[PsylentKnight]

Well if you've been saving it as a jpeg the whole time then the damage is already done and saving it as a png won't magically fix it. It'll just prevent further file degradation. You'll just have to pick the colors you like the best and paint over the blurry parts, then always save as png in the future.

[KibaWolf]

So what I can understand and correct me if I am wrong,If I am saving from my photoshop file to png with this artwork its too late because I saved it as a jpeg so now it is always blurry?

[Johasu]

Yes.
The jpeg compressed the image.
You can't recover what was lost when you saved it that way.
The png will save at the jpeg's quality.  It's not a 2-way street.
You are effectively working on a blurry image now.

[PsylentKnight]

I did an edit for you. For some reason the color count still says 101, no idea why. o___o I painted over absolutely everything. In any case its less blurry, and I tried to make things pop a bit more with more contrast and less soft gradients. I had a hard time getting those green gems to stand out against the blue hilt, might want to make them a different color or something.

[yaomon17]

A good way of seeing excess colors is to mess with the color depth in GraphicsGale and adjusting colors on the side to something that stands out so you see where the extra colors are.

[Johasu]

You can always use Graphicsgale to quickly sample the palette out if you are looking for stray pixels and that will give you an idea of where the extras are.
If you see 10 of the "same" color on the palette you know where to look.
A simple fill with 0 tolerance will quickly find the stragglers.

[thoughtmachine]

I have saved it as a jpeg before and png.

Never save anything as a jpeg.

That is like finding a solid gold nugget and turning it into lead.

Instead of worrying over an old piece why not make a new sword...

[PsylentKnight]

Ah, well I'll leave eliminating all the duplicates to OP if he really wants to do that haha. Good info though, I didn't know that messing with the color depth would bring up the palette for the piece like that.

[KibaWolf]

I want to thank you all for the info and help. I am going to work on the sword and shield just to help me practice pixel artwork more and will show the edit. And then moving to another project. Thanks again 

[PsylentKnight]

Feel free to use my edit to work off of, I basically made it so you'd have something clean to use. I just got a little carried away with the hilt and the shading.

[thoughtmachine]

I want to thank you all for the info and help. I am going to work on the sword and shield just to help me practice pixel artwork more and will show the edit. And then moving to another project. Thanks again 

Cool. Right now you have an opportunity to learn from your mistakes.

Imagine you scanned an awesome drawing that you drew on paper. I call that a "dirty picture".
The scanned picture now has 500 to 10,000 deviant pixels that you have to remove.

Everyone knows its easier to draw with pencil than with a digital pad (or god forbid a mouse), but if you spend too much time cleaning that dirty picture then you might as well had drawn the picture on your PC and saved time in doing so. It's a matter of time spent versus time wasted.

Having said that, a lot can be learned from editing your own mistakes.

Feel free to use my edit to work off of, ....

Rather than using an edit (of your art) from someone else to assist your efforts at this one small project, I would take the picture that you turned into a jpg and clean it.
Use this as an opportunity to learn from your mistakes.

There are many, many different techniques to quickly clean a "dirty picture" but IF you don't know what those techniques are, you could spend hours removing all of the pixels while trying to not mess up your scan. Whereas the dirty picture can be cleaned with two or three clicks of your mouse, once you learn the right techniques.

[KibaWolf]

Here is my edit, thanks to all your help. I edit it from my source which was a psd file (photoshop file). I saved it as a png. So that much should be fixed lol. I love the edits that were shown to me and helped me with coloring and shading. Other then that, I love to hear anymore critiques and comments about the art. I will be posting more pixel art on this site because I feel the community was really helpful. You guys were a big help, thanks!

[PsylentKnight]

I'd take the dithering out. People think because its pixel art that omg it *has* to have dithering. But unless you're going for an authentic retro look or you need it to imply some sort of rough texture, then in my opinion dithering should just be left alone.

[KibaWolf]

I'd take the dithering out. People think because its pixel art that omg it *has* to have dithering. But unless you're going for an authentic retro look or you need it to imply some sort of rough texture, then in my opinion dithering should just be left alone.

Interesting point. I will try that. Thanks

[Kazuya Mochu]

I would also remove the dithering. Dithering adds texture because its noisy pattern, so in a situation like a smooth surface you should be carefull using it. I think you might get a better result keeping the image with no dithering

also, and considering that this is metal, I would use stronger highlights