that the underlying art is pretty ugly and devoid of any real design work.
tsugumo's first rule of pixelation: don't be an ass
either Seefour doesn't have the resolve to make their art better, in which case I'm pretty sure they'll lose motivation and stop posting without your discouraging them. Or they do, and we're about to see someone get better at art and be able to help out.
Saying "it's pretty ugly and devoid of any real design work" is a bit too mean. I mean, ugly is fine. If you really think so no need to beat around the bush, though I avoid being blunt with people I don't know because I don't think it's cool to be abrasive - devoid of any real design work would be supposing that the person you're criticizing actually knows how to do design work and decided not to; in which case it's justified to say "hey you forgot to do the thing you shoul've done".
But if it's due to the person not actually knowing where to start and how to do design work, then it's up to you to either help them out in learning how to do it, or refrain from replying.
This forum isn't here for people to feel better about their art abilities by telling other people they're worse at it - this forum is here for everyone to constantly get better. I know I did. SIX YEARS AGO *hyperventilate*
So anyway, Seefour:
- not gonna say it's not allowed to put a big fuzzy soft light ball onto your pixel art. I'm not a purist these days, but to a trained eye it literally does look like a super flat pixel art piece with a big soft light on it - it's easy to separate the two.
what you want is the illusion of light falling on a physical doorway with a shape, not a flat-looking doorway with an ill fitting light shining on it. Basically:
your underlying pixel art has pretty solid transitions between pixel colors, high contrast pixels next to each other. And then there's the soft light that creates ultra smooth color transitions between pixels. It doesn't match up. Not yet!
- what is your idea about this piece. do you have any inspiration for it, any ambitions with what you want it to look like? Do you have a project you want to use it for or is it just a stand alone piece?
- if you want people to be able to edit this, please post it at 1x size without the light. on these boards you can zoom in on any picture just by clicking at it, so 1x is completely fine in all cases.