ENEMY GFX

[rinkuhero]

Okay, I released a shareware game called Immortal Defense, but I'm going to continue updating it and improving it. One of the biggest things that's been bothering me about it is the pixel art of the enemies. I think it's okay, but could be improved.

Here's a link to the game's enemy graphics pixel art: http://s93996480.onlinehome.us/idenemy/index2.html

This forum has some of the best pixel artists in the world, I've been told. It was recommended to me that if I want to improve the game's graphics than this is the best place to ask about how to do it, so here I am. Any general suggestions would be very welcome.

[philipptr]

Welcome.
Most of the pictures in this link are not pixel art. The only thing that seems like real pixel art is the ship.
Pixel art is made with full control over each pixel which means that you dont use brushes, transparency or antialiased line tool.
If you want to improve I think you should post one thing that you really want critique on, and work on that until you are statisfied with it.

[rinkuhero]

That's a pretty interesting definition of it; while I do think every pixel matters in these, it's true that they were drawn using brushes at times rather than pixel by pixel. Good suggestion too about going one by one rather than all at once. People have mentioned that the ship looks the best of these, and that was intentionally drawn in a different style (because all the others belong to one enemy race, except for the ship which is built by your side).

So what I may have to do is completely re-draw them all without using any tools, anti-alias it all by hand etc. etc. -- it would take time but it'd probably be worth it.

[9_6]

Well that's what pixelart is.
What was your idea of it?
It's not neccesarily better than 'normal' digital art though, you only have a whole lot more control over the image.

That ship lacks volume, it looks flat.
Raise the cotrast a bit and lower the saturation of the colours.
Also those red pixels around its shape look a bit out of place maybe you should get rid of them.

Overall all of your animations could use more frames to make them look more smooth, especially that SQUALID PLUS, the FORM, COARSE and DEFENDER.
PANOPTICON could move its body a bit more, it looks a bit too stiff imo.

Mr. bavakh could use more shades to make him look less flat and a bit less jumpy tentacle movement -maybe more frames could help here-.

Overall your colour choice is pretty boring.
Try to incorporate some hue shifting to make things more interesting.

[rinkuhero]

What my idea of pixel art is was more like 'something which still looks like something even though it's a very small image and only uses a small number of pixels'. But your definition is more accurate, yes.

Excellent comments 9_6, I'll try all of those, thanks!

[Gil]

I consider your art to be full 100% pixel art without any doubt, but that's probably just me. Basically there are two different groups in pixelation, purists, and people with a broader look on pixel art. I consider myself with the broader group. If you look at communities like PixelJoint.com, you'll see they tend towards the purist side.

As for your art, I like your AA, though it is a bit blurry. You'll need to work on the ship. Get some colour variance in your ramps (hue shifts, etc) and get to work on getting depth and/or reflection in there.

[Dusty]

I consider your art to be full 100% pixel art without any doubt, but that's probably just me. Basically there are two different groups in pixelation, purists, and people with a broader look on pixel art. I consider myself with the broader group. If you look at communities like PixelJoint.com, you'll see they tend towards the purist side.

He said himself that he used brushes, I don't see how that's pixel art, in even the broadest look.

[sharprm]

I think the others look fine, its the graveship that looks the worst. I'd draw the graveship like you drew the others, maybe how you drew the coin. More frames would be good, tentacle near
monster's hand gets confused with dissapearing finger.

[Gil]

He said himself that he used brushes, I don't see how that's pixel art, in even the broadest look.

Let's not go off-topic here. Pixel art has nothing to do with the brush you use.

[ptoing]

Does to, depending if you use ones that have automatic aa, that's dirty. Tho I call anything a brush, be it with or without aa capabilities. [/ot]

Anyway, nice to have you here rinkuhero, I am sure you can learn something here.

Generally these could use some cleaning, be sharper (to read better at 1x) and have their colours optimised.
Also, will the game always be on a dark background, near black, with nothing on it, because if not that heavy aa might backfire and look really fringy against stuff in the back.

Keep it up.

[rinkuhero]

Yes, the game will always have a fairly dark background (at times it flashes brighter, but only for a moment). However, these are drawn to the screen as PNGs with semi-transparency, so they will alias with whatever is behind them.

I agree that more color variance is needed and that some are a bit blurry; we now plan to re-do most of them at a larger size, keeping the basic designs for most of them, but re-drawing them.

Thanks for all your help again,