Sunset Ocean

[AnnIshman]

I understand this is borderline pixel art. I assure you much time has been spent zoomed 10000% fiddling pixels. The purpose of this is an exercise in color and working with limited palettes. I think that part is a success although I admit I went for the easiest scene working with these four colors.

Some things in particular I'd like to get some crit on is there are many places in the wave-swirl-bulbs that the line weight and pixel clumps looks a bit meh. After lots of pixel pushing I gave some AA a go but with this palette I could not make it work. I have a love/hate relationship with the wave-bulbs themselves. Sometimes it feels like they work and sometimes it feels like a bunch of line swirls that don't represent waves at all.

The clouds and sky I am happy with, but any comments are welcome.

[pistachio]

The first thing I noticed was the pallette and how it was so high in contrast...

I really need to give my eyes a rest before I go on with crits, it's a bit too much for me. Maybe more than a bit.

[AnnIshman]

The color choices could probably do with some explanation. The exercise was about using a limited set of colors and not so much about choosing said colors so I did a very scientific process of opening a color index book to a random page and choosing a color set. I wanted to go a different route from using the more common palettes from hardware of yonder age.

The point being the colors are locked, now what can you do with them? Color tweak suggestions are welcome if deemed necessary, but it is not really what I was focusing on accomplishing. Thanks!

[adamisgr8]

You might have been able to add a stray yelloe on the left and right of the main yellowy area in the sea. But I think that it is a great achievement

Off topic, is there an introductory thread?

[AnnIshman]

Many edits all over the place. I tried to address a number of things including clutter, lack of wave layering, overall sloppiness with the depth, simplifying, on and on. There are a few more spots I'd like to carve into however it is late here and I am exhausted. I think it is moving in the right direction.

[st0ven]

this piece would benefit greatly from being a vector piece. Not to say that just because its big, but because the individual pixels serve no value to the imagery, quite the opposite, the rigid intersects of color are quite glaring, making it feel rudimentary and unrefined.

The subject matter isnt amazingly exciting either. I think that 'pretty things' like sunsets and rainbows truly do attract a lot of people to draw, but the only semi interesting thing about it to me is the clouds. Sun is dead center of the screen, the horizon is almost dead center of the screen, it makes for a very simple composition that wont hold or attract your viewers attention at all.

one last issue i have with your bold yellow choice for the sky, while its quite striking, ive never seen a sunset make the sky THAT bright, and without any gradation into any cooler colors it makes the sky look very hot/alien (like a sea of lava on mercury perhaps).

I recommend trying to get a trial copy of flash or some free vector painting programs available and try recreating this piece using those tools i think youll find the final imagery much more appealing while still utilizing very few solid colors to illustrate your scenery.

[AnnIshman]

I agree with your points about the composition. I went with what is the most obvious here which ultimately comes out simple and boring. This is primarily for the learning and secondary for the aesthetics.

I am familiar with vector art applications and while I appreciate the suggestion, I respectfully disagree with there being no value to the individual pixels here. My favorite parts of the image are the tiny splotches of sharp pixels streaming from the clouds and the starkness in many areas that ultra fine vectors would destroy. I do agree that some areas would benefit from being vector, I suppose my question would be what suggestions do you have to pull these places more into being interesting pixel art as opposed to giving in to going vector with it? I understand I am simplifying something complex into a slider, but any thoughts would be nice to hear.

I have considered doing a dither fade with the sky and the ocean, as well as dither in a number of other spots. This feels a bit like cheating since I would be using the dither more to try to increase my color count, circumventing my original purpose of trying to make four colors work.  I think at this point it might be necessary because beyond further refining the waves I can't think of anything more to do to improve it, and it is in need of improving.

[st0ven]

I agree with your points about the composition. I went with what is the most obvious here which ultimately comes out simple and boring. This is primarily for the learning and secondary for the aesthetics.

I am familiar with vector art applications and while I appreciate the suggestion, I respectfully disagree with there being no value to the individual pixels here. My favorite parts of the image are the tiny splotches of sharp pixels streaming from the clouds and the starkness in many areas that ultra fine vectors would destroy. I do agree that some areas would benefit from being vector, I suppose my question would be what suggestions do you have to pull these places more into being interesting pixel art as opposed to giving in to going vector with it? I understand I am simplifying something complex into a slider, but any thoughts would be nice to hear.

I have considered doing a dither fade with the sky and the ocean, as well as dither in a number of other spots. This feels a bit like cheating since I would be using the dither more to try to increase my color count, circumventing my original purpose of trying to make four colors work.  I think at this point it might be necessary because beyond further refining the waves I can't think of anything more to do to improve it, and it is in need of improving.

I am observing your piece and i dont really see any aspect about it that is truly pixel relevant. you may enjoy the sharpness you would get from the edges of two colors meeting without any AA but that doesnt mean it is a technique of pixel art. Something that just looks 'pixelly' isnt always aesthetically pleasing.

If you focus your sight on the magenta engulfing one of your sections of blue, you can get a hint of a halo effect around the blue hitting that amazingly saturated magenta and that has a blurring effect anyway. (if this is just me and my eyesight someone definitely let me know). If there were pixel techniques used here im not sure theyd even look that sharp as a result.

If you wanted to make it pixel relevant, really push the square nature of the pixel in your expression of shapes found in the piece. Otherwise exploring the organic nature of the forms involved with limited color representation is probably better left to other higher res solutions, namely vector.

[Mathias]

Couldn't agree with steve more. And with vector, AA isn't mandatory. Just turn it off. By doing this in vector instead you could easily drag around points and vector shapes. Would be worlds easier. But, obviously you're dead-set on using only pixel methods for this. To each his own.

More focused on what you got here - your shapes are all over the place. If you're going to go such a "representational" route, why not attempt better more traditionally symbolic shapes. Change those random noodley wave crests to shapes easier to recognize as flowing water/waves.

Gotta be honest, hate the palette. It's the only thing I notice. I get caught up in it. If you were using funky stylized shapes or maybe more 80's-esque motifs it could make sense, but . . .

Felt like a fast edit swapping existing colors around, no shape edits, kept your palette since I know you aren't changing it.

[StaticSails]

A while ago on this board there was a huge discussion about color and palette creation. Some people said how they made palettes and others examined palettes people had been using. Along the way someone said that a color was ugly, the discussion halted. Some people defended the color. It wasn't the colors fault it didn't work well in the palette. On it's own it was a nice color, with the right colors it'd be beautiful.
Someone (may have been ptoing!) said "There are no ugly colors, just ugly combinations of color."

So I'm saying these are nice colors individually. Together they just don't work, they've got a bit of eye-burning in them. Since you're too stubborn to change them I suggest you pick a better combination of colors for future projects. Also, try to work a bit smaller to get a bit more from the medium.

Though you like the sharpness, it becomes overwhelming. Everything has that sharpness. In Arne's art tut he briefly goes over focus points. I suggest reading it over before wasting spending time on another project.
http://www.itchstudios.com/psg/art_tut.htm#focus_points

Mathias' edit is surprisingly easier to read. You can actually see the sun. St0ven and Mathias both have great points, read those both until they sink in.

[AnnIshman]

I did some quick box dithering to get a feel for bringing down the harshness of some of the colors and contact points. I think this helps in some ways and hurts in others. It comes across more as dawn than dusk to me now so I may bring in more of the orange to bring back some of the vividness of the sky.

I hope I do not come across as hard headed or dismissive. I appreciate all the comments and advice.

st0ven
I think you're dead on about the purple and blue being very harsh when next to each other in large chunks. If I am going to make this funky palette work I will be more mindful of that. Your comment of pushing the square nature of the pixel intrigues me, and I'd appreciate if you could go on a bit more about that as I am not sure I fully understand.

Mathias
It is interesting that I find this much blue in your edit to be too harsh for me, but in my original I find the orange sky and purple water not nearly as disturbing. I followed your lead of dropping the waves outside of the sunlight in my edit. Not because I want to remove them entirely. I think they distract from the numerous other issues I'd like to focus on first.

StaticSails
I find the reaction to these colors interesting. Don't get me wrong, I can see what everyone is saying and where their complaints are coming from, I suppose I have not given up yet on my original intentions of trying to make them work. I take into account that there is a lot of experience here working with limited colors and people have a good feel for when combinations do not work. I feel compelled for my own understanding to keep at it and if in the end concede that I cannot make them work together I hope that it is because I explored all my options and learned a thing or two.

[AnnIshman]

Reverted all the way back. Dithered and deleted for hours. Have arrived here.

[pistachio]

[snip]

I did some quick box dithering to get a feel for bringing down the harshness of some of the colors and contact points. I think this helps in some ways and hurts in others. It comes across more as dawn than dusk to me now so I may bring in more of the orange to bring back some of the vividness of the sky.

Honestly I have to say this one is somehow the easiest on my eyes and with a bit of smoothing up the dithering, perhaps adding some detail here and there, it'd be quite closer to finished. But the latest update almost seems somehow worse than what you started with. How do I explain: the two colors clash with eachother a great deal, and the level of detail and most of the dithering is so small you have to squint to see it. I think this is because it's being used on such a large scale, yet you're still using it as if the piece is smaller. So I see no use in it, really. All it does is make what's supposed to be the sea look more like some sort of very rough fabric or the static you see on old televisions, just blue-r. And I've never seen the sun glow so brightly, which is why I believe you should bring back the clouds and make the sky get darker gradually as it moves away from the sun, but more of a radial gradient.

Actually, come to think of it, at a size like this I'd listen to st0ven--unless you make use of the "pixel" aspect this would be much better off as a vector piece. But for the pixel aspect thing, I think you could do by scaling down the image a bit, in my mind (but that's just me).

One last thing; did you ever consider bringing up references? I think they'll help you greatly in determining how to properly shade and depict things and which direction you want to take it in, and how stylized you want to be. Here's one... And here's another but the first one was better.

[Mathias]

But your dither just creates purple. Why not just use purple then? It doesn't look like water with all the grain.

[skamocore]

I don't have too much of an issue with the garish false-colour stuff; It can work if that's what you're going for. Where did you get the colours from BTW? Did you pick them or was it some pre-defined palette from somewhere else?

Anyway, I think the main thing you should do before you continue any further is reducing the size of the piece drastically. Working at about 1/4 of this size would be good. That way you'll really be able to pay attention to the pixel details instead of doing that copy-paste dither thing that you had going in the previous version.

[AnnIshman]

Sorry for the minimal explanation with the latest image. Brain is sludge tired. It is far from done. The sky is a flat color because I removed everything in the image and focused on the water first. I have not abandoned the dithering idea yet. I agree the water has a noisy, grainy feel to it that I plan to work out more. Overall I am much happier with it than the stylized waves. I messed with the wave swirls for hours and hours and never could get them to feel right. Maybe it is the colors. Maybe I am a terrible artists. Probably both.

I have considered dropping the resolution. I am not ready to give up quite yet. I'd like to explore the grainy thing a bit more before I do.

To maybe clarify some misconceptions, if anyone feels like doing color value, res, or any other edits, please very much do so. Just because I am slamming my head against the wall trying to make these colors work does not mean I'll turn a blind eye to other edits outside of my little rules. Explanations of why adding a tiny hint of blue to a color and how it will rock my world would be amazingly helpful. My goal here is to learn more about colors and using them effectively, not creating an awesome sunset scene. Who seriously draws sunset scenes?

pistachio
I find it interesting that you find the sun too bright when in the images you've linked for reference the sun is close to white in both of them. Unless you meant the sky? Which again is basically untouched at this point.

skamocore
I got the colors out of a color index book for designers. I personally like the colors in combination, but I can completely understand why people would feel they are ugly. I also agree that I have used them in ugly ways in this very thread.

[pistachio]

pistachio
I find it interesting that you find the sun too bright when in the images you've linked for reference the sun is close to white in both of them. Unless you meant the sky? Which again is basically untouched at this point.

Yup, I meant the sky. You'd think the sun was going supernova rather than setting.

[AnnIshman]

More edits. I don't like the sky as is. I plan to edit it more to make it looks less cartoony. Water looks less like white noise, but still needs some work. I like where this is headed. I am not sure how much more time I will put into this before I move on to either lower res, color messing, or something else entirely.

Thanks again for all the help up to this point.

(Side note: my host seems to be dying randomly. I'll go a few hours without being able to see my stuff or upload anything. Anyone else get this or just me? I'll bug them about it, just curious if it is just me. Edit: Thanks, ptoing. Support email sent with stern words of the importance of my very lucrative site. I am sure dozens of engineers are working late into the night to figure it out.)

[schmohawk]

Don't take out the clouds. They look great.

[Demian]

You started with nice clouds and sucky water, now it seems to be the opposite, i really like how you made it look like water . Why don't you add your original clouds to this last version?

[ptoing]

I think something like this works well. What I did was make a curved line at the top of the sky and then fill it with the vertical contour gradient thingy, of course you have to remove the clouds and sun for that and make sure you have an even line at the bottom as well. but it's simple enough to make a version where you remove all the orange and then paste the clouds and sun back in afterwards.

I like the colours in this, very vibrant.

[Mathias]

An unexpected upgrade! The style is totally different now, but the aesthetics are way better. I can actually look at this and enjoy it now. Only 4 colors.

[pistachio]

You're doing a bit better now. Bit of cleanup could be used on the ocean. The gradient could be a bit more circleish. And ptoing, I am digging that edit.

[AnnIshman]

It took me some time to figure out where the feature you were talking about is, ptoing. Once I tracked it down much fun was had doing completely ridiculous edits. Amazing feature set there, thanks for pointing it out!

I've tried a lot of edits to try and make a boat work and I have arrived here. It looks like a toy, which is okay with me. The boat's wake is shit. If I do another edit past this I'll clean it up.

I tried to make the old clouds work with the noisy gradient stuff and could not find anything that worked. I like these stringy simple clouds. They are not as dramatic as what I started with, but they work.

The birds. I don't know. The bird looking directly at us is totally contrived, but I am going to keep it. Without it, the birds facing the other way look like purple blobs because that is what they are.

[StaticSails]

I hope you (and others too!) can appreciate how far this has come. From being something almost pointless to something fairly impressive this has gone through quite a bit.  Good job.

Now I think that the dithering could use some solid clusters, specifically in the ocean and it's waves. The boat's wake could use quite the opposite. Play with dither AAing on that boat.

Very amazing progress, sorry I doubted you.