id say before you go any further with detail pixel work, i think you should consider throwing a lot more color theory at it and see what sticks.

so youve got this tunnel of light/fire which breathes warmth out onto the otherwise grim, ghastly dungeon-like cobblestone environment. yet the only evidence of the warmth that i see is some minor ambient light blobs being cast on the upper edges of the cobblestone. Take a look at the cooler tones used down the length of the corridor... they share the same purple hue that you are using for the foreground open room area. if you want to give that room back there some real fire, try keeping the shadow tones in the orangish/reddish area (if youre an advanced color user, using a lot of desaturated greens or magentas might lend well here just the same, so long as theyre more grey than saturated). Right now the purple creeps up too closely to the intensely heated room behind the distant door.

Another thing which will punch some life into this to really make the eye catch the heat in the distance is to really darken that tunnel to a near black , particularly in the middle of the corridor where the light from either room isnt able to quite reach very well. its this play of light to very dark to back to light (very quickly) which is going to establish that strong contrast youre going to need to really make this reddish fire look like its searing, piping hot.

In general, subduing the saturation of the purple, more particularly in the mid and shadow tones, would do this piece well, and would help give it more of a natural feel in its lighting.

when i get home ill mock up some examples.

First of all, id like to thank Dan for being our temporary saving grace for giving us this space for a brief period of time. Some things are being ironed out with a more stable, capable host. I apologize for the short inconvenience.

ill expect this switch to happen no later than a week from now, ill post a warning to let everyone know when this will go down so there are no surprises.

keep the pixels purple,

-st0ve 

aside from mere trifling color comments (though i think that the progression of hue mixture that resulted from the ping-ponging of posts has very much improved the initial version), i have some comments about the motion itself.

first of all, his stance feels way too open for me. if i were holding a rather large gun that had a significant recoil, if i was standing what seems like perfectly straight, with my feet spread wide in a manner which negated all stability bending my knees would have otherwise provided, i think the recoil would make me fall over. i just don tthink the angle of his leg is in any position to absorb such a shock, and i get the feeling that he should kindof just topple over after the first blast. if you turn his foreground leg in a manner that his knee was sticking somewhere in the same direction the gun was firing, that would be a bit more realistic, but note that a lot of his weight would be leaning on the leg in the background (if he leans too far back on the leg in the foreground he would not be stable enough to absorb that blow.

also, the recoil i think is well done, but when the gun is repositioned, it actually goes a pixel farther than the initial point of which it was held when the gun was held. this is either an unnatural reaction that the man firing the gun has everytime he fires, or sir isaac newton truly was a fool. i think you have the idea straight, that the initial blast would displace the gun backwards rather quickly, but the return motion would be much more gradual, and shouldnt exceed the initial firing point in this case.

hes tiny, but i think your animated elements look rather nice, at least for the blast and subsequent smoke. looking at the animation again, i think i get this 'im going to fall over' feel from it because it appears there is a good bunch of horizontal shifting done on the character rather than re-plotting the pixels in an appropriate manner

well, i can see how the not-so-verbose can post nothing more than 'oooh-aaaah', but im really starting to get a bit tired of those posts personally.. .not that everything has to be scrutinized to death, but i think that someone could point out that 'sparkliness' does not have to be a direct result of a little twinkle animation... in fact, despite really liking the design of things, all the sparklies really make it too confusing to look at if you ask me. When i think of 'sparklies' like that, i think one of two things.

A. final fantasy 6 heal spell,
B. a gem/jewel/high class diamond shimmering in some light, (and even then they would be done for either comical effect or through movement of the item, refracting the light in a brief instant in a manner that might catch the 'camera's eye).

so if you have some of those studded metal pieces that are round (and would probably look really nice as rubies or diamonds or something) then i think the flashie effect would work really well there.

otherwise, i think you should be defining these high reflection areas with ample contrast only. the chest plate grate thing and the little loop of metal around the waist is a great use of this without the sparklies. As for the leafy things, perhaps on the outskirts of the heavy outlines, you could have some ambient reflections near the edges , much like you have done (very nicely) on osmi's head? id also think it would work appropriately around the outside edge of the gold trimming on the shield, to really give it that shine. perhaps you could introduce one more bright yellow color that would segue the white reflection in the gold into the next darkest (and quite literal) 'gold' tone you have established, i think in some of the smoother areas that might look quite nice to AA the highlights (sans sparklies) to the rest of the gold tones.

i really do like the shield effect, looks nice and glass-like. the creative design in the entire piece is really quite fun and interesting, and id defiinitely recognize it as you as soon as i saw it.

oh, one last thing... while as a whole this is a really nice image... i cant get over how muddled and neglected the head-piece looks in comparison to the rest of the gold and the octopus guy... perhaps the red is too dark and i htink that black outline in there is killing its continuity. that fluff needs to look brighter perhaps?

anyhow i thought it would be nice to give some real comments on your piece, i hope you dont mind, im just a little tired of the 'whoazQQ!!!1' kindof posts around here (casts hard eyes around)  <_<   >_>   <_<.

well looking at this thread i can see why this hasnt gotten a lot of commentary on it, aside from it not being finished, it makes it hard for people to say short praise for an item that is only half finished, and to that effect, you cant comment on half the stuff one would comment on (such as use of lighting, color, technique, etc) when there isnt much to see.

the design is interesting enough, though i think that the facial features of this guy seem a little bland (kindof the round face, pointy , nondescript eyes, fangs, almost cartoonish horns popping out of the head). he doesnt look very... well, fearsome, but rather some dude out of an image comic book. 

These kinds of peices are so hard, because the anatomy and the actual figure drawing behind something like this, basically makes or breaks the image. and it does no good to proceed with the details without getting that most fundamental stage perfect.... and we arent quite there yet with this piece. The more i draw the more i learn i personally know nothing (or not nearly as much as i need to ) about the very specifics of anatomy, so i understand how hard this can be.

proportionally, the arm/shoulder/back are very large when compared to the size of the neck and head itself it seems. i like how the cape is draping over his figure, though at this point it really lacks any comprehension of dynamism, which is ever so important to get the cloth to appear not to hover over top the image. the anatomy of the neck does not feel accurate at all, you seem to be portraying the trapezoidal muscle groups to merge directly into the base of the skull, when they really would otherwise seem to attach half way down the neck (otherwise we wouldnt have a back of our neck). well second look at it, they clearly arent trapezoid muscles, but the way they merge together make it seem like the are being formed much in the same way... they just look too thick and divided.

actually.. dont you have a more recent version than this? i had some comments on the back muscles having a similar sort of overexaggerated, over simplified feel to them (very comic-esque in style i suppose) but then as i llooked at the image for reference its all blank there.

anyhow if youre holding out on us pixelopolis folks, i think they need to see a complete effort of what you can do before they can really put the time into critiquing and giving their best advice. kindof follow me there? it seems youve got a tendency to kindof half way finish things and then as you make a but of progress on something you just kindof stop at that and stay stuck. you need to really just stay motivated to finish these peices so you can get past the phase of showing it around to the point of pushing it near completion .