newb at the pixel

[applemonster]

Very new to the pixel art, and I just happen to run into a website called Army of Trolls and I got hooked.  I've been illustrating and doing game development for years and never thought that pixel art was that big anymore.  Guess I was way off. lol  So I thought I would get into it myself.

Few thing's I've done this morning:

           

Been looking at some tutorials as well, hope to get better. 

[applemonster]

Ok so I have a question...Is it recommended to work at final resolution?  Or work larger then sample down?  I'm currently work at 32x32 and that's the resolution I'm going for, but I just wondered if the practice is better to go with, let's say 64, then sample down to 32x.

[applemonster]

Few more btw.  Gotta start somewhere. 

       

[Phlakes]

First, never touch a gradient again when you're doing pixel art.

Alright, now, one thing you're missing is contrast. What shade of background are drawing on? If it's relatively dark, you probably won't see how light your dark values are.

Now here we go-



1. This is the original. You're using lots of colors. 10 if I didn't miss any. As you can see-

2. -6 of those 10 aren't necessary. This edit is the exact same as the original but with the colors merged together, still using only colors that were already there. Use as few colors as you can, it makes it look cleaner and keeps coherence.

3. Your shading is flat. In this case, a pumpkin is basically a sphere made of sphere-like shapes. So shade round things just like you would shade spheres, and definitely don't keep your dark tones for outlines.

4. Make it satisfying just to look at. You have 10 colors, and they're all so close together that it makes it look even flatter. Have fun with your palette. Don't be afraid to hue shift farther than you think you should, and try to keep your darkest value in the lower quarter of shades.

Those are a small fraction of a fraction of the basics, and it'll help, but I'd suggest you go find some tutorials for beginners. There's one that I've been looking for, it explains basically all the basics like antialiasing lines, simple shading, banding and all that. Maybe someone has the link?

[applemonster]

Phlakes thanks for the help.  Not sure what you mean by gradient, as everything was painted pixel by pixel.  Gradient tool? idk  Anyway, I've been doing some tutorials, and find them a huge help.  Is the one you are speaking of by chance any of the ones below?

http://www.derekyu.com/?page_id=218
http://www.natomic.com/hosted/marks/mpat/

I have more found on the web, taking my time going through them.  Here is one work in progress...maybe going at a bigger resolution would help me while I'm learning.  This one is 128x128.

[applemonster]

update: 5 colors used 

[pistachio]

Oh boy, newbies to help!

I'm fairly sure that when Phlakes said "gradient", he meant the transition from light to dark/vice versa is too smooth, or even. Usually (at least on solid materials, as far as I know) it's more sudden, except under certain lighting conditions. Here's a page from one of Andrew Loomis' books to illustrate my point--left image at top is what I mean. (By the way, Loomis has some very good books. You can actually find some PDFs around here I think, and try out some of his methods.) i'm wrong.

Moving on to your latest sprite particularly, the balance is very off, and this is no doubt apparent. He would fall over with no delay. If the lack of balance is there to create a sense of motion, I.E. he's moving, the stiff legs contradict this. Its shading is still a bit flat. The highlight of a sphere wouldn't be located at its "edge", I think (in two-dimensional terms, it wouldn't quite touch the line closest to the lightsource). The anatomy's a bit wonky too; the hand doesn't look like a hand, and similarly, the mouth not much like a mouth--the legs are stiff and the feet could very well serve as hands. Torso/ribcage is pretty wrong as well. Work on the initial lineart before moving on to the shading.

If you do want some help with that, though, here's a good place to start; take a look at some basic shapes; cones, spheres, cubes. But don't stop there or reference them occasionally. Observe them, picture how light falls on them at different angles, copy them if you feel it helps. There's also this tutorial that covers light, shade, form and some other topics. Once again, near essential.

An edit would probably be helpful, so I'll churn one out in a bit short while.

(Phlakes, is this the one you're looking for? Probably isn't... Yeah, I tell 'em about it all the time. I also have it bookmarked.)

[Phlakes]

By gradient I mean this-



It looks like it's the only one that has it, though.

And yeah, this was the tutorial I was looking for, thanks. Got it bookmarked now.

[applemonster]

guess I missed that one, ha.  Must have been burnt in there.  Forgive me! lol

Thanks for the crits and directions.  I'll hose the actual anatomy part for now and just work on technique and shading.  Working with soo little color is hard right now, and I am definitely not used to it.  I think that tut you linked to is the best one i've see so far.  I'll be sure to make another pass on this guy, use him as my learning piece.