MASSIVE ALIEN PINCER INSECT BOSS [WIP]

[QuaziGNRLnose]

Well i started this originally on pixel joint but it died out and was getting too long, erm 2000+ views 91 comments. so anyways i decided to post it here, its is my first real pixel piece ever and ill post its many stages all at once, AND YES I KNOW IT STARTS OFF EXTREMELY SHITTY BUT PLZ LOOK AT ALL THE PICTURES the final ones are really nice






WAY TOO MANY COLOURS AND BAD PALLETE AT THAT


and my fav, it looks like C64 colours abit IMO but is still very WIP PLEASE C&C its what i need most

[EvilEye]

I don't even want to know how long it took you to dither all that.

From the progression pictures it looks like you practically 3d / rendered it by hand.

The last one is colored well, but the shape is uneven, you need to straighten it out.

[Dusty]

Ya, the form is very distracting, it doesn't look like the face is symmetrical.

Also, I think this is way too big, maybe try it at half the size? Otherwise you have a lot of empty space to fill.

[QuaziGNRLnose]

I don't even want to know how long it took you to dither all that.

From the progression pictures it looks like you practically 3d / rendered it by hand.

The last one is colored well, but the shape is uneven, you need to straighten it out.

well it could use some fixing after all thats why its here, but would you like to maybe point out exactly what, because after dithering soo much your mind kinda thinks in checkered pattern aswell lol
and ya the 3d blocks part was my solution to fixing that horrid piece i started with

[QuaziGNRLnose]

Ya, the form is very distracting, it doesn't look like the face is symmetrical.

Also, I think this is way too big, maybe try it at half the size? Otherwise you have a lot of empty space to fill.

well although i regret its size a little,its too late to fix that now after 3 hours+ of work. anyways it needs to be that big for a little game project im working on. i know its quite massive but i guess its good practice because all i ever tried b4 this was very small sprites for small games, and those sucked
anyways like in the coment b4 you could u try to tell me what exactly needs fixing?

[QuaziGNRLnose]

oh yes i forgot to show this, its a little bit messed up but it shows the form a little better (some lines are completeley wrong tho)

[QuaziGNRLnose]

this is supposed to be at a slight angle so it gets confusing when ur tracing the lines. but also u must remember that this is A large image, very dithered and it gets VERY confusind to shade it, because of its hyper complex/irregular curves and shape. also note that its large so making an error in the shading is very unforgiving and is amplified by its size. this uses about 16-18 colours i think and well its very difficult to get the look i want when i have barely anything to help hide mistakes, right now im (trying 0_0) to shade the mandibles but im getting way too confused on how the light is supposed to bounce of them. they are  a strange shape at a strange angle and calculating the light is very hard for a 13 year old like me to process. im not too sure how i  want them to look texture wise but im sorta leaning toward a very shiny dark brown/pigiron feel. im open to suggestions on how to achieve my goal thank you.

[TrevoriuS]

As is said, do this on a way waaay smaller scale. My I suggest 200x200 for starters?

[QuaziGNRLnose]

i just feel ive come to far to scrap it now, and IT NEEDS to be this size

[TrevoriuS]

1. What gives it this need?
2. Are you certain this should be pixelart then? In pixelart you pay attention to every single pixel, there's too many now.

[QuaziGNRLnose]

well its pixel art right now isnt it?

[EvilEye]

Well first before you do your pixeling, you need to make sure your lines are correct.

I went ahead and drew some reference lines according to how the head is positioned. I drew the correct lines in red, then drew some blue lines across your drawing to show how they were off.



Now using the red lines I redrew the head to show you the difference.



As for the size, pixeling just the head won't be terribly hard, but, pixeling a body to go with it, then animate it... thats a LOT of work, and a lot of dithering.

Anyway, the whole thing with making lines like its in a 3d modeling program is not really necessary ( or recommended ). What is important is you get a basic shape down and make sure its correctly proportioned and aligned, and THEN pixel it.

[QuaziGNRLnose]

well thats a nice edit, although i promise ill fix some things, i cant change everything the way you did it, just because it skews the shape a bit too much into an undesired shape , but i can see by your edit that the maing plate, (that tricerotopssih thing) need to be lowered on the right and closer to the head on the left, that should correct most of it, oh ya, about the animation, its not going to be dawn in frame by frame(for obvious reasons) but more in pieces, and the claws will be rotated by the game engine but will have extra frames for the lighting, but im probably not using this for the game anyways, more of a practice now since im switching to photoshop graphics so my game looks unique, and not just another pixeled game. i feel thats been done too much. and about the time it will take, im not too woried about that, its more of a for fun project than anything

[AdamAtomic]

I think it would be worth exploring the form more before you start doing finished shading on it.  It's a pretty dull shape currently, and would benefit from more structural detail before you even think about adding heavy dithering!

[QuaziGNRLnose]

ive just begun the head, and im going t add way more detail to it, its just the base model right now, i plan on adding thick hairs and cracks also looks a bit dull cause of no eyes, ill add dimples ect minor detailsin large abundance

[TrevoriuS]

Why do you need finished shading on a portion on which a crack and different detail is going to be drawn anyways?

[QuaziGNRLnose]

well its not finished shading, and because it gets very confusing to realise how light reacts on the object without having the actual object there. also i find it hard to make the dull shape more intresting its supossed to be the way it is now, and i dont plan on adding too many gizmos to it. im open too suggestions on what i can add.

[QuaziGNRLnose]

well i tried my hand at making his eyes but although im happy with the result (it looks friggin photorealistic) im not happy with its design, i found out its very hard to make an insects eyes show emotion, they only show a blank stare, and cant show anger like i want, i might make the eye have a pupil so i can show anger, but then ill have to change it completely. yes it is just a shiny sphere, but i find it was good practice for shading a almost mirror surface. tell me if you like or not, and why, as always open to suggestions

looks best at 2x zoom

[Weasel]

If you're trying to express emotion or character in something with essentially dead looking eyes as part of it's design, you might want to think more carefully about it's posing and body language when you do get around to giving it a body to counter for that. Plus even with eyes without pupils, moveable eyebrows etc. giving the eye an aggressive looking shape can help a lot.

Also, I think what people have been trying to point out isn't problems with your rendering (which is impressive and ambitious on this scale) but the fact the underlying structure of the head seems off kilter or wonky in areas, such as the right eye/s could probably do with moving up and to the left a bit, which would undermine your hard work work however well it's shaded.

[QuaziGNRLnose]

first of all thanks for aying my rendering was impressive, thats the type of drive i need, and ill see if giving a sorta angry s curve to the eye will help. about that moving the eye part, i find it would look extremely less wonky if i moved the right shield down so that it gets proper alignment

[Weasel]

You're actually definitely right on that looking at it again now you've said that, if you even/level out the top of the skull it should help a lot, as it's obviously throwing people off at the moment and skewing the entire thing.

[Helm]

I do suggest you do more shaping than rendering before you hit the pixel polish level.

[QuaziGNRLnose]

holy hell helm your awesome 

wow nice edit, it captures the feel id like to go for, but its a bit too bulbuos i dont intend such a sphere-ish shape but for sure im gonna use some of those suggested shapes on the lower brows and side walls of the face also i like the bump under his higher eyes the concave on the sides the lower face/teeth area is EXCACTLY what i want.

oh ya is that PS or did you sketch it first?

and i do wish adding those forms were as easy as a brush stroke :/

[Helm]

It's actually easier with a range of tones in pixel art. Pixelling is the fastest, most mutable way to lay down volumetrics, I think. I'm glad to have been of service and yeah these are just suggested 'bumps', just some shapes to get you going. I use Manga Studio to do my sketching mostly. This edit is a hilarious 600 dpi 20cm-20cm drawing monster sucking 30 megabytes of storage before it was shrunk down for posting, haha!

What I want you to keep from the edit is contrasting softness with SHARPNESS and that your rendering should suggest the texture of the material that the object is made of. Here we have bone, bone has specific properties. Look at bone photos in GIS.

[QuaziGNRLnose]

maybe i should add darker darks and lighter light to give more refelctive? feel whadya think?

although i find pixeling fast for volumes, its VERY slow on a larger scale, compared to faster fethered brushes

and also as a future note, i think ill draw better more detailed lineart before attempting something of such LARGE scale

[Fizz]

Lineart is not the way to go!  It's a lot better if you start by blotting out the basic shapes and values in grayscale or such especially for large pieces because from lineart things can become more unnatural and flat looking.

[QuaziGNRLnose]

Lineart is not the way to go!  It's a lot better if you start by blotting out the basic shapes and values in grayscale or such especially for large pieces because from lineart things can become more unnatural and flat looking.

well if you understand the froms in your lines then youll understand what youre doing, but i do what you said, just ontop of the lineart i draw

[Conzeit]

maybe i should add darker darks and lighter light to give more refelctive? feel whadya think?

although i find pixeling fast for volumes, its VERY slow on a larger scale, compared to faster fethered brushes

and also as a future note, i think ill draw better more detailed lineart before attempting something of such LARGE scale

is anyone suggesting that you go higher scale? Helm's statement seemed more like an anecdote than anything else.

Personally, I believe feathered brushes are usually quite unprecise and just give a fuzzy impression of the volumetrics...unless they're done with a tablet and enough knowledge of them to have the precision of a (real-life)brush stroke.

[QuaziGNRLnose]

@ Conceit

no nones suggesting i go higher in scale, i meant that next time i try to make something as big as my current piece, ill pay more attention to what my lines looks like, and ill add more complex shapes to the piece to make it more exciting

also about the brushes, I wish i had a tablet but even without one you can make detailed pieces, you just need to draw a double or even triple size picture then scale it down to get more smothing and crisper edges even a mouse can do that, and of course like any other art medium, you need to know what youre doing for it to work well.