Pixelation
Critique => Pixel Art => Topic started by: Hishnak on June 23, 2009, 06:14:44 pm
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I haven't pixelled in far too long so I started working on this ship because they're my favorite. I like to give it more dimension and pop, maybe diversify the colors and get some interesting shading tones and take this to the next level you know?
(http://www.aphoticpixel.com/images/sprites/spacecraft.gif)
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Yes, I do know. Don't be afraid to hide details you value in shadow. Right now you need a better light scheme. Highlight the upper part and obscure the lower in more shadow and steal some contrast from it while you do.
Right now, it could better resemble a ship; it could pass for a large weapon - the sharp bladey thing in bottom left looks like a modern bayonet feature and the top left blunt element thingy a barrel. How does this land? Can it? A glass dome somewhere in front would definitely help make more readible as a ship, but you may not want that, it's a rather common detail for a ship.
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I thought weapon as well. In fact, the area that looks like a bayonet (left) I thought could be something that sits aside the wrist of a mech, holding it as a gun and firing out past the fins via the 'propulsion' (right).
Regardless, I like the design. Instead of a glass dome, perhaps slits to indicate windows on the cockpit to help give some idea of scale. Is it a one man craft, or a thousand? If it's a small fighter drone, maybe it only docks in the mothership - how does it dock? Landing gear, or does it hook into something and remain suspended? What functions as weaponry? I can figure out the propulsion immediately, so that's good.
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Hishnak!
Off topic: Great to see you pixeling again! I know I recently said this - but I'm a huge fan of your pixel games: Kyoto Village, Samhaim, and Christmas Stone. Looks like this is more for a shmup than a platformer.
On Topic: To help it appear more as a spacecraft than as a weapon, perhaps a small windshield of sorts. Not sure if that fits in with your designs for the ship, though.
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The comments are really helpful guys. I've added more shadows and tried to use more of my dark shade. I've also redesigned the ship a bit to appear more ship like. I've also tried to hint a bit more at landing gear with the projections from the bottom.
(http://www.aphoticpixel.com/images/sprites/spacecraft_update1.gif)
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I liked the original bottom better; it looked reasonably mechanical, while the revised one is only a pair of greyish (why not orange like the rest?) triangular spikes that would look more comfortable on a ram (like in certain ancient ships; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trireme (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trireme)) that in the vicinity of a landing strip or an aircraft carrier.
On the whole, the modified design doesn't look significantly more "ship-like" than the first one, except perhaps for making the top left section unlike a gun barrel. The blue pieces, considered in isolation, look quite like a futuristic handgun in both versions alike.
Colours and shadows are mostly improved: the darker blue is crispier, but shading of the top-center orange portion is ruined by the increased fragmentation of parts that were already too small in the first version.
In general, I don't believe in gratuitous details (like the yellow stripes in the top and bottom right fins): your ship would be too complicated at any size, but conveying what 1-pixel parts are is asking too much. The purple outline is another extravagant luxury; being the darkest colour purple should only be used for the darkest shadows, as you cannot afford outlines that are wider than what they outline.
To elaborate on Scribblette's remarks, the most plausible ship type for what I see is:
- Small because it doesn't have empty or repetitive portions (i.e. it is so crowded that it seems be the smallest hull where every system can fit), but not very small (there is an awful lot of stuff).
- Deep space/airless environments only because it is anti-streamlined; the usefulness of the bottom right fin is dubious, as it is neither a wing nor a weapon mount like those in modern attack helicopters.
- Unmanned because there isn't anything remotely similar to a cockpit.
- armed with several forward-facing serious weapons.
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I definitely understand the overcrowded to complex feel so I tried to reduce some detail.
The purple outline is another extravagant luxury; being the darkest colour purple should only be used for the darkest shadows, as you cannot afford outlines that are wider than what they outline.
Is it necessarily "wrong" to have a double outline? Can't areas of solid color indicate the deepest shadows?
(http://www.aphoticpixel.com/images/sprites/spacecraft_update3.gif)
Whoa, I just noticed that my colors have completely changed since the original. I'm not sure how that happened?
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Yeah. new colors are way too vibrant. Must be a color profile problem. What software you use?
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Pixen on Mac. It looks like each time I save the file the colors become more and more saturated.
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Pixen is a horrible program. Mac's need a REAL pixel app.
Pixen has all the things a pixel artist would need, but nothing works right.
As for the sprite, It's much more of a simplifed symbolic representation of what it's trying to be, but if that's what you're going for, then good : D
The pixel tech is nice and clean.
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The purple outline is another extravagant luxury; being the darkest colour purple should only be used for the darkest shadows, as you cannot afford outlines that are wider than what they outline.
Is it necessarily "wrong" to have a double outline? Can't areas of solid color indicate the deepest shadows?
That's what I said. There is good purple, in the deepest shadows, and bad purple, in gratuitous outlines all around the outside border and the interior.
I don't think this piece has enough room for outlines, let alone double ones; if you really feel they are needed, you should restrict them to the exterior silhouette and make them consistent (currently the outline has large gaps in the upper left portion and inconsistent thickness in many places).
The third revision cleans up some little defects and adds about the same number, but the cluttered overall design got slightly worse: the top orange portion has a new blue bar and blue dots that, together with the preexisting diagonal of blue dots, suggest a fluorescent tropical fish rather than a machine.
What's the rationale of the orange/blue colour combination in general? Real world ships have the "natural" appearance of their materials or a principled paint job, not such arbitrary patterns.