Pixelation
Critique => Pixel Art => Topic started by: zoekmath on July 22, 2016, 12:41:53 pm
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Hey guys, I've been working some hours on a pixel art landscape. I need your opinion:
(http://i.imgur.com/FdImhqg.png)
Is the palette right? And the shading?
I did this without any reference image, it's 100% mine.
Please let me know what you think and how should I improve.
Edit: Protected the image.
Edit: I don't think it matters much, but I've changed a few things.
(http://i.imgur.com/fti4PtG.png)
Edit:
-Changed the sky
-Changed the image's width
-Added a bone dragon and a campment with a soldier
-Added, moved and removed some mountains
-Removed the gradient.
I didn't add any extra lightning, sorry but I don't think it would fit the image's purpose right now.
The soldier abandoned his army and is living his life on the mountains, but when he camped he encountered a bone dragon. He turned off the fire and hid behind the pillar.
Should I do the image taller?
(http://i.imgur.com/W6qLqEv.png)
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Perhaps add some rim/ridge lighting where the moonlight hits the contours of those rock formations instead of keeping a black outline.
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Like this? (http://i.imgur.com/FdImhqg.png)
Edit: Protected the image
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Like this? edit: originally quoted "unprotected" image removed by 0xDB as per zoekmath's request
Had something much more bold in mind, here's a sloppy non-pixel-art edit for illustration:
(https://abload.de/img/2016_07_22_zoekmath_mhdpjv.png)
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Hmm, I don't know. I think that doesn't match my style.
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Why did you apply the random gradient?
How is anyone supposed to make an edit or comment on your palette/shading now?
You're only shooting yourself in the foot.
As for 0xDB's edit, he clearly has a good point about rim-lighting. How would you describe your style? I'm unsure how adding interesting lighting effects would violate it.
Your originally posted drawing, from what I can see under the gradient, is immensely flat and boring. The rim-lighting does help.
The moon is awkwardly non-circular. And I've never seen even a full moon cause such a drastic light aura, so I'm not sure what's going on there.
More importantly though, the image doesn't seem to have any purpose or focus. All I really seem to be looking at is a moon.
The strange rock formations are crowded into the canvas with little thought of overall composition. Feels claustrophobic, not grand and vast, which is an impression landscape art does well to give viewers.
Why not try dropping the horizon line down, minimizing the foreground elements crowding our view, and adding an interesting focal point such as a figure looking out over the landscape.
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Well, I'm not gonna lie. I did this just to practice my rock shading. I applied the gradient to sell it. Maybe I did wrong in planning to sell it, but what's done is done.
Your critique has been useful, I'll try to do a new drawing as it'll be easier to apply what you said on a new one xD.
But well, this was my first landscape, I regret selling it but I'm not gonna remove it.
I guess my style is boring, but well, I hope I can change it.
About the purpose, I guess it has none because it was just a practice. I planned on adding one, but I thought that would ruin a little bit the landscape, but I was wrong again xD. The moon has such aura because I wanted to do something surrealistic and nice to see.
Thanks for this critique, guess doing a landscape is thougher than I thought.
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Don't over-rely on style to sell, it's an important part of making your product unique but it's not the thing that'll sell it.
Try to keep gradients off of pixelart unless you KNOW it'll work, for the most part you want to put in the time to hand-apply those kinds of effects so it doesnt break the cohesion of the final product.
Putting more traditional art effects on pixelart? It's like giving a normal drawing aliased lines, it'll look less good than if you used the techniques built for that kind of drawing.
As for critique on the original image, I'd say try to vary your colors a bit more. Give some purples and edge lighting in there, really SELL the atmosphere of the night that way. The background is hard to tell apart from the foreground too, I recommend reducing detail there or fading it out some more to draw focus back towards the front bits.
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I put the gradients to make sure nobody steals the art. The original one doesn't have it.
I'm actually working on what Mathias said, I'll recover this art.
And I'll apply the ideas you gave me.
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From the Rules (http://pixelation.org/index.php?board=9;action=post2):
In Pixelation, when you post a piece of artwork, you are agreeing to have your work potentially edited.
How are people going to help you if you won't let them edit it? If you don't want feedback on you piece then why did you post it?
I put the gradients to make sure nobody steals the art.
Of all the great art in the world you think the art thieves have a particular desire for beginner pixel art?
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Of all the great art in the world you think the art thieves have a particular desire for beginner pixel art?
You would honestly be surprised what children on the internet will steal and claim to be their own work.
Regardless, it's not really something you should be too worried over. At worst someone's going to try to monetize it, which means you have all the reason in the world to sue them for a litany of reasons.
It can suck sometimes having people gank your work and claim it as their own, but they usually don't hold up the facade very well outside of wherever they're posting it and it ESPECIALLY isn't going to get them any real gains when people realize they're falsifying info and trying to sell things that aren't theirs.
Try not to let the vague possibility of someone doing a sketchy thing make you shoot yourself in the foot during the learning process, it's not something that will really affect you in the long run and should be treated like a splinter at most: Mildly irritating, but not a huge issue.
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Well, I think that I'll stop selling it. I'll post the new version without gradient when I'm done with it.
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Hi, I made an edit for you that touches down a bit on what Mathias said which I think is one of the main problems going on here "More importantly though, the image doesn't seem to have any purpose or focus. All I really seem to be looking at is a moon."
(http://i.imgur.com/pTNpSNR.png) (edit of Dennis' edit )
I realise my edit pretty much makes this a whole other piece, but I hope this can at least show you that there are a ton of different ways you can spice things up.
IMO you should try to think of your composition as telling a story. Right now your pic has nothing interesting going for it, it's just a bunch of rocks sprawled out in different directions which leads to a very random feeling- with the moon being crowded by all these different elements which doesn't help either. Think of it as if you're framing what you want the viewer to see.
That's just my two cents, kutgw
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(http://i.imgur.com/ldQpe6U.png)
I did an edit today, I guess you didn't see it. Your edit is amazing, but I think that's not what I searched for the picture. There's a lot of ways to do it, but I'm not really interested in that one.
My composition is literally telling a story; "The soldier abandoned his army and is living his life on the mountains, but when he camped he encountered a bone dragon. He turned off the fire and hid behind the pillar.".
I know I've got a lot of things to improve; please tell me how should I do it. Maybe I should add clouds to add more details?
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i didn't even see the soldier, he kind of blends into the rocks. also, not sure how he is seeing that skellington rthroug that big outcropping in the middle of the pic.
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(http://i.imgur.com/ldQpe6U.png)
My composition is literally telling a story; "The soldier abandoned his army and is living his life on the mountains, but when he camped he encountered a bone dragon. He turned off the fire and hid behind the pillar.".
I know I've got a lot of things to improve; please tell me how should I do it. Maybe I should add clouds to add more details?
Is it really telling that story in all that detail? What makes the viewer know that he's a soldier? What makes the viewer know he deserted his comrades? How can we tell he is living his life in the mountains? All the viewer sees is mostly that bone creature, the moon and some rock-ish structures. The soldier is barely noticeable.
Adding more details would distract further from the story you want to tell now.
suggestions:
take your time to look and analyze skittlefuck's version, look at the perspective, look at the color scheme, be inspired by the composition and shading and see how it creates depth and atmosphere
for your particular story, you could use a similar composition like that but add a pillar very close to the viewer, make the soldier hide behind that pillar in the front so that "we are there" with the soldier in this moment of his life, perhaps add an expression of fear on his face/body language, the campfire could be subdued in a corner, bone creature should be aligned on the horizon with the soldiers head also on the same horizontal line, make the rock formations so that they guide the viewers eyes through the image, entering near the soldier, over his face, to the bone thing, use detail on important parts, the main actors in the scene, less detail in the unimportant areas which don't add to the story you're trying to tell
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P.S.: I see potential in your stuff, it is clearly creative. I think from here on it's just a lack of visual crafting skills that you need to overcome and to develop a vision for applying those skills then to tell the stories you have in mind. Currently it's all still sloppy and unrefined, so just keep creating lots of stuff and work on the crafting skills and you'll improve very rapidly.
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Thank you both. I'll do my best on the next edit.
Edit: After thinking it, I think that this image is not good enough to adapt to these suggestions. I'll bring you a new one in a while with a new story, as I've learnt many new things that I didn't know while doing this. Thank you guys so much.