Pixelation
Critique => Pixel Art => Topic started by: Dhaos on April 12, 2006, 01:51:19 am
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[PORTRAIT]
{<new-old>}
(http://www.crystaltechstudios.com/temp/study_demo_female_portrait_b.gif)(http://www.crystaltechstudios.com/temp/study_demo_female_portrait_a.gif)
[STEPS]
(http://www.crystaltechstudios.com/temp/study_demo_female_portrait_progress.gif)
[CONCEPT ART]
(http://www.crystaltechstudios.com/temp/cg_study_female_portrait.png)
-this is a cg I quickly made to figure out what was wrong with my pallete...
[REFERENCES]
-numerous baldur's gate 1&2 and neverwinter nights portraits
-various images by cyclone, cougar, made, and typhoon from gfx-zone
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Good god, man... wow. I'm sorry I won't be able to give you any relevant crits on this... it's all so smooth and pretty :D
If you manage to do all of the hair as awesomely as you did the finished bit over the eye, I will marry you whether you like it or not.
Only thing I'd change is the colour of the tear duct (?) the... er... eye thing to more of a pinkish, natural colour. Something about the bottom of the nose seems a bit off, too... like maybe we should be able to see a bit more defined nostril or something ('cause, y'know, nostrils are sexy). ;) You might have already mentioned the nose thing though.
I'm really digging the colours of the lips, and of the, uh, all of it.
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uh, honestly?
I'm gonna be dead honest here, hopefully you dont take it badly.
drop it.
I mean, very technical impressive and everything, maybe it'd skyrocket your portfolio or something (no clue, doubt it) but I see no point in this whatsoever, it'd look just as good or maybe better airbrushed in photoshop.
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I have to disagree with Camus on this. I'd like to see you finish this, just to see if you can. To push yourself to spend painful hour after painful hour [especially with the talk of ambience, good luck with that] to do something this complex would just be a rewarding experience for yourself, I'd think. An exhibition of your patience, artistic ability and you might even learn a few things to help you improve by finishing this.
Just one thing that irks me is the height of the eyebrow. I think it should be lowered somewhere from 4 to 10 pixels down, it looks strange to me with how high on her face it's placed. That might have something to do with her expression though. I can't really tell if she's just raising her eyebrow or if it's all just raised naturally. Either way, at least the inner side of the brow should be lowered.
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I have to disagree with you too, Camus. Would you say that something like that red dragon piece by cougar is pointless? It would work just as well as an airbrushed, photoshop piece, too. I mean, if yes, that's cool, you're entitled to your opinion, but I think that the fact that, first, Dhaos seems to be having fun with it, second, it's, like you said technically impressive, and third, it's just a good piece of artwork, all make it far from a pointless excercise.
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@camus: I do see your point, cging would be faster, more appealing, and all around more practical. I battled with the thought of not doing this piece, and even later on to just stop working on it. In the end I just decided that I want to push myself to see what I can do, this is more or less a study I suppose. Hopefully this won't be a disaster ^^U This is also being done after work to help keep my mind off of things, so perhaps its semmingly purposelessness is relaxing in a way haha.
@Tremulant: Indeed, the tearduct should be more pinkish, I'll need to lighten the area around it as well (the black is too thick there). I know exactly what you mean about the hose, the nostrils should be visible, and the ridge thing inbetween should be very thin (currently the nose is tilted down a bit...which is anatomically very just plain wrong)
@Blick: High eyebrows... my bad heh. I'll be sure to shift those down quite a ways in my next update. This is turning out to be quite a [painful] experience ^_______^ but I'm learning alot from it. I really wanted to understand how the demo dude's managed their huge palettes so well, so many tones x_x! And yes, the ambiance will be fun... I might cheat and fade to black then another tone on < side *or* use a complementary color like purple (best color hands down) or bright red, that way it should blend better.
Thanks for your input everybody.
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I'm a bit bothered by the sides of the lips so I made a very small edit. I'm probably not the right person to make a suggestion since I'm new and all so I apologize in advance xD
(http://img133.imageshack.us/img133/6516/lips5ua.png)
Other than that and what others has pointed out, you are doing an awesome job :D a piece that will give you more experience
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uh, honestly?
I'm gonna be dead honest here, hopefully you dont take it badly.
drop it.
I mean, very technical impressive and everything, maybe it'd skyrocket your portfolio or something (no clue, doubt it) but I see no point in this whatsoever, it'd look just as good or maybe better airbrushed in photoshop.
I know you are being honest Camus, but that is by far the most disrespectful remark I have ever seen from you. Yes he could do it faster if airbrushing but hes not airbrushing now is he. He took on a very daunting task and came here to show it and see what we think. Basically what you are saying is that its useless to finish this piece and thats just not needed.
Now in my opinion this is looking very nice, very smooth and precise as well. The ramping with your colours must be so large though, considering it does look like it could be CG. I like this though, and i respect that you are actually taking on such a feat. I would love to see this finished.
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looks pretty nice so far :), obviously alot of work you've done.
like has been said, the eyebrow seems too high. I would also say that the eyebrow starts too close to the center of the forehead(horizontally, if you mirrored the eyebrow, the space between the brows would be slim).
I'd also look at the lips, and keep in mind the lipstick would be layered onto the lips, and probably would not have such a dark line at the top edge next to the highlight(it would make more sense if it blended more i think). Basically at the moment its making the lipstick look really thick.
Also something strange is going on at the corner of the mouth, it seems too dark, but i'm not sure.
As for the eye, a general rule of thumb is that it is no brighter than the highlights of the face. At the moment, the eyewhite is not white, its skin color, and probably would look better if it was more white, and you can probably do that by adjusting the darker tones towards a blue or grey I think.
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@froil: I suppose that dip by the corner the mouth is too dark after all, I'll probably need to lighten it then.
@alex: Thanks for the support, right now the color ramp has two 16 color rows for skin, 1 row for highlights, 1 row for lips. The palette isn't optimized either just yet unfortunately since I'm still not too sure what I wish to do.
@Alex Hanson-White: Hmm, you're definately right about the eyebrows. I think I get what your saying about the lips, about the the dark line, not too sure about the dip in the corner though, I *think* that depends on the expression a bit, however I will look into it *pulls up a bunch of model photos*...hmmmmmmmm. Regarding the eye(s) I will need to give it its own color ramp, probably only 8 colors though, using unsaturated/gray tones then fading to a purply color...just because we all love purple
I'm still being irked by some of my tones currently: the main tones seem fine (first 10 or so), but after that they have a dirty look (the orange to dark brown) It may be a lighting error thats screwing things up a bit. I was going for a contrasted/brilliant feel (I'll try posting some of my ref pics later on), but it ended up being light and kinda dirty lol. Looking at my pallete I think I need to raise the hue on a few more tones, since the transition to light to dark isn't half and half in this image. Oh well, I'll be experimenting more later this week.
Thanks again for the comments ^-^
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I wouldnt say that about demoscene pieces, or atleast the ones I enjoy.Mainly because of the strange dithering patterns and oddly shaped speculars, the complicated hueshifts in the palletes.
it's gonna turn out looking fine, it already does. but I just would never want to do something even reasembling that, I zoom in in some areas like the nose and I just see the same exact patterns I would expect from an airbrush. From my perspective what makes demoscene fun, is that even when there's smooth faces being done the artists always chose strange shapes to represent the light.
http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b340/baybaybom/cyclone-cindy_and_bert.png http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b340/baybaybom/cyclone-clubbing.png http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b340/baybaybom/cyclone-lonely_intelligence.png it looking like a CG is not a good thing, not as far as I'm concerned. I belive if you're going into this kind of feat it should express a very personal view of how light behaves, not what photoshop's automated tools would reflect. The thing that gets me the most is that I dont see Dhaos anywhere in that pic, I know the kind of shading he likes to do, that girl looks completly dry, plastic and vacant. I dont see any real interest in the subject expressed in that pic.
But ok, maybe he decided to change subject, but this just looks like a dead(on?) copy of smooth cg light patterns, it all just makes me think that he just feels like he somehow just HAS to put this chore on himself, as if it was some kind of graduation ritual, and I just dont think anyone should put that kind of weigh on themselves, unless they're sure it's worth it for them.
you know why I posted here? because just sitting there and watching how someone pixels something like this...it reminds me of all those drug advertising "friends dont let friends........" I would've never imagined he could actually be having fun. I would feel bad about myself if I didnt say anything, and I know Dhaos so I think he'll understand.
I said what I thought, so I'm trough with what I wanted to do, I completly respect Dhaos so if he still feels like he has to do this and (belive it or not) is having fun, then forget about what I said.
what is the big deal anyway, why do you all have to care so much? Dhaos got the point, why am I explaining myself?
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What is demoscene?
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I might have dismissed you're point a little rashly there, Camus, so I feel I have to say that I agree with a lot of what you're saying. I also prefer the demoscene pieces that are higher on the whole 'computer aesthetic' thing (if you want to call it that.. dunno what the proper terminology is), and so also really dig works like the cyclone piece you presented.
From the technical side of things, though, Dhaos' pic totally blows my mind. Knowing that each pixel was hand placed, the fact that it looks so close to airbrushed only adds to my admiration of it. If this piece upped the CA a bit, though (maybe through palette unification, or color restriction, some hue shifting, whatever) it would truly be badass. Then again, that would require an INSANE amount of work ('cause you'd practically have to start over...) and it might just ruin that whole 'admiration of effort/patience' thing that's so impressing me right now.
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Although I'm probably the one mostly responsible for talks of CA and hue shifts and palette unifications and the like I'd like to say that sometimes a smooth airbrushed-looking face is a smooth airbrushed-looking face. not everything needs to scream 'look at me! I'm pixel art! made of pixels! rock!' to be good pixel art. I wouldn't want me personal biases about art painting the community feeling of what makes worthwhile high-scale/demoscene pixel art. If someone wants to make it difficult for himself and make something that looks airbrushed by hand, then that's awesome and good luck and fortitude to him. Camus, you have every right to question motives and I agree with a lot you say, but there's style advice, and there's technique critique. We mainly do the latter here, so whereas your 'drop it' bit is justified as an opinion, Dhaos is more looking for 'am I doing what I'm trying to do right, here?' type of replies.
Dhaos, your darkest flesh shade is not dark enough. one of the demoscene stuff I had to learn is that they use a lot more close-to-black shades than we use in sprite art because they have bigger surfaces to gradient and because subtlety is key in big-screen art. Not everything needs to jump out at you. So add a few more darker shades and aa around the eye and stuff with it.
The purple in the eye edge is overkill I think.
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On the other hand, i think this piece would benefit a great deal from a more interesting palette. This is very nice, but it lacks a certain life that i personally think comes only from mixing and bending light and hue. I would continue to advocate for at least a better color in the shadows than brown (you could pull a Rembrandt and put in a dark green, which would really throw some life into her.
(http://img314.imageshack.us/img314/8540/examp1gg.png) (http://www.crystaltechstudios.com/temp/study_demo_female_portrait.gif)
Basically i chose a blueish green because the overall tone of the piece had been red/orange. YOu may want to use a different color, but this is color theory at its most basic; complementary colors used near each other will make a piece more dramatic. it also works for atmospheric perspective if this piece were outside, but something tells me its indoors and so the color of the air is actually the color of the lgihtsource, which is why things tend to look more interesting outside than they do in a windowless room
im rambling. Basically, this is a technically good piece, but it feels lifeless. Having another color will probably help this, though which color you pick is more or less up to you (basic color theory is knowing how to use the rules, advanced color theory is knowing when to break them)
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*bows*
this piece looks 10 times better know, fix the face and the nose and this would look gasmic :3
also the neck is kinda weird i think, it would look better if it had shoulders in it i think..
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What is demoscene?
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@GOODNIGHTdestroyer: http://gfxzone.planet-d.net/frames.html check the 2d galleries of cyclone, made, cougar, and typhoon. They will give a great idea about what demoscene art is all about. In a nutshell its an artsy form of pixel art, it (usually) has no purpose other than being a work of art. Like a painting for example...but with pixels. Most demo pieces try to be very dynamic and quite abstract at times. It rocks though, you can learn alot from studying it ^_^.
@everybody else: I'm in the middle of my next edit so you'll get nice responses + new art then =D
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Refer to this old thread.
http://www.wayofthepixel.net/pixelation/index.php?topic=879.msg10282#msg10282
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@GOODNIGHTdestroyer: http://gfxzone.planet-d.net/frames.html check the 2d galleries of cyclone, made, cougar, and typhoon. They will give a great idea about what demoscene art is all about. In a nutshell its an artsy form of pixel art, it (usually) has no purpose other than being a work of art. Like a painting for example...but with pixels. Most demo pieces try to be very dynamic and quite abstract at times. It rocks though, you can learn alot from studying it ^_^.
@everybody else: I'm in the middle of my next edit so you'll get nice responses + new art then =D
check the artist 'made' aswell.
thats where i get my inspiration from, and where i picked up some tricks for my latest colouring.
just look around in those gallerys.
looks good. but the colours are tooo vibrant for me.
skin is more paler and washed out. even tan skin isnt that 'plasticy'
throw whiter shades into the eye. on the side of the cheek, the colour transition from medium to shadow isnt the greatest. you can easily pick out the individual shades. in order to mask it, you need to follow a more similar curve to the edge of the cheek (on the left). you have it more rounded and horizontal while your first few shades are more vertical. the difference in angle causes distraction to your eye. you need to slowly 'transform' the curve with every new shade. it does not need to be the same, but close and similar. some of the shades could be used more than just AA, this will help too to 'loose' the noticableness. throw in a few dither specicles here and there...
just some thought.
if you are confused perhaps i can make an edit
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[PORTRAIT]
From what I can tell this type of art requires you to almost know exactly what you are going to do before you do it.
C&C away!
exactly.
ive thought that for a long time, the use of pixels in demoscene art is very different than in normal pixel art.
anyways, this could do with a more interesting pallette, but thats one of the most easiest things to fix
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[PORTRAIT]
{<new-old>}
(http://www.crystaltechstudios.com/temp/study_demo_female_portrait_b.gif)(http://www.crystaltechstudios.com/temp/study_demo_female_portrait_a.gif)
[STEPS]
(http://www.crystaltechstudios.com/temp/study_demo_female_portrait_progress.gif)
[CONCEPT ART]
(http://www.crystaltechstudios.com/temp/cg_study_female_portrait.png)
-this is a cg I quickly made to figure out what was wrong with my pallete...
Bumpity! I comletely revamped the face, the colors, and even threw in a piece of concept art I made to figure out why my colors were so horrid previously. Turns out graphics gale HSL values are a tad different from photoshops. In gg increasing the luminance value actually *decreases* saturation, if you were to compare increasing luminance in photoshop that is. So anyways I unified all the colors to a nice orange tone, restricted my highlights more, so they're minor details (they made the pevious image look absolutely putrid color wise)
Yes, the concept art's jaw is weirdly deformed, trinagluar/anime like, it was an accident lol. I rounded it more out in my pixel version.
Eventually I'll get around to smoothing the rest of the details, however some of them are still off, and I dont want to destroy all my hard dithering again.
As for everybodys C&C's:
@Camus: I do understand exactly what you mean so no worries ^_^. While doing this image I'm learning things that are helping my cg and tweaking stills alot, and its fun, I suppose, in a very sadistic way =D! My image does lack the dynamic feel of demoscene, later on I'll probably try something different, but for now I wish to get used to managing high color counts and general lighting.
@Tremulant: I'm glad your enjoying this, airbrushing is fun weeeeeeeeeeeee!
@Helm: I'm still trying to balance out the shadows, but I will be fading the edges more, this is really tricky for me. The purple? do you mean on < side, the flesh stuff behind the eye?
@Adarias: More contrast is definately a plus, I'm trying to work it in there, but I still can't get it just right. Eventually I want to go for a bg1&2 look for my portrait. They did some fabulous effects with their portraits. My concept art should kinda reflect where I'm heading I hope... Perhaps I could add some yellows for the hair highlights hmm...
@Zach: I believe you are refering to Adarias' edit? I do agree thats an improvement contrast wise. I will be tweaking the neck eventually and some shoulders might help too lol.
@flaber: I included made =P. Anyways, the colors will had some dithering to them in the very end once all tones are properly in place. The colors were just aweful heh, my newer pic should look alot better or alot worse since I've only had two people's opinion on it thusfar. I'm going to experiment around with lighting, so the entire bg is not pure black, since that would cause the image to be much darker.
[Baldur's Gate 1 & 2 REFERENCES] -not done by me... I wish I knew this artist's name XD
(http://www.crystaltechstudios.com/temp/bg_i_imoen.png)
-Imoen
(http://www.crystaltechstudios.com/temp/bg_i_jaheria.png)
-Jaheria
(http://www.crystaltechstudios.com/temp/bg_ii_viconia.png)
-Viconia
Tell me what you think of these? I personally find them beautiful, however a few net friends of mine said they looked too dodge/burned, plasticy, and weird. I might try to tweak my pic to resemble these to a degree.
Anyways...
C&C the new stuff to death!
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I think the old version was a bit more expressive. The slightly crooked smile and downward angled face gave her a mysterious femme fatale look.
Going with the new version, though, the upper lip seems kinda puffy and undefined. I'd define the parting between her lips more.
Also, lipstick doesn't create hard edges, it fades into the skin a bit. And you don't apply it thickly in the corners of your mouth, because then it will smear during the day and look silly. So, I think it's better to define the corners of the mouth with brown instead.
Some texture on the lips would be nice as well. Lips aren't completely smooth... and that's even more noticable with shiny lipstick.
Furthermore, I think the dark shading above the eye goes up too high, making it seem like she's missing part of her eyebrow ridge.
Lastly, I think the lip and iris colors really stand out too much. Especially the lipstick... most girls, including myself, would never wear a color like that! It's not flattering at all, IMHO. I think it would look much nicer if it was less saturated and closer to brown. The iris would look better if the colors were closer to the cg and if there was more of a shadow on them from the upper eyelid.
Here's what I would edit:
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v19/wayuki/portrait_example.gif)
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Whoa, what happened?
This newer version seems to have no depth in comparison to the older version. Your references go from white to black and "pop out" because of it.
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The results are in and the update sucks hard XD. Apparently I accidentally destroyed the expression while trying to balance the colors out. The old one still looks putrid to me (color wise) however the expression was better... or rather was actually there. I'm reworking the new one to have the same expression, more depth, and definately more contrast >_<. I suppose the C&C should be held off till I get something worth C&C'ing up.
Thanks Wayuki & David, I still can't believe I did that XD... *scurries off to fix it*
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sweet, now animate it :D
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allo.
so.. kinda made an edit to you.
its not super super obviouse but suttle and cleaner...
i just played with the forms of the shades on the finished cheek.
as i mentioned earlier if you follow the outline curve and gradually change its shape the colours become less obviouse and more blender. it also helps to eliminate some jaggys.
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v300/flaber/Minish%20cap%20crap/dhaos1.png)
youll need to compare the 2 to really notice.
played with the eye alittle bit.
hope you dont mind this 'nit-picky' edit
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oh ya.
when you work with plenty of colours and shades by using think lines dont 'bubble' it out on one side. try to make it snake like, or like a concave mirror. dont make your line a convex lens. (if that makes sense). in other words, dont taper the line at the ends and have it fat in the middle. try to keep it swaying one side or another. true there are times when you can do that, but when i edited thats one of the things i fixed. hope that makes sense
also try to keep your curves fluid and nice, opposed to using diagonals when it should be curved. hmmm you probably already know but ill mention just cause. use odd numberd lines to make curves.. so say for a circle. the edge(longest line) make it say 7, then next line 3,2,1,1,2,3,7. a rule of thumb though that i usually stick by is dont go much bigger than 3 or4 when its not your long line unless your long line is 11 or longer. just double it. by using the odd numbers it doesnt look 'uniform' thus adding more of an organic feel.
if im confusing perhaps ill try again to explain better
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Spotted something else..
the nose ridge(i think thats the right term) is too low. Where you have the dip in the nose should be more level with the eyes. Might help to study the structure of a skull to get an idea of the forms underneath the skin.