Pixelation
Critique => Pixel Art => Topic started by: tehwexxl0rz on November 09, 2011, 12:19:53 pm
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Hey guys! :)
Finally have some free time between projects, so I thought I'd whip up a new avatar that represents me more accurately than a sexy catgirl. Just lines and flats so far:
(http://img502.imageshack.us/img502/8193/selfportrait.gif)
Will upload a ref soon...
C&C is appreciated!
Current Self-Portrait:
(http://i.imgur.com/LaZMP.gif)
Current ARPG Sprite:
(http://i.imgur.com/g4jMw.gif)
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this looks very good. Has character and an emotional aspect to it which I enjoy.
very minor structural edit
(http://locustleaves.com/eyeedit.gif)
I take off the hair to return to initial head structure and add the second eye so I can show that aligning the eyes with the plane of the face (and the edges of the mouth) makes a subtly noticable difference. Then I replace the hair.
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Haha my latin numbering's very good in that edit. Go, Helm, become dumber as you grow up.
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Thanks for the feedback, Helm! Glad you like it.
Here's an update:
(http://i.imgur.com/bHIO7.gif)
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Looks good except for the cheek that looks kina like you pillow boxed the shading somewhat XD other than that that's some nice work there
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Though what you have so far is just excellent, I'm actually a bit disappointed it's not staying simple cartoony shaded. But despite the regret I want to see you finish it with the direction you're going in anyway. I can learn from how you do what you do.
Why not go ahead and draw his entire head then crop it later for various applications? You won't have any missing image data that way. Unless of course this is only for something very specific where his full head will never be used. I just to hate things cropped unnecessarily.
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Thanks for the critique, milleja46. Although I actually think the lighting on the cheek is pretty consistent with the rest of the piece... If you'd like to do an edit to show me more specifically what you think could be improved, I'd be happy to take a look.
Thanks, Mathias! I chose this direction to try and push myself in terms of lighting organic volumes. Despite the level of detail, I'd like to avoid pure realism, so I share your concern about taking it too far from the original sketch. Hopefully I'll arrive at a style we both enjoy. :)
The only reason for the tight cropping is to challenge myself to compose a nice portrait within the confines of a 64x64 square. I'm open to the idea of expanding the canvas later, but first I'd like to see this challenge through.
Update:
(http://i.imgur.com/EixuG.gif)
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Update!
(http://i.imgur.com/ICAg1.gif)
Almost done except for the hair...
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1. you shoud avoid using pure white (#fff). looks like he's got a spooge of mayo on his cheek.
2. the most obvious problem with this that bugs me is the shading on the face, the long stripes of color. i'd give you an edit but I'm babysitting (and i'm lazy) but try to accentuate the planes of the face with solid colors and use some of your inbetweens as buffer colors. you don't need to have those kinds of repeating strips of ascending colors—it looks really wierd.
3. the mouth seems really long and the neck seems too thin. maybe that's a case of animeitis
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(http://lolipopsicle.com/uploader/uploads/wexxl0rz_edit.png)
Did an edit to show an alternative to the white and tried to make the hair flow better etc. Hope it helps. c:
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I personally think the white could be made to work, but one reason not to do it, it would be because light skin is not that reflective and could result in looking too shiny.
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Thanks for the feedback, all. Update:
(http://i.imgur.com/V8wyZ.gif)
I removed the white and used dithering to eliminate bands of color. Not sure if it's an improvement or just different... :/
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The dithering doesn't add anything in this case, it just gives the skin unwanted texture.
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Thanks, Mr. Beast I'm inclined to agree. I'll post an update soon with less/no dithering and progress on the hair.
But first, something completely different:
(http://i.imgur.com/sRF7G.gif)
The main character for an Action RPG I'd like to make. This is just a quick first pass...
I'm mainly concerned about readability at this point. Any feedback you guys have would be much appreciated.
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How's it supposed to be viewed? It looks okay at 2x, but it looks noisy at its regular size, I think. It's also hard to tell it's a girl at normal size.
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Thanks, jams0988. It's supposed to be viewed at 2x (at least, more in fullscreen) but if there are issues at 1x, they need to be addressed.... Where do you think it could be cleaned up?
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at 1x I can't see the difference between the torso and the legs, mainly because the colours are too dark and too much similar (according to me). The hair on the other hand are to bright and saturated. I'd balance the whole thing, using a colour on the trousers which contrasts more with the one on the shirt.
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Better?
(http://i.imgur.com/wqz2z.gif)
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Much better.
Also, I disagree with Mr. Beast, I think your newest face edit is miles ahead of the old one. You could add a buffer shade for some of the dither if you wanted some more smoothness back, but I think the shading works without distracting from the form now.
Did an edit of the girl, tried to open things up a bit.
(http://lolipopsicle.com/uploader/uploads/wexxl0rz_edit2.gif)
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Thanks, Atnas. I'll focus on finishing the hair for now and think it over. I know a lot of people dislike dithering in any case other than adding texture.... Personally I'm neutral about it, but I want to find a style that will be well-received. I think once I add some texture to the hair, It will be easier to see which technique will better suit the piece as a whole.
I like a lot of your changes to the girl, but I want to keep the green skirt thing if at all possible. (In concept, it's a "utility skirt" with pockets to hold all your gear.) I'm not sure if you got rid of this intentionally or it was simply unreadable. Here's an update:
(http://i.imgur.com/cYHLM.gif)
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New one's much better, wex. And Atnas' edit is also an improvement, especially her left leg. The little one pixel gap between the top of her shoe and her hand really make the curve of her body much more obvious.
And is it a rule that pixel art should be totally readable at 1x all the time, even if it's meant to be viewed at 2x? I've kind've been saying "ah, it looks fine at 2x, though!" for some of my pixel art recently...should I be making sure everything's totally readable at its native resolution, too?
Edit: Wex posted right before I did. Yeah, sadly, I thought she was wearing pants, hence the reason I thought her leg was shaped funny in yours. You might wanna pull her skirt up one more pixel, and brighten it up a bit to make it more obvious what it was. I thought the black socks(?) were just shaded regions on her green pants.
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Thanks, jams. Hopefully this clears things up?
(http://i.imgur.com/PwFkr.gif)
With regards to your question, I'd say absolutely yes. If it's not readable at native resolution, then the viewer is doing too much work to decipher the image at 2x.
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Thanks for answering my question, wex. I'll have to work harder on making things readable from now on. XD
For the latest edit, it looks like she could either be wearing a green undershirt, or an apron-type thing like you mentioned. It's still a little ambiguous, but I don't think you're going to be able to make it much more obvious with so few pixels to work with...I'm assuming your game is going to have portraits in it, right? It'll probably be fine as long as you show a full-sized portrait of her, or mention what she's wearing.
It might help if you lightened up her pants/got rid of that extra green pixel where her skirt meets in the middle. That could make it more obvious the skirt was splitting to the sides.
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Thanks, I removed the extra pixel as you suggested and it looks good. :)
The game was planned to have hi-res animations for cutscenes, but the perspective of the game has actually changed, so I'll have to create a new player sprite anyway. I'm still happy with how this turned out though, and I hope I'll be able to use it in a future project....
(http://i.imgur.com/g4jMw.gif)
Started shading the hair on the self-portrait:
(http://i.imgur.com/LaZMP.gif)
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It's just... too dark over his right eye. Look at all those black lines, just put an eyepatch on him and have done with it! You can't distinguish any of that detail anyway and it looks messy.
And I think you're overshading the hair. Each strand is banded practically, it makes it look like he's got big chunky hairs coming out of his head.
Aaaaaaaaaaaaannnnnnd.... I don't like the dithering. This is an example of bad dithering IMO. It makes the surface of his skin look really rough. The colors are too far apart for it not to look textured. Get some intermediary colors and bridge the gap, and mix up the hue a little. See my Secret Santa gift for an example of awesome dithering :y:
The eye is pretty good.
There is way to much brown. Even if you have brown hair it's not that evenly brown everywhere, looks a bit drab.
I'm too tired to think of anything else.
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Thanks for the feedback, EvilEye. Although I must admit I'm a bit perplexed by some of it...
I can clearly distinguish the detail in the hair over the eye and it doesn't look too dark to me.
I hardly see any banding in the hair, but maybe we're using different definitions?
I can hue-shift the hair a bit more, but still, I don't really understand the complaint "too much brown."
If you can find the time to do an edit, I think that would clear things up....
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Howabout this:
(http://www.anti-soft.com/graphics/pixelation/edit25rq34tweqrt.png)
More depth + more engaging colors. Still pretty rough though.
I recorded the editing too:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xuwU9i_eZ1g (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xuwU9i_eZ1g)
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Can't say I agree with your edit, EvilEye. It's a good start on a different piece, but the style is too different from the original. I agree with a lot of the advice though.
(http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y292/SharmClucas/xbvwuveu.gif)
I made an attempt at an edit, though I think a little more attention needs to be paid to the wonderful one done by Atnas. It addresses a lot of the things EvilEye was talking about including fixing the clumpy hair, good dithering and less contrast in the colors for the skin. BTW, by clumpy hair, I mean that the middle where the light shines should have less definition of locks. Take a look at your hair in the mirror and pay attention to the way the shine takes out all the individualism from the hairs. What's been bugging me is that the hair shaded like that towards the end would be constantly poking him in the eye. I brought it out a little so it's sitting on top instead and tried to make the hair's shading more consistent with the skin's light source.
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I think I see the problem... the left side of the hair is a little flat shading wise. Flesh out the shading and it should poof a bit more completing the style. You don't have to take this rookie's advice but its someting to consider
Other wise great picture!