Pixelation
Critique => Pixel Art => Topic started by: Oddrick on April 30, 2012, 10:17:52 pm
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Hi! I'm not sure if any of you know what an avatar site is. Basically you create doll bases and people buy clothing for them with virtual money. I am working on a base for one of these sites and would love some help! Here is what I have so far:
(http://i47.tinypic.com/1jq2b9.png)
It is rough and unshaded mostly because I am redoing it almost entirely. This is what I had done previously (http://i50.tinypic.com/11ab97l.jpg), but the client said he did not like the pose because it was too much like a model and not enough like a normal pose.
I would love any and all critiques. I want the anatomy to be like a slightly deformed realistic, and have every intention of completely redoing her eyes lol. I know they're kind of scary as is :blind:
Thank you for any help you may give! :lol:
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Sorry for double-posting, I couldn't find the edit button. :-[
A slight update. I felt like the above image was too rough, so I cleaned up the lines for better representation of the form.
(http://i48.tinypic.com/21c6y37.png)
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Hey there! What you have isn't too shabby. Here is an edit I've done to help show what you could do. (hopefully this looks alright. My monitor is a bit screwy with colors)
(http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y63/vashers/Doll_edit_by_mikec-1.gif)
What I did
1. The most important thing I did was change the hue for the shadows.
2. Shifted your colors around so they have more contrast (greater difference between the colors.) Low contrast being less difference.
3. Changed her pose so she has more balance. I'm not sure if that was a good choice. Maybe you have her posing like that so it matches the clothes. I don't know if they have been made yet. Likewise that is the reason I didn't change her foot.
4. I attempted to shade her in the same sort of style you have going on. Wasn't able to finish though.
Anyway hope this helps somehow.
Also I liked the pose you had before. That pose is more interesting. I can see why your client wanted a pose like this though. Now the characters are able to hold objects and you can see the clothing better from the front.
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Mike, your colours look pretty crazy. The whole thing looks purple now.
VERY quick colour edit.
(http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1534394/colours.png)
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Thank you guys for the critiques! :)
Yeah, I can definitely see how my colors were way off. And thank you so much for the edit, Mike! It's very helpful! Here is what I have changed so far:
(http://i49.tinypic.com/122kcgl.png)
Shading is incomplete, but I think I like where it's heading. :)
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Was my edit really purple? To me it doesn't look to bad...told you this monitor sucks! :( Yours however looks like she is glowing with light. I don't know what is right anymore...
Oh and no prob Oddrick! I wanted to jump in and edit so hopefully others would help critique as well. (I prefer your characters stance over what I edited. I got hasty and edited out that nice arch for the back and the way it leads into the hips.
Looking forward to the finished piece.
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Was my edit really purple? To me it doesn't look to bad...told you this monitor sucks! Yours however looks like she is glowing with light. I don't know what is right anymore...
Yes, my edit was bad and does look glowing with light (qucik photoshop job). :lol: Oddrick seems to have got the idea though, latest version is much better! :D Might wanna look into checking your monitor out, or your color profile or whatever's up.
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Hehe yes, I didn't want to say it but your edit was quite purple. Almost alien! You should definitely check into fixing that. ;)
But it still reminded me to add purple to the tones to get a more realistic palette. I have no clue why I forgot that's what you're supposed to do, lol. I will post an updated version soon! I think I really want to redo her face, because the more I look at it the scarier it seems... :'(
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But it still reminded me to add purple to the tones to get a more realistic palette. I have no clue why I forgot that's what you're supposed to do, lol. I will post an updated version soon! I think I really want to redo her face, because the more I look at it the scarier it seems... :'(
re: colours
To be honest, I wouldn't think you're 'supposed' to do anything. A good range and some contrast (between luminance AND hue) is generally a good thing, but it's one area that's very nice for experimentation.
Having said that, since you're drawing a 'base', it probably warrants some subtlety so it fits in over all the backgrounds, but what you have now seems pretty good. :y:
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Hi Oddrick. I did this edit yesterday, but fell asleep before I could post.
(http://i.imgur.com/msjMX.png)
The main things I addressed were the face and colors. I think right now she's got this alien/uma thurman look going on, and I'm pretty sure that wasn't intentional. The things that stood out the most to me were the eyes being too far apart, there being lighting directly above her eyes, and the absence of nose. As my edit stands now, the nose could still use more definition/contrast. The other thing I noticed was you are working on a white background. Is the background of the avatar site going to be white? Probably not, but even so, if you fill in the background with a neutral color you'll see how narrow the range of values is. You should also avoid the use of pure black and white, in general. I found the colors around the eyes and lips to be jarring so I used them for other things. And I moved the navel down to elongate the torso but I'm pretty sure they're gonna be clothed anyway. So overall I think you should pay attention to the lighting and making her appear more human. Oh one more thing is you should elongate (her) left arm. However as it is so far, I think you've done a very nice job on the body. :)
Edit: fixed image link.
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Thank you very much for the face edit! That's what I've been struggling the most with. I don't think I've done the nose justice, and her eyes probably need a complete redo.
(http://i47.tinypic.com/2ui7ihl.png)
I upped the contrast, but I think I messed up the skin colors in the process. Her stomach seems off, and I don't think (her) right hand is reading well. I'll do more work on her soon.
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(http://i.imgur.com/ac61z.png)
I've edited the torso mostly, plus a little tweak to her right calf (viewer left).
I made her ribcage a little broader, and pretty much redid her breasts. The breasts were very high up on your version, so I moved them down and made them a little less perfectly round - they ended up a little larger than I meant them too, but remember that even small breasts will be effected by gravity. I've moved her belly button down a bit further (maybe a smidge too far) and I've rounded her stomach out a bit.
For the breasts, from what I recall, a good rule of thumb is that the bottom of the breast should lie roughly halfway between the shoulder and the elbow. (Someone please correct this if I'm wrong, it's been a while since I've focused on anatomy?)
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I really liked your changes to the stomach and calf, but I'm not sure about the breasts. I think I prefer the smaller, petite breasts on her frame rather than larger ones. I tried increasing them by just one pixel around but I didn't like it. :blind:
(http://i50.tinypic.com/atu7eo.png)
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I made a few edits I think makes the doll look more feminine and cute.
Resized mouth, ear, nose to be more petite. This is mostly based on my experience with anime and manga.
Also added the eye reflection and added some lashes.
I suggest you don't try to make it look to realistic, it's better too skip out on some features, like nostrils for example.
Especially considering it's pixel art, but also because it's more important that it looks cute than real (I assume that's what people using these sites want ;))
(http://img703.imageshack.us/img703/7333/dollbase.png)
(I suck at ears btw)
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I agree. Leave the nostrils out. Just some shadow under the tip of the nose is fine. Also I like the eye shine as well. I should've made more of an edit to the body but I wasn't sure how to tackle something so stylized. Good edit btw!
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I think her eyes look cuter now, but I somehow managed to muddy up the color count. :yell:
(http://i50.tinypic.com/2bp215.png)
And sorry if my posts/updates are slower. I am preparing for finals next week. :blind:
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(http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y63/vashers/Doll_edit_17_colors.gif)
I edited the colors down to 17. You had a few stray colors that weren't really doing anything. I also merged colors that were way to close to the same color to need to be unique. However I didn't edit any of the skin tones. Also remember this is going to be viewed in 1x. So as long as it looks good at 1x it should be good.
Also what program are you using to edit this?
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I'm using MS Paint, but I use GIMP to do color adjustments. I guess I did something wrong when I went to adjust the eye tones.
Found the edit button. :crazy:
I think I might be ready to move onto the male version, unless there are any egregious flaws with her as she currently stands?
(http://i47.tinypic.com/hraeyd.png)
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I recommend you use a program that is built for pushing around colors easily. http://www.humanbalance.net/gale/us/index.html Graphics Gale edits colors based on an index. What this means is that you can pick a color in the palette and you can shift it's colors around. Furthermore this happens in real time. This is how I was able to find all the stray colors you had. I went through every color you had and I would select it from the palette then I would change the hue to something like Bright neon green. This would show me all the areas that that palette used. For example you had a color that was by the eyes that was only used for 1-2 pixels. I was able to spot these because when I shifted the hue only 2 pixels changed green.
Heres an example of what I mean. Take a look at the Palette on the right side. Notice how I can easily tell where that blue shade is by shifting it to green. Now all I have to do is decide if that color should be left alone. If so I undo and move onto the next color. Using GGale it's quite easy to clean up the palette of stray colors. Likewise it's very difficult to have a problem of stray colors when editing with an index based program.
(http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y63/vashers/colorchangegraphicsgale-1.gif)
You don't have to do any of this I just wanted to let you be aware of what can be done.
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The eyes look very undefined now, hard to tell eye white from iris..
And the large black area above her eyes makes here look like some sort of zombie :D
Because it looks more like the eye sockets are super deep and the dark part is a shadow, that's why I added a larger reflection to break it up.
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Hullo, I started an edit yesterday but got distracted. Mostly rendering stuff.
There's not much modelling going on here at all; your values are all pretty close together (you could easily remove half of them) and quite tentatively applied, hugging the edges. You can be a lot bolder :), try defining volumes by starting from something in the lower end and then illuminating the form with lighter shades.
Anatomically there's some asymmetry; (her) right thigh being a whole lot longer (I would shift some of the length in both legs from the thigh to the calf, it should look more natural), left hand is larger and corresponding shoulder a tad truncated. I'm sure you're aware that some of the conventions that you're following here look pretty strange to outsiders, her outsize appendages make her look a bit ungainly and the babyface strikes me as kinda unsettling the more I look at it.
I roughed out some of the aforementioned, I guess it won't be quite what you're aiming for but hopefully it'll prove interesting on some fronts anyway.
(http://i.imgur.com/TTOcS.png)
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Graphics Gale edits colors based on an index.
This is a decent supplement to Mike's post I wrote a while ago. (http://www.wayofthepixel.net/pixelation/index.php?topic=13693.msg130229#msg130229)
Sorry no time for crits or edits.
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Facet, I love your style and skill..
But I don't think it's the right way to go at all in this particular case..
The target audience doesn't want realism, they want cute cartoon dolls to dress up. (at least I'm going to assume that ;))
It should look rather plain when it comes to shading, because the focus should be on the clothes.
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Thank you Facet, that's a very helpful edit! It definitely makes me realize she doesn't have well-defined form currently. :-[ I'm not going for too much realism with the base, but your edit has definitely illuminated a few problem areas that I will work on. ;D
I think the face will stay as it is. People of the demographic this will serve tend to like things more cute than realistic. Not as super-duper-mega-cute like what Seiseki posted, but definitely needs to look adorable. :)
Edit: Also Mike, thank you very much for telling me about this tool. I will play around with it definitely. :)