Pixelation

Critique => Pixel Art => Topic started by: Ashbad on June 05, 2012, 01:13:04 am

Title: [WIP] Adult Scootaloo + Cloudy Scene
Post by: Ashbad on June 05, 2012, 01:13:04 am
I've been working on this for hours now, and at least 45 minutes of that time was spent on a certain area of the pony:

(http://img.removedfromgame.com/imgs/scootaloo_cutie_WRONG.png)

I've attempted tons of other ways to shade it, yet it won't work (what I'm showing is the best case so far, and even then it doesn't look natural at all)  The light source is coming from the right, and the leg itself is kind of cylindrical in shape.  I honestly don't know what I'm missing.  Any ideas on what I'm missing?

And of course, other C+C is welcome like always, but honestly I know this is still maybe a 50% done WIP so I'm still working with it and have hours ahead of me to complete it ^_^  So, trust me, I know there are tons of other problems.

Thanks in advance for what I'm sure will be wonderful insight (like always).
Title: Re: I'm having some incredible problems with shading this... help?
Post by: Triple on June 05, 2012, 02:10:49 am
I'm not good but I was bored:

(http://i46.tinypic.com/352jia8.png)
Title: Re: I'm having some incredible problems with shading this... help?
Post by: Seiseki on June 05, 2012, 03:04:08 am
I think you made it worse :P

I don't think the original shading looks that bad.. But if her flank is up in the air (lolz) then her legs shouldn't be straight like that.
Right now I'm kinda uncertain if her body is twisted so her face is further away than the flank or if it's meant to be a crouching pose.
If it's crouching then this reference should help a bit.

(http://fc07.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2012/012/9/0/mlp_fim__crouching_pony_base_by_luckystellar-d4m5g8f.png)

Also, another thing is the hair from her neck and the wing, it looks kinda flat compared to the awkward position she's in..

edit: Seeing as her both hind legs are visible, it's more like the body is slightly twisted..

edit2: messed around with it a bit and I think the perspective is much clearer now.

(http://share.cherrytree.at/showfile-6467/chicken.gif)

Title: Re: I'm having some incredible problems with shading this... help?
Post by: Ai on June 05, 2012, 06:31:00 am
* Scootaloo is occasionally drawn with eyebrows, when expressiveness demands it. I tried adding some and it really contributes a lot to the expression. I suggest you try it.
* You've lit the body well -- in fact, you seem to have improved quite a lot generally since the last pixel-art I saw from you. OTOH the mane + tail doesn't appear to be fully endowed in this respect. It's a bit like you've assumed it was bevelled, and lit it as if that was true. Of course, doing true lighting is less FiM-ish, but also looks less weird.
* Single pixel in ear appeared disconnected. I suggest using isolated single pixels only to portray an individual detail, rather than a continuation of an earlier line. Otherwise it tends to look like a flaw or a bit of dirt on the image.
* I had a go at the leg, dunno if it's better or worse.

Here's an edit, mostly focusing on mane lighting:
(http://i.imgur.com/1KR9N.png)
Title: Re: I'm having some incredible problems with shading this... help?
Post by: Cupcake on June 05, 2012, 10:00:49 am
Pretty quick edit and I'm not that familiar with the style, but I referenced a couple images:
(http://i.imgur.com/UVLoY.png)
Their front legs are sort of tapered cylinders, but they're not totally stiff, and I think it will help if you go for something less stiff. Changed a few other things but it's like three in the morning now, I've gotta stop doing these so late at night...
Title: Re: I'm having some incredible problems with shading this... help?
Post by: Mike on June 05, 2012, 10:57:22 am
Yeah man it's not easy to shade that.  Cylinders can be quite difficult.  Quite difficult indeed.  Light traveling in a straight line and hitting some of the form but not others.  It's not easy to grasp.  I can't even imagine how I would tackle this problem......I definitely wouldn't consult google or do any light studies.  I'm stumped.  Sorry dude.

Quick thought about the pose.  Ponies tails aren't like that irl.  (http://www.ponyrideparty.com/indy/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/My-little-pony-mystic-no-saddle-touched-up-300x273.png)  Not sure why the tail is defying gravity.  I think that needs to be adjusted.  But I don't know...

Anyway it's so cool and totally not lame to see Pony fans come out of the wood work and post on pixelation.  Awesome.  We do not see enough pony work here!    You guys were in hiding or didn't know about this place for awhile.  And now that's all changed.  I for one see nothing wrong with loving a show about female ponies(pony's?) having wacky nonsensical adventures that are pointless no matter what gender you are.  I don't find it odd, weird, degrading, shameful, sad or immature in the slightest.  Your parents would definitely not have a problem with it.  Who would?  I truly believe and stand by this.

I certainly wouldn't 'not mind seeing more! I hope you keep posting your work forever and never mysteriously vanish. :y:

Also sorry I don't have an edit.  I'm really busy and honestly...And I wouldn't want to tamper with such a masterpiece.

Btw who is your favorite pony?  I don't have any favorites I feel the same way about all of them  :P
Title: Re: I'm having some incredible problems with shading this... help?
Post by: Ai on June 05, 2012, 12:27:37 pm
^ I refer you to rule #1 (http://www.wayofthepixel.net/pixelation/index.php?topic=2002.0). Educate yourself.
Title: Re: I'm having some incredible problems with shading this... help?
Post by: Ashbad on June 05, 2012, 01:19:08 pm
Yeah man it's not easy to shade that.  Cylinders can be quite difficult.  Quite difficult indeed.  Light traveling in a straight line and hitting some of the form but not others.  It's not easy to grasp.  I can't even imagine how I would tackle this problem......I definitely wouldn't consult google or do any light studies.  I'm stumped.  Sorry dude.

Too bad I already did, and nothing seemed to help me produce something that didn't look somewhat awkward.  Looks like we're both stumped then.  Good thing we have good artists here to help us both! :)

Quote
Anyway it's so cool and totally not lame to see Pony fans come out of the wood work and post on pixelation.  Awesome.  We do not see enough pony work here!    You guys were in hiding or didn't know about this place for awhile.  And now that's all changed.  I for one see nothing wrong with loving a show about female ponies(pony's?) having wacky nonsensical adventures that are pointless no matter what gender you are.  I don't find it odd, weird, degrading, shameful, sad or immature in the slightest.  Your parents would definitely not have a problem with it.  Who would?  I truly believe and stand by this.

Fellow Jedi council, the sarcasm is weak with this one.

Quote
I certainly wouldn't 'not mind seeing more! I hope you keep posting your work forever and never mysteriously vanish. :y:

(http://i1209.photobucket.com/albums/cc396/Andrew_Cohen/129576576964.gif)



... Anyways, back onto my topic I guess ^_^ I appreciate all of the rest of the feedback.

@Cupcake: Not sure I agree with the leg shading there (the "stupid" one that I pointed out, at least), but that shading on the back legs/flank intrigues me.  Makes it feel even more dimensional.  I'll definitely have to play around with that like you did on those back legs.

@Ai: lots of great tips that I'll be sure to consider/take :) Eyebrows: definitely going to do some sort of eyebrow expression once I get everything else a bit more polished, since while it makes a big difference, it's not a huge piece of work to do compared to what else I have to do.  But thanks for the reminder.  Lighting: thanks, I've been studying other pixel art for how they shade for subjects like this (well, not ponies, but legs and plot, et al), and I decided to apply my newfound knowledge with this pixel, but having it in a slightly less common pose, with a slightly different lighting angle than what I have done with my previous ones.  Single pixel issue: thanks for the catch and the tip :) I'll be sure to scan the rest of it for single pixel noise once I fix a few other things.

@Triple: Not sure I completely agree with your edit, though mostly only because you added a whole new shade for lighting (and I'm trying to keep it to only 3 for now ^_^) thanks for the edit, though.


As for my own edit based on the great insight so far, I should have something by tonight (sorry it'll take until then, I'm slow at pixeling, mostly because I'm easily distracted, stuck on a bad trackpad lately that I have yet to get efficient with, and have a lot of interruptions in my schedule today that will leave me little open free time to work on this).  Thanks again, you guys are great :D
Title: Re: I'm having some incredible problems with shading this... help?
Post by: Seiseki on June 05, 2012, 01:33:47 pm
Quick thought about the pose.  Ponies tails aren't like that irl. Not sure why the tail is defying gravity.  I think that needs to be adjusted.  But I don't know...

Because the anime style hair your sprites use totally follow the laws of gravity..

Anyway it's so cool and totally not lame to see Pony fans come out of the wood work and post on pixelation.  Awesome.  We do not see enough pony work here!    You guys were in hiding or didn't know about this place for awhile.  And now that's all changed.  I for one see nothing wrong with loving a show about female ponies(pony's?) having wacky nonsensical adventures that are pointless no matter what gender you are.  I don't find it odd, weird, degrading, shameful, sad or immature in the slightest.  Your parents would definitely not have a problem with it.  Who would?  I truly believe and stand by this.

The time and effort on your side to carefully craft this post is not at all odd, weird, degrading, shameful, sad or immature in the slightest.
It's what grown ups do when they're brim with self-confidence and see something that they really enjoy and can get behind.

The way you use sarcasm really helps prove what a great person you are and how you really stand up for your opinions and it makes you look really badass and cool.
I'm sure your parents taught you well, enlightening people on the Internet is a true and just cause!
Not coming across as judgmental, arrogant, ignorant or a total jerk at all, after all some people are just better than others based on their interests..

edit: Ashbad, You saw my edit right? :D
Title: Re: I'm having some incredible problems with shading this... help?
Post by: Helm on June 05, 2012, 03:06:11 pm
Let's not talk about Mike's disruptive post in this thread any more, keep it to critique for the art at hand.
Title: Re: I'm having some incredible problems with shading this... help?
Post by: Ashbad on June 05, 2012, 04:23:06 pm
edit: Ashbad, You saw my edit right? :D

I just realized before I got back online, "I totally forgot to respond to Seiseki's edit!" >_<  I think it's actually been the one I'm looking at the closest for my own edit.  It just seems to really work, and fixes the perspective problem :)  The way you fix the hair there also seems to give it better dimension.

EDIT:  also noticed a few fixes here and there for the shading of the flank, and the way you made the cutie mark blend a bit better (though I'm going to eventually try anti-aliasing it in to make it blend even better than that)
Title: Re: I'm having some incredible problems with shading this... help?
Post by: Kcilc on June 05, 2012, 04:28:14 pm
I think that most of her torso would be in shadow with how she's positioning herself, and that might be why you're having so much trouble making it look natural. I also really like what AI did with the mane, and I think that the main problem is the fact you're using one shade in 90% of her mane and tail. I think it would look much much better if you just spread those three values out a little bit.

Here's another edit for you:

(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v350/Daroge/scootaloo_cutie_WRONGke.png)
Title: Re: I'm having some incredible problems with shading this... help?
Post by: Ashbad on June 05, 2012, 04:35:50 pm
thanks for yet another great edit!  I do indeed need to decrease the population of that bright mane/tail shade; I was thinking originally something along the style of what you did with the tail, but I wasn't able to get it to look right.  I'll definitely play around with it more.
Title: Re: [WIP] Adult Scootaloo + Cloudy Scene
Post by: Ashbad on June 07, 2012, 01:30:28 am
Here's what I have so far:

(http://img.removedfromgame.com/imgs/0-scootaloo_at_last_so_far.png)

Fixed up some of the things mentioned so far (still have a few to do), and quickly drew up the rough rendering of the scene she's going to be in.

Any suggestions of the pony herself would be still welcomed, but if it's urging me to do something mentioned already, don't worry; I'm just posting what I have done so far tonight so I can have some feedback for tomorrow ;)  What I'd mostly like feedback on is the scene itself; I've never drawn clouds before, but a look out my window at some, and I figured out how they generally would look.  C+C?
Title: Re: [WIP] Adult Scootaloo + Cloudy Scene
Post by: Ai on June 07, 2012, 03:21:50 am
General critique:
* You seem to have two different whites on the eye. I can barely distinguish them. If you can, consider calibrating your monitor using http://www.lagom.nl/lcd-test/ and then seeing if it's still distinguishable. Currently, even for a subtle effect, it seems virtually invisible.

Scootaloo critique:
* Because you elected to use a semi-realistic style, the vividness of Scootaloo's coloring looks wrong; it seems to me that radiosity needs to effect her colors (ie. should pick up some degree of blueness from the cloud and sky around)
* I'm happy with the leg in my edit (below). Implied knee (or whatever it is called when one is a little horse).

Scene critique:

* Scootaloo's shadow is kind of ambiguous. I think it needs better definition.
* the BG looks fine. Of course you need to antialias the hell out of .. particularly the backmost cloud, to get the right focal effect.

A quick attempt at all of these fixes:
(http://i.imgur.com/jHMGL.png)

EDIT: cause that tail shading was annoying me, I tried to fix it.. and then this happened:

(http://i.imgur.com/Xb2Td.png)
Note that this isn't a suggestion (it's too realistic to match the style). More of a monument to how much I love to render hair  :lol:

If I were to make a suggestion, it'd probably be more like this:
(http://i.imgur.com/O62XA.png)
Title: Re: [WIP] Adult Scootaloo + Cloudy Scene
Post by: Pizza Tom on June 07, 2012, 07:06:24 am
The only thing I can add is that the clouds seem kind of in the middle in terms of style. If you're going for a more realistic rendering, that's fine, but if you're trying to keep it all MLP style, why not reference clouds from the show?

http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20120121002457/mlp/images/2/25/Rainbow_Dash_shaking_her_head_S2E13.png
http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20120229011228/mlp/images/9/94/Rainbow_Dash_powerful_pose_S2E8.png

Note the BG clouds are usually more wispy and fun shaped, since characters don't need to interact with them.
Title: Re: [WIP] Adult Scootaloo + Cloudy Scene
Post by: jengy on June 07, 2012, 08:06:18 am
Hi there, I'm new to the forums, but my best friend frequents these forums and I saw your post and wanted to pass on some feedback that may be helpful.

Note: Non-pixel edit. Also, I removed the BG cloud for clarity.

One thing I noticed about her rear end is, though it appears to be accurate to the Pony style, it might be nice if she had more of a curvy rear end, in order to create a plane change that would help build perspective and visual interest.

Here I took the butt in Photoshop and warped it:

(http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-xdcciVcOUG8/T9BdUv9HUbI/AAAAAAAACyk/Cx5goPg5jrc/s1600/pony.jpg)

As it is now, you're getting some still-image "twinning" extending from the straight legs to the bottom, which can flatten the form.

Here's an image showing what I mean:

(http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-UXN-a7xHJqc/T9BdxQ3RjoI/AAAAAAAACys/qtGLvztdvHs/s1600/ponycrit.jpg)

By breaking up that line, you can create some interesting negative shapes and heighten the aesthetic in this portion of the drawing, as well as create more visual rhythm throughout the body.

Here's an example of visual rhythm at work with a fuller bottom:

(http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-VweDt4UjCv4/T9BfZ99hGbI/AAAAAAAACy0/Z6--Sy5PVNk/s1600/rhythm.jpg)

It also engenders a feeling of perspective, which is always exciting. :)

I hope that helps, and good luck!
Title: Re: [WIP] Adult Scootaloo + Cloudy Scene
Post by: yaomon17 on June 07, 2012, 08:19:38 am
Here is my attempt at helping! Except not really! I have concluded that the leg is possessed, it cannot be fixed. I added highlights because I like highlights. Sotty about that.   ::)
(http://i.imgur.com/tQyIO.png)
Title: Re: [WIP] Adult Scootaloo + Cloudy Scene
Post by: Ashbad on June 07, 2012, 07:56:05 pm
Don't worry, I'm seeing all of your edits, but there's a lot (which is really great -- I feel I'm learning a lot this time around especially) but I can only fix/edit/respond per each recommendation as I incorporate it ;)

Anyways here's what had this morning, and after about 30 minutes of tinkering this is what I have now:

(http://img.removedfromgame.com/imgs/1-scootaloo_at_last_so_far.png)

I apologize for the 2x zoom on this, but that's how I'm planning on displaying it eventually on dA/PJ; so, I'm trying to look at it at the right zoom level throughout the whole process to keep in mind that idea.

@jengy: At first I thought your suggestion was dumb, since I had the anatomy right already... but then I realized how wonderful your idea was.  You'll notice that I rounded out the butt more in my latest quick edit, and it looks a lot more interesting now.  I've never taken any art classes before, so I have next to no teaching on perspective (I'm going to fix that this summer however!), but from that simple edit you made I feel I've already learned to think in more of a cross-planar way, so that every plane (i.e. the one created by the back legs/butt, the side of her coat, the ones created by the sections of her face) works together with the other planes in a fluid motion.

@yaomon17: not exactly the style I'm going for, but I find it interesting how you shaded the tail in general (same with the mane), it'll help me when I finally get around to taking what has been Ai's suggestion for a few posts now and make it into reality :)

@Ai:  Not a fan of the dithering in the shadow, but I think I may have to add a darker shadow shade in there somewhere to define it better.  Thanks for the tips on the colors, it prompted me to "research" into color theory at school today, and I changed the palette around a lot.  I think that after this edit that I've gotten much better at picking colors with the H/S/L values, and I've realized that I was using insanely saturated colors (and I played with them as a result).  I didn't like how you used blue as the outline, I settled with more of a color that had a hue closer to the orange color (it ended up being something like a hue of 230 IIRC) and I think it's a bit less radical against the orange while still having the shadowy effect.

@Regulus Awesome: I would do MLP-styled clouds, but first of all those are really simple and boring (IMHO), and I want to kind of place Scootaloo in a bit more realistic environment ^_^


As for what I know I still need to do for sure:

- Anti-alias clouds completely
- FIX HER TAIL! :P  (been lazy on this one, I'll admit)
- Anti-alias different shades in Scootaloo, A-A her against the BG very slightly, and selout her outline (on second thought... just read a few topics here about selout.  Probably not a good idea to use it for this, or really at all.  Helm seems to condemn it for making ugly pixel art, and from the insight he gave I'm just dropping the idea)
- make the water actually look like water, by adding some simple waves or something
- play around with her shadow some more
- fix up the cloud she's standing on
- a few birds in the background or something to fill up the space in the top left corner better (or maybe another cloud)
- maybe play around with her facial expression some more.


I think a fair gauge for the completedness of this is probably around 60% ^_^ I'm excited with how this is turning out, and the incredible amount of things I'm learning from you guys.  I honestly have no idea how I'd learn so fast without you.
Title: Re: [WIP] Adult Scootaloo + Cloudy Scene
Post by: Seiseki on June 08, 2012, 12:10:16 am
The washed out version looks extremely dull in comparison..
I assume you're going for a pastel color palette, not sure what can be done to improve that without increasing contrast and saturation.

I guess you could study the colors used in the show. (http://images.wikia.com/mlp/images/7/7a/Scootaloo_walking_talking_S1E17.png)
Title: Re: [WIP] Adult Scootaloo + Cloudy Scene
Post by: Ashbad on June 08, 2012, 01:16:45 am
After a break from my computer, I came back and I agree with what you said.  So I lightened it up more:

(http://img.removedfromgame.com/imgs/4-scootaloo_at_last_so_far.png)

Not sure if I really want to go for show colors, though; they just seem rather saturated.  I'm likely to keep on playing around with these even more :)  But I think for now I'm going to go back to working on the scene and the character themselves;  I'll keep the color count at 16 while I do this so that it remains easy to change colors later.
Title: Re: [WIP] Adult Scootaloo + Cloudy Scene
Post by: Seiseki on June 08, 2012, 01:32:53 am
Honestly, I don't see why you'd want to go with less saturation, but you should at least up the contrast, right now it's just dull.
It looks like it has a gray transparent layer over it.
Title: Re: [WIP] Adult Scootaloo + Cloudy Scene
Post by: Ashbad on June 08, 2012, 02:00:39 am
Quick color switch to see if we're thinking the same thing:

(http://img.removedfromgame.com/imgs/1-scootaloo_at_last_idea_png.png)

(I just used GiMP to edit the colors; I'm going to have to do a manual (like I have been doing), decent color swatch when I do the color switch for real, but for now I just wanted to get an idea out there quick)

I personally still favor the more dull one, but perhaps this quick switch has too much contrast for your taste as well, and therefore I need to experiment and find a middleground.
Title: Re: [WIP] Adult Scootaloo + Cloudy Scene
Post by: Seiseki on June 08, 2012, 02:26:35 am
I'd go with something more like this:

(http://img856.imageshack.us/img856/5830/chickensaturated.png)

I'm not that good with colors though, I think the darkest skin tone might be a bit too dark..
Title: Re: [WIP] Adult Scootaloo + Cloudy Scene
Post by: Conzeit on June 08, 2012, 07:07:57 am
it's not that the leg is hard to shade, it's just that's the bodypart where you noticed that your shading doesn't really make sense.

MLP is a show animated with a paper puppet animation techinque, so all the drawings are mostly 2D curves ( circles instead of spheres ) and the shading is designed to support this. You are using more 3d shading than the show, but you're still drawing thinking in 2D. THAT's what's jarring about the drawing, not really anything particular about that leg, the leg is just the place where you noticed.

I honestly think the best thing you could do to improve this is go and draw some cylinders cones and balls and then redraw this while thinking of what shapes make up the pony and how they would conect with eachother. For example when a cylinder connects to a sphere the connection would be circular. Maybe a plasticine model would be a good idea too.

(http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b340/baybaybom/ponyCZ.gif)
Here's an edit to illustrate. This is just pointing the direction you should go, I only redrew the hair to fit what I'm saying but ideally you should redraw more parts to make it better. Another thing I tweaked was to make the darkest shade less saturated and blue-ish compared to the rest of the ramp because it's getting some radiosity from all the sky, clouds and ocean. Not sure that's a particularly good idea here or that this is a great pallete, just sayin' in case you might wonder.

Title: Re: [WIP] Adult Scootaloo + Cloudy Scene
Post by: Ai on June 08, 2012, 07:40:12 am

I apologize for the 2x zoom on this, but that's how I'm planning on displaying it eventually on dA/PJ; so, I'm trying to look at it at the right zoom level throughout the whole process to keep in mind that idea.
By a rough guess, you're currently using either Graphics Gale or Photoshop, right?

May I recommend Grafx2 (http://code.google.com/p/grafx2/)? It has the interesting option to set 'pixel scale' (ranging from 1x1 to 4x4), which applies to the entire GUI including the image display. When you combine this with the split-screen zoom, it seems very useful for constantly keeping a good sense of the picture's appearance at 2x. (since '100%' zoom becomes that 2x, or whatever, size.)

(ah, also, do you realize PJ has zooming built in too?)

Quote
@jengy: At first I thought your suggestion was dumb, since I had the anatomy right already... but then I realized how wonderful your idea was.  You'll notice that I rounded out the butt more in my latest quick edit, and it looks a lot more interesting now.  I've never taken any art classes before, so I have next to no teaching on perspective (I'm going to fix that this summer however!), but from that simple edit you made I feel I've already learned to think in more of a cross-planar way, so that every plane (i.e. the one created by the back legs/butt, the side of her coat, the ones created by the sections of her face) works together with the other planes in a fluid motion.
It's like I said when someone asked how I did the fur so well on this (http://www.pixeljoint.com/pixelart/5647.htm) -- "I just run [curved] lines through everything and make sure it all flows together". Actually, I didn't say that last bit. I think they would have got the idea better if I had  :lol:

Quote
@yaomon17: not exactly the style I'm going for, but I find it interesting how you shaded the tail in general (same with the mane), it'll help me when I finally get around to taking what has been Ai's suggestion for a few posts now and make it into reality :)

@Ai:  Not a fan of the dithering in the shadow, but I think I may have to add a darker shadow shade in there somewhere to define it better.  Thanks for the tips on the colors, it prompted me to "research" into color theory at school today, and I changed the palette around a lot.  I think that after this edit that I've gotten much better at picking colors with the H/S/L values, and I've realized that I was using insanely saturated colors (and I played with them as a result).  I didn't like how you used blue as the outline, I settled with more of a color that had a hue closer to the orange color (it ended up being something like a hue of 230 IIRC) and I think it's a bit less radical against the orange while still having the shadowy effect.
Sure, all of my edits are approximate. Like, I didn't intend to suggest using dithering per se, just the idea of a better defined shadow + that it should use a cloud tone mixed with a body color. You've achieved better contrast with the colors you chose, actually -- I had a hard time keeping the shading from looking overly segmented, so I ended up with low contrast

Also, what Conceit said. 3d shading isn't too much of a problem, since the ponies of FiM are surprising anatomically correct -- in a SD way -- but you still need to think about the lighting and shapes 3d-ly. (I maintain that my more recent edit of the lower leg is correct.)

Note that now you've changed the colors, the eyes are drawing a lot of attention since they stand out. This is an overall picture balance issue... mainly brought on, I guess, by using FiM style eyes unchanged while upping the realism on the rendering of everything else.

While I was writing this I notice you made another update on the color. haven't looked at that one yet.

Oh.. have you looked at the r/MLPdrawingschool/ (http://www.reddit.com/r/MLPdrawingschool/) 'Useful links'? We recently got some nice color theory info links there (http://www.huevaluechroma.com/ was my contribution).

Quote
@Regulus Awesome: I would do MLP-styled clouds, but first of all those are really simple and boring (IMHO), and I want to kind of place Scootaloo in a bit more realistic environment ^_^


As for what I know I still need to do for sure:

- Anti-alias clouds completely
If you're willing to add a few more shades, you could make the BG cloud decently defocused, which would add to the sense of perspective.

Quote
- FIX HER TAIL! :P  (been lazy on this one, I'll admit)
- Anti-alias different shades in Scootaloo, A-A her against the BG very slightly, and selout her outline (on second thought... just read a few topics here about selout.  Probably not a good idea to use it for this, or really at all.  Helm seems to condemn it for making ugly pixel art, and from the insight he gave I'm just dropping the idea)
Yeah, selout's not useless.. but it's a visual compromise that it's preferable to not make if you can.

Also, the idea of having selout on something that is not a sprite (ie. has no transparent parts).. is an idea that doesn't compute anyway -- we only have a name for this effect because it's noticeable in sprite edges when placed on a significantly different BGcolor than what they were designed for.

(note that 'shaded outlines' is not exactly the same thing. It can be used on things that are not sprites, and for sprites, it has much of the same effect of preventing the sprite from merging with the background that selout does. Also it usually doesn't look ugly.)

Quote
I think a fair gauge for the completedness of this is probably around 60% ^_^ I'm excited with how this is turning out, and the incredible amount of things I'm learning from you guys.  I honestly have no idea how I'd learn so fast without you.
You contribute to that too, y'know. It's a lot easier to put the effort into doing edits when I can tell the person who's going to be looking at them is genuinely interested and willing to learn.
Title: Re: [WIP] Adult Scootaloo + Cloudy Scene
Post by: Cupcake on June 08, 2012, 08:46:00 am
By a rough guess, you're currently using either Graphics Gale or Photoshop, right?

May I recommend Grafx2 (http://code.google.com/p/grafx2/)? It has the interesting option to set 'pixel scale' (ranging from 1x1 to 4x4), which applies to the entire GUI including the image display. When you combine this with the split-screen zoom, it seems very useful for constantly keeping a good sense of the picture's appearance at 2x. (since '100%' zoom becomes that 2x, or whatever, size.)

If I'm understanding you correctly, you can kind of do something like this in Photoshop as well. I'm still using Photoshop 7 so the exact names of things may be different in newer versions, but if you go to Window -> Documents -> New Window it will open another window of whatever document you have selected. All windows of the document will show changes, but you can have them at different zoom levels. If I'm working in Photoshop on something that's going to be at a different size, or if I'm working zoomed in, it's very helpful.

vvv: Ahh, I get what you mean now! Well, if anyone else is like me and missed the split-screen zoom in Photoshop maybe this'll be useful. :P
Title: Re: [WIP] Adult Scootaloo + Cloudy Scene
Post by: Ai on June 08, 2012, 08:58:05 am
^ that's the split screen zoom, only. Photoshop lacks a usable pixel size option (it sort of supports it, via the DPI options, but it's nowhere near as friendly and usable as the Grafx2 implementation)
Title: Re: [WIP] Adult Scootaloo + Cloudy Scene
Post by: r1k on June 08, 2012, 10:12:21 am
I had a go at the colors, and tried adding a rainbow
(http://img717.imageshack.us/img717/8084/ashbadedit.png)
Title: Re: [WIP] Adult Scootaloo + Cloudy Scene
Post by: Ai on June 08, 2012, 11:07:21 am
Geez, sunset colored edits seem pretty popular. They're pretty complimentary color-wise, and also pretty hard to look at. I'll have a go at another suggested edit for the colors that's more mild and less brutalizing to the iconic Scootaloo colors.
Well, we don't need to knock out the saturation so hard either .. there are a number of options. some midtones need to pick up a bit of blue, that's all.

(http://i.imgur.com/imJcy.png)
I'm happy with this, color-wise. it werxes ;)

Rainbow works surprisingly well... may have problematic connotations in this situation though. Maybe just a rainbow fading out (most visible on picture edge, faded out by 1/3 of the width) would fill that corner appropriately? Symbolism of win? VMMMY.
Title: Re: [WIP] Adult Scootaloo + Cloudy Scene
Post by: Helm on June 08, 2012, 03:59:04 pm
Conceit's post is pure knowledge, I support it 100%

As for your issues, I think it's time to bite the bullet and consider AAing the outside if you're bothered by those jaggies.

(http://www.locustleaves.com/ponyCZgif.gif)

and my general advice would be to move towards some sort of finishing stage after you've sorted out your volumes as Conceit says, because a lot of pixel art solutions to problems are perception-based: When you move towards the end stage of cleaning up your pixels and how the various groups work together, solutions come intuitively to you.
Title: Re: [WIP] Adult Scootaloo + Cloudy Scene
Post by: Ashbad on June 10, 2012, 04:33:32 pm
Update, I've been working on it more, and here's where it is now, about 75% to 80% in my opinion.

(http://img.removedfromgame.com/imgs/2-scootaloo_at_last_png.png)

Colors: I actually liked the ideas of sunset colors, but they weren't working with the colors of the background.  Easy fix, make the background have the colors of a late sunset.

Hair: still need to work with it.  I personally like how it looks as of now, as compared to slightly more realistic edits, but I'll play with it more.

Water: started filling it in as a rough draft. At least now it actually looks like waves ^_^  wasn't able to get any good references, but looked through a few pictures I took down in Florida a while ago on a trip that had long stretches of the ocean in them, and kinda sorta figured out how they would work.

Clouds: anti-aliased to my satisfaction, now.

Color count: 16 so far, by the end it'll be closer to 24 I think.

Thing I've been using to edit this:  No, your guesses are wrong, Ai ;)  I've been using MS Paint.  *backs off* please don't punch me :( though I'll definitely look into that piece of software you recommended.

Shading: worked on it a little, I'm going to play with it more to make it more pronounced.

Rainbow:  I'm thinking about it.  It looks like it would work well, but if I add it it's going to be a final addition.  I'll fix/polish everything else first before going for bonus points :P

Things I missed: probably a lot.  You guys have given me a ton of information to process... which is great!  I just can't get to all of it right now.  I haven't even included all suggestions in my latest editing yet.  I'll get to them with time :)


EDIT:

Been working on the anti-aliasing for 2 hours straight now.  I'm going to finish the water next.  I'm getting very happy with where this is going.

(http://img.removedfromgame.com/imgs/3-scootaloo_at_last_png.png)

Notice I still need to fiddle with the AA in some areas.  I already notice I need to make the eyes a bit more crisp looking *shrugs*

EDIT: and, underestimated my color count by the end of this process.  I'm at 31.  I think I can drop to 28 or 29 with no noticeable difference.  But I'm not too worried about it; since all I need to do now is work on the water, and I have more than enough colors to use to do that at my disposal now.
Title: Re: [WIP] Adult Scootaloo + Cloudy Scene
Post by: Cyangmou on June 10, 2012, 11:23:52 pm
(http://share.cherrytree.at/showfile-6524/pony.png)

-you are wasting far too much colors with antialiasing - be more creative with your palette, I for example eliminated some colors while I increased the background colors and nobody will recognize it
-if you draw clouds, make sure that they look like clouds - soft and fluffy
-long horizontal lines in the water are working better for this scenario, also reflexions from the clouds will liven up the background enormously.
Title: Re: [WIP] Adult Scootaloo + Cloudy Scene
Post by: Ashbad on June 11, 2012, 01:01:38 am
Thanks for the edit -- I knew my clouds were really lacking, but I wasn't going off of any examples so I wasn't quite sure how to pixel them.  I studied your edit and tried in turn to up the quality of the clouds:

(http://img.removedfromgame.com/imgs/4-scootaloo_at_last_png.png)

Of course, I need to go back and pretty them up, do anti-aliasing, and then on top of that work on the water.  Not sure if I completely like the vertical lines there, actually, but I love the idea of the clouds reflecting onto the water :D
Title: Re: [WIP] Adult Scootaloo + Cloudy Scene
Post by: Ai on June 11, 2012, 03:14:24 am
Update, I've been working on it more, and here's where it is now, about 75% to 80% in my opinion.

(http://img.removedfromgame.com/imgs/2-scootaloo_at_last_png.png)

Colors: I actually liked the ideas of sunset colors, but they weren't working with the colors of the background.  Easy fix, make the background have the colors of a late sunset.
Looks good to me.

Quote
Hair: still need to work with it.  I personally like how it looks as of now, as compared to slightly more realistic edits, but I'll play with it more.
Well, as perhaps I demonstrated with my pair of tail edits, the thing that's truly important is that your 'abstract' rendering has a firm basis in the forms found in the more realistic rendering.
One guideline you could use, is to take a realistic rendering, and apply a gaussian blur. That's often what good relatively 'abstract' renderings look like.. a smoothed version of a realistic rendering, with some stylization and exaggeration to make it look more interesting

Quote
Water: started filling it in as a rough draft. At least now it actually looks like waves ^_^  wasn't able to get any good references, but looked through a few pictures I took down in Florida a while ago on a trip that had long stretches of the ocean in them, and kinda sorta figured out how they would work.
I think cyangmou's edit is on the right track. It really depends on the scale of the waves. What you have are quite big waves, when you consider the perspective is near a cloud. If the sea is not violent, you could flatten them out somewhat.

'Reference' material: Henk Nieborg's waves in lomax (complex and amazing),  the ocean waves in Worms.

(I wasn't able to find any good real life reference material -- ideally you want motion video of the waves, to get a really good sense of it.. the closest I came was r/WaterPorn (http://www.reddit.com/r/waterporn/), which contains a lot of awesome -static- images of water.)

Quote
Clouds: anti-aliased to my satisfaction, now.

Color count: 16 so far, by the end it'll be closer to 24 I think.

Thing I've been using to edit this:  No, your guesses are wrong, Ai ;)  I've been using MS Paint.  *backs off* please don't punch me :( though I'll definitely look into that piece of software you recommended.

On the contrary, you are clearly very dedicated. MS Paint doesn't make it easy for you :)

I don't agree with those people who say 'MS Paint is terrible, use a real pixel editor'. I mean, yes.. MS Paint -is- pretty terrible for most things, including pixel art, but I would prefer people to feel comfortable with changing to something more friendly on an experimental basis, rather than pressuring them -- you have been getting results with what you're using, it's just that with a better tool, you can spend more thinking time on the elements of the picture, and less getting the software to do what you want, which will get you to a better picture :)

Quote
Shading: worked on it a little, I'm going to play with it more to make it more pronounced.
Looks like you're headed in the right direction :)

Quote
Rainbow:  I'm thinking about it.  It looks like it would work well, but if I add it it's going to be a final addition.  I'll fix/polish everything else first before going for bonus points :P
Actually, that's another reason that Grafx2 might help -- you can put something like the rainbow on it's own layer, as long as you save as GIF. Then you have the possibility of doing a very rough rendering which you keep invisible most of the time until you finish the other things, for the purposes of ensuring its positioning and colors will work with the rest of the picture.

Quote
Been working on the anti-aliasing for 2 hours straight now.

 I'm going to finish the water next.  I'm getting very happy with where this is going.

(http://img.removedfromgame.com/imgs/3-scootaloo_at_last_png.png)

Notice I still need to fiddle with the AA in some areas.  I already notice I need to make the eyes a bit more crisp looking *shrugs*
Yeah, you blurred them. When AAing you need to keep in mind which edges are close and which are far, so you can vary the amount accordingly. Overall you did a great job with the AA though. There are only a few points that I need to clarify.

Here's a rather hands-on animated edit. I jammed everything I could into it..

(http://i.imgur.com/RMP5x.gif)

* BTW, I edited the eyes and  background cloud edges before I thought of doing the animation, so they don't change.
* If there's a sudden change in curvature, it may look 'ragged' if you don't give it plenty of AA (see the cloud area highlighted)
* Antialiasing 45-degree lines should be considered carefully. It can be used to enhance roundness, but only if placed carefully.. antialiasing immediately next to all of a 45-degree line segment creates banding (and mismatches the actual shape you're trying to describe, usually)
* Ending a 'sharp' point with an AA pixel tends to blunten it, rather than smoothing out its appearance. Generally to be avoided.
* When AAing diagonals that are not extreme in angle, try to think of them as a series of stacked 1-line diagonal gradients. That helps you avoid banding like on the leg (and generally looks spiffy)
* Varying AA amount according to the edge's relation to the lightsource, typically improves depth.
* A few things about representing tapering curves that the image itself adequately explains.
* A bit of banding was squashed.
* STUFF! :D
* (obvious cloud reflection wasn't included in the edit.)


Nice new clouds, btw :) I think you accidentally mangled a color or something though, because a crunchy outline appeared on her mane and etc.

For cloud examples, try r/SkyPorn/ (http://www.reddit.com/r/SkyPorn)

EDIT: I actually enjoy the old style clouds (esp. their Chinese aesthetic), but the new ones are undeniably more integrated. Maybe you can get some idea for lighting from this: (http://i.imgur.com/CP2N9.png), an edit I just quickly messed around with that ended up surprisingly fascinating. ( I think I reversed the lighting somewhat though, unintentionally.)
Title: Re: [WIP] Adult Scootaloo + Cloudy Scene
Post by: Ashbad on June 11, 2012, 08:04:10 pm
Whew.. that was yet another great (wall) of feedback!  You can't fathom how much I appreciate the level of detail you put into giving those suggestions.  Especially that animated "fix" gif -- I can't thank you enough for how much I learned just from looking at it! :D

Here's what I've now gotten to.

(http://img.removedfromgame.com/imgs/6-scootaloo_at_last_png.png)

I still have some things from your suggestions to fix with the AA (mostly in the cloud), I want to smooth out the water a bit more, and then I want to fix up her shadow.  And then I'm gonna call it ready to post on dA and PJ!  However, I'm just doing that because I'm to the point where after doing those things, it's good enough to put up in a place like that.  I'll probably keep on editing it at a slower pace afterwards.

EDIT: I'm a bit lazy about avatars... so I just made the face of scootaloo in this mine for now.  Though I think it might be over the site's size restrictions -- I'll clip a small part of her face and make it smaller a bit later today.
Title: Re: [WIP] Adult Scootaloo + Cloudy Scene
Post by: Mr. Fahrenheit on June 11, 2012, 08:37:40 pm
Ashbad, I think you may have gone a little overboard with the anti aliasing on the clouds in the background. It looks very blurry.
Title: Re: [WIP] Adult Scootaloo + Cloudy Scene
Post by: Ashbad on June 11, 2012, 08:42:09 pm
It's just as blurry as the cloud I had before, you're just noticing it more because they're more complex in shape, and have more "surface area" against the sky ;)  The outsides are blurry because they're  two color runs of AA, but internally there's only one color, single pixel runs.  I think it gives the perspective of them being "defocused", similar to what Ai was saying earlier about the other clouds.

To make them more realistic I would have used those internal AA colors to add extra texture, but I think that they're realistic enough to fit in place with Scootaloo, who's also only semi-realistic.
Title: Re: [WIP] Adult Scootaloo + Cloudy Scene
Post by: Ashbad on June 12, 2012, 12:40:35 am
Does it still have room to improve?  Yes.  Am I proud of it so far?  Yes.  Is it going on dA how it is right now?  Yes.  Do I still intend to keep on updating it and editing it?  You betcha.

(http://fc00.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2012/163/5/d/pixel_art____scootaloo__the_orange_haze_by_theashbad-d539plk.gif)

dA link -> http://theashbad.deviantart.com/art/Pixel-Art-Scootaloo-the-Orange-Haze-307822808

You guys helped me make this really great.  I learned a lot through making this.  I really don't know what to say except, *hugs*?

I'm going to take a bit of a break from this for a day or two, but then I'm going to go back and play with a few things like the AA, Tail Highlights, and the Shadow beneath scootaloo a bit more.
Title: Re: [WIP] Adult Scootaloo + Cloudy Scene
Post by: r1k on June 12, 2012, 01:08:52 am
the AA on the clouds is looking blurry, but it also isnt really getting rid of jaggies or serving the purpose AA should, so its just looking a little jpeg-ish.  Heres a quick edit I did only to the bottom of the cloud.  Someone else could probably do it a bit better but hope it helps
(http://img268.imageshack.us/img268/8711/ashbadaaedit.png)
mine is on the left, yours in on the right
I smoothed the overall shape of the cloud out a little inadvertantly, and I didnt really mean that to be part of the criticism, just the aa.
Title: Re: [WIP] Adult Scootaloo + Cloudy Scene
Post by: Ai on June 12, 2012, 05:37:03 am
That water's looking pretty sexy now.

r1k has a good point. I didn't want to overwhelm with information, but.. there are certain shapes that just look better when AAing.. by 'shapes' I mean in the vector sense, since that's what you're approximating with AA.
In general, for smoothest AA..

* Think of all curves as smooth as possible (I mean, avoid abrupt turns at every opportunity)
* Avoid leaving a single pixel sticking out. Unless the shape is very small in scale, AAing to it inevitably looks ugly (you did this on your cloud before, not sure about the current ones)
* Avoid placing an AA pixel that creates a 'corner', unless you really want one. r1k didn't have to change it so drastically, but that lumpy area on the left had a shape that's hard to AA prettily.

Animated edit:

* red arrows point out locations where AA creates corners (ie. it reduces apparent resolution rather than increasing it.). I resolved some of these by reshaping slightly
* blue arrows point out blurring and banding. I prefer to resolve these by converting AA into buffering (which gives a smoothing effect of a slightly different kind.). That's a stylistic choice -- there are a few other ways.
* Examples of smoother AA (esp. on clouds)

(http://i.imgur.com/bCNDn.gif)
Title: Re: [WIP] Adult Scootaloo + Cloudy Scene
Post by: Ashbad on June 13, 2012, 04:15:48 pm
Woo, awesome info, Ai!  Didn't know much about doing manual Anti-aliasing before you gave this info (I basically eyeballed it, and just did the AA-ramps in an unorganized fashion, without thinking about the implications of curves, etc.)  Later today or tomorrow, I'm going to go back over this, after having seen your AA edit above, and try to polish it up ^_^
Title: Re: [WIP] Adult Scootaloo + Cloudy Scene
Post by: Ai on June 13, 2012, 10:23:08 pm
Cool. In that case... You might find one or more of these helpful, on the technical side of 'what AA is': one (basic concept) (http://www.pixeljoint.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=706&PID=74416#74416) two (@ the 3rd comment down -- more descriptive on the conceptual side) (http://www.pixeljoint.com/pixelart/19052.htm) and three (an older one which covers the various techniques and the exact maths involved at some length) (http://neota.castleparadox.com/aa_tutorial.html)

.. and now I'll have to add my previous post here to the list. I'm surprised by just how much I've written about AA.
Title: Re: [WIP] Adult Scootaloo + Cloudy Scene
Post by: Ai on June 22, 2012, 12:52:34 pm
9 days later..
What's happening? ???
Title: Re: [WIP] Adult Scootaloo + Cloudy Scene
Post by: Ashbad on June 22, 2012, 09:03:16 pm
9 days later..
What's happening? ???

Sorry I haven't been able to get back to you guys on this; the large amount of stressful situations I've been dealing with the past week or so have distracted me from just about all pixeling; in the time I did have to work on this, the stress had been tiring me out and demotivating me from doing more on this.

However, tomorrow should be my first day reprieved from the said situations, so I plan to use them polishing this up with the great suggestions you've given, and then start on my next piece as well :)
Title: Re: [WIP] Adult Scootaloo + Cloudy Scene
Post by: jams0988 on June 24, 2012, 01:44:58 pm
These colors don't really read sunset to me, actually. It looks like you have a purple screen over a noon-time scene, in my opinion.
Quick color edit:
(http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b352/jimthegreat1012/ponyedit.png)
Mine's probably a bit washed out, too; I got sick of changing the colors, since you have so many AA colors going on. Hopefully if gives you some ideas, though.

Also, it says on DA that you used MS Paint to make this. Either you're lying for bragging rights, or you haven't looked around more than five minutes for an art program, and you've wasted tons of time because of it. Try Graphics Gale or Pro Motion. A five dollar USB mouse will solve your trackpad problems, too. =P
Edit: Actually, I don't like mine either. They both look wrong to me now! XD
Title: Re: [WIP] Adult Scootaloo + Cloudy Scene
Post by: Ashbad on June 24, 2012, 03:06:28 pm
Not sure if I agree with the color choice there -- I do like the idea of red used in the clouds for the middle shade, but the hair is now *way* offcolor to what it should be :P

And, as I've said before here as well, I *did* make this in MS Paint.  I've done more than "looked around for 5 minutes" for another art program.  I've tried out multiple different programs, but I'm still the fastest with MS Paint.  GraphicsGale is indeed a nice program, but I'm not using it for full-on pixel art until I get more used to it.  I've also tried out Usenti, which was basically MS Paint with a few palette tools on top; I used it rarely, usually only when I want to get a quick color count on something.  I've also played around with the GiMP, but I have only used it when doing something like converting a mess of a scan of a drawing I made into something I can base lineart from (but even then, I've only used it like that once.)  As for the USB mouse, you're assuming I have to $5-10 and a ride to some place like Best Buy to get a mouse/pad to use under it.

I haven't lied about the MS Paint deal, it's all I use.  I've wasted far more time trying out tons of different image editing software than anything.  I don't see how this is outside the capabilities of what MS Paint can achieve.
Title: Re: [WIP] Adult Scootaloo + Cloudy Scene
Post by: jams0988 on June 24, 2012, 04:33:48 pm
Quote
Not sure if I agree with the color choice there -- I do like the idea of red used in the clouds for the middle shade, but the hair is now *way* offcolor to what it should be Tongue
Might be too red. Not sure. Red sunset + purple hair doesn't equal purple or blue, but it might not equal red, either. X3
You're right, I am assuming you have five dollars for a mouse, hahah. I can't imagine many life situations that would afford you the leisure of hours of time spent making pixel art to post online, but not a five dollar bill for a mouse. XD

About MS-Paint Vs. Graphics Gale: You say you're not used to Graphics Gale, so you're not using it yet. My advice to you is to learn the program, and then use it from now on. It takes literally fifteen minutes to learn everything Graphics Gale does, and it's much better and faster for pixel art than MS-Paint is.
And I didn't say what you made was outside the abilities of MS-Paint. You could do the best pixel art in the world with MS-Paint. It just won't be as fast or convenient as using a better program, hahah. ^ ^;;

Sorry for the way I worded my last post, though. It made it sound like I thought you were lying about using MS-Paint, when I don't. What I basically meant to say was that you should really look into another art program, because there's not much reason not to. Anyway, here's another edit with the hair color changed:
(http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b352/jimthegreat1012/ponyedit-1.png)
I still like the first edit I did more, though the newer one may be more accurate to the show. The first one I did looks softer and more sunset-y, though...maybe I just don't like the idea of an orange horse having highlighter-purple hair, hahah. The color combination burns my eyes. XP
Edit: Actually, just grabbed a screencap from the show of Scootaloo sitting down outside on a sunny day, and the color I used for her hair in my newest edit at sunset is *the exact same color.* Which means my older edit actually *IS* more accurate (and better looking, in my opinion), since her hair should obviously shift more toward the red side during sunset compared to her noon-time hair. The color you picked for her hair, for example, is actually *more blue* than her naturally lit hair, which is what my complaint with your color choices were originally - it looks like there's a blue haze over everything.
Anyway, happy pixeling! This piece has improved a ridiculous amount since you started it. ^ ^
Title: Re: [WIP] Adult Scootaloo + Cloudy Scene
Post by: Seiseki on June 24, 2012, 08:55:26 pm
You should totally start doing avatar requests on deviant art ;)
You'd make those 5 bucks in less than 10 seconds flat..
I can't even imagine using a mouse to draw, let alone a trackpad, I've been using a tablet for a year or so..

Imagine the things you could do if you were using photoshop and a mouse or tablet.
Did you see that pyxel editor? (http://www.wayofthepixel.net/pixelation/index.php?topic=14186.msg132772)
Title: Re: [WIP] Adult Scootaloo + Cloudy Scene
Post by: Ashbad on June 24, 2012, 09:25:08 pm
You should totally start doing avatar requests on deviant art ;)
You'd make those 5 bucks in less than 10 seconds flat..
I can't even imagine using a mouse to draw, let alone a trackpad, I've been using a tablet for a year or so..

Imagine the things you could do if you were using photoshop and a mouse or tablet.
Did you see that pyxel editor? (http://www.wayofthepixel.net/pixelation/index.php?topic=14186.msg132772)

I probably should start doing that -- A guy I met and have been starting to get to know better, PixMeister on dA, has done that and has already made about $40 from 8 or so avatars.  I really, *really* do want a tablet, since some of the things that were suggested edits (like the hair detail) would be a lot more possible for me to do with one (I simply had a horrible time making anything in a flowing motion with the trackpad, the clouds were a bit painful by themselves)

As for that image editor you threw at me there, seems like another one I should at least check out ;)

And, back to Ai's question again, I should have some sort of decent edit tomorrow; I do better when I do two mini-projects at once, so I've been held up  by starting on another pixel (though it's barely past the lineart phase) so I can polish this up and have something to do once this is done.

EDIT:

And, I just saw your edit, jams -- and I must honestly say that I have to agree with most of it -- For some reason I have a hard time getting myself to discard the bluish colors (they just look so pretty even though they're incorrect), but I'll play around until I satisfy my craving for contrasted, pretty colors and a realistic sunset scene :) 
Title: Re: [WIP] Adult Scootaloo + Cloudy Scene
Post by: jams0988 on June 25, 2012, 02:03:17 pm
Quote
And, I just saw your edit, jams -- and I must honestly say that I have to agree with most of it -- For some reason I have a hard time getting myself to discard the bluish colors (they just look so pretty even though they're incorrect), but I'll play around until I satisfy my craving for contrasted, pretty colors and a realistic sunset scene Smiley 
Good luck! Looking forward to seeing what you do next with the piece! =)
Title: Re: [WIP] Adult Scootaloo + Cloudy Scene
Post by: Ai on June 26, 2012, 07:55:34 am
The bluish colors aren't inaccurate per se; when I suggested changing in that direction, it was to give an impression of picking up some colors from the sky. Maybe it would be best to use one color to suggest color reflected from clouds, and the next darkest or lightest one to suggest the color of the atmosphere.

If the clouds are properly colored, those two colors should only be a relatively small amount different in hue anyway.

BTW, the 'flowing motion' thing is easier if your paint program supports splines. If you play around with Grafx2, you can access the spline tool via the second icon in the second row of the toolbox.

@ jams0988:
Why would you recommend to learn Graphics Gale when both Grafx2 and ProMotion are available (for free and for cheap, respectively) and are more capable for serious pixel art?  ???

I do agree that if you can afford one, getting a Wacom tablet is so worth it. I specify Wacom because I've had trouble with other brands in the past, but my Wacom has been rock solid in terms of quality and reliability.
Title: Re: [WIP] Adult Scootaloo + Cloudy Scene
Post by: Ashbad on June 27, 2012, 12:30:34 pm
Well, no new edits from me yet, I've actually spent the past few days trying to get used to using Grafx2.  At first it seemed a bit overloaded with options, but I'm growing to like the interface.  Thanks for the suggestion, Ai! :D  In addition, I'm thinking I can probably get a wacom pretty soon -- hopefully within two weeks, since I got a paycheck from my internship yesterday that would cover it many times over (pleasant, unexpected surprise for me!)  I'm thinking of going with either a small or normal sized Wacom Intuos.  Any suggestions on proposed size or product line (like, something by Wacom besides their Intuos sub-brand) of tablets?

Oh, and while it isn't an edit worthy of a post, I dropped it from 34 colors (I had thought it was 32 before, but Grafx2 disagreed with that count) down to 28 with essentially no difference in aesthetics.  :)
Title: Re: [WIP] Adult Scootaloo + Cloudy Scene
Post by: Ai on June 27, 2012, 01:44:56 pm
Well, no new edits from me yet, I've actually spent the past few days trying to get used to using Grafx2.  At first it seemed a bit overloaded with options, but I'm growing to like the interface.
That's great :) I used to feel that way, but now I find there are only a few of those options I don't use.

Also, did you find the .. extremely specific .. contextual help (F1, as always.) One of the things it does is tell you about keyboard shortcuts relating to the given functions (and lets you change them).

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  Thanks for the suggestion, Ai! :D  In addition, I'm thinking I can probably get a wacom pretty soon -- hopefully within two weeks, since I got a paycheck from my internship yesterday that would cover it many times over (pleasant, unexpected surprise for me!)  I'm thinking of going with either a small or normal sized Wacom Intuos.  Any suggestions on proposed size or product line (like, something by Wacom besides their Intuos sub-brand) of tablets?
Intuos sounds like a good bet. It's what I would get if I were buying a tablet. I have only purchased one Wacom myself, a 'medium'* size Graphire3 (a model which has since been superceded.), so I don't feel qualified to comment in detail. The only other thing I can say is,  I understand that the RF Wireless versions are somewhat vulnerable to performance degradation when there is a high degree of background wireless activity (eg from routers, laptops, or phones.), so it's worth considering what your typical situation is going to be when choosing between RF and conventional USB models.

* probably what you call 'normal'. I'm going by the names assigned on the Wacom site (http://www.wacom.com/en/Products/Intuos/Compare.aspx).

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Oh, and while it isn't an edit worthy of a post, I dropped it from 34 colors (I had thought it was 32 before, but Grafx2 disagreed with that count) down to 28 with essentially no difference in aesthetics.  :)
Yeah, the auto histogram is pretty handy :) Have you found 'zap unused colors' in the palette editor? It's good after you've just remapped some colors and have old unused palette indices sitting around.

Title: Re: [WIP] Adult Scootaloo + Cloudy Scene
Post by: Ashbad on June 27, 2012, 02:01:52 pm
Well, no new edits from me yet, I've actually spent the past few days trying to get used to using Grafx2.  At first it seemed a bit overloaded with options, but I'm growing to like the interface.
That's great :) I used to feel that way, but now I find there are only a few of those options I don't use.

Also, did you find the .. extremely specific .. contextual help (F1, as always.) One of the things it does is tell you about keyboard shortcuts relating to the given functions (and lets you change them).

Quote
  Thanks for the suggestion, Ai! :D  In addition, I'm thinking I can probably get a wacom pretty soon -- hopefully within two weeks, since I got a paycheck from my internship yesterday that would cover it many times over (pleasant, unexpected surprise for me!)  I'm thinking of going with either a small or normal sized Wacom Intuos.  Any suggestions on proposed size or product line (like, something by Wacom besides their Intuos sub-brand) of tablets?
Intuos sounds like a good bet. It's what I would get if I were buying a tablet. I have only purchased one Wacom myself, a 'medium'* size Graphire3 (a model which has since been superceded.), so I don't feel qualified to comment in detail. The only other thing I can say is,  I understand that the RF Wireless versions are somewhat vulnerable to performance degradation when there is a high degree of background wireless activity (eg from routers, laptops, or phones.), so it's worth considering what your typical situation is going to be when choosing between RF and conventional USB models.

* probably what you call 'normal'. I'm going by the names assigned on the Wacom site (http://www.wacom.com/en/Products/Intuos/Compare.aspx).

Quote
Oh, and while it isn't an edit worthy of a post, I dropped it from 34 colors (I had thought it was 32 before, but Grafx2 disagreed with that count) down to 28 with essentially no difference in aesthetics.  :)
Yeah, the auto histogram is pretty handy :) Have you found 'zap unused colors' in the palette editor? It's good after you've just remapped some colors and have old unused palette indices sitting around.



I like the idea of the RF version, but I think that the USB version would work a lot better with the incredible network noise at my house.  I'm thinking of going by the "Medium" size, small sounds nice, but I generally carry a backpack around to places anyways so transportation wouldn't be an issue that trumps the want for a larger size.  As for zapping unused colors, yep, I have used it and it's quite helpful!  I personally wish there were a few more options to sort the palette by instead of lightnes and hue/lightness (ascending/descending sub-options, sorting by hue alone, saturation, etc. would be helpful), but perhaps I could just extend it with a Lua script (I *am* a computer scientist before an artist, so that should be an easy thing for me) to do that (the fact that you can script in extensions is rather nice, and on its own is a feature I need to play around with.)  I also like the splitscreen zoom you mentioned in an early post -- it's incredibly helpful!  After playing around with GG and this, I think this is definitely a better piece of software in most respects, and definitely when it comes to tons of feaures.
Title: Re: [WIP] Adult Scootaloo + Cloudy Scene
Post by: Ai on June 27, 2012, 03:20:13 pm
  I personally wish there were a few more options to sort the palette by instead of lightnes and hue/lightness (ascending/descending sub-options, sorting by hue alone, saturation, etc. would be helpful),
The 'ascending/descending' option is unnecessary -- just use 'Invert' or 'X-Invert' afterwards if you want the result to be descending-order.
(I think the typical usage of 'Sort' is not on the entire palette, but on the colors of a specific ramp. Personally I find sorting the entire palette feels orderly and pretty, but unless the palette is fairly small, it mainly just makes the picture harder to edit. YMMV)

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but perhaps I could just extend it with a Lua script (I *am* a computer scientist before an artist, so that should be an easy thing for me)
Actually, SuperSort, from Dawnbringer's huge package of Lua extensions (http://www.pixeljoint.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=12854) (that url should be accessible once PixelJoint forum goes back up..), may do what you want.

It has the option to sort by any of:

* histogram
* brightness (finetuned formula)
* Hue-> Bri->Sat
* Sat->Hue->Bri
* Sat->Bri->Hue
* Bri->Hue->Sat

and the option to automatically remove doubles.

..You may also like the overall package from the point of view of providing a big set of examples how to write plugins.

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After playing around with GG and this, I think this is definitely a better piece of software in most respects, and definitely when it comes to tons of feaures.
:) Oh, you might want to check your 'cursor' setting (under 'skins'). I recently found that switching to 'transparent' made it much easier to see what I was doing.