Pixelation
Critique => Pixel Art => Topic started by: Altourus on June 14, 2013, 03:46:30 pm
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Hi Guys,
I just discovered this community after following a few tutorials to learn pixel art. I was looking for some pointers for my first attempt at an original pixel art piece.
(http://nickcrook.ca/images/Tree.png)
All the art and style was done by me, I included the palette I used in the top left.
Thanks for your help and advice,
Altourus
Edit: Current Status of this work
(http://nickcrook.ca/images/treev7.png)
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You might want to cut down on the dithering a bit, it looks really noisy right now.
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I am reworking the sprite so figured I'd give you an update. I've got the shading done but will try and do a leafy texture over it.
(http://nickcrook.ca/images/TreeV2.png)
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Nicely done! I just signed up too and plan to try the tutorials. Congrats on your first try! :y:
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If you're going for a more conventional tree it looks like you're making progress. I wouldn't call the first one bad though, Reminded me of little big planet!
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I loved that game :)
Working on it, but drinking now so won't be updated till sunday the the earliest
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you are off to a good start. Here are a lot of threads with the tree subject, you should search through the forum and read a lot of the helpful tips of the past.
drawing is a process, you decide how far you'll take it.
(http://www.abload.de/img/2013_6_15_treenajlc.gif)
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Sorry, but quick intermission.
You make that look like magic in front of my eyes.
How in the hell, and how long did it take you to do that?
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Cyangmou - that is quite impressive, but I can't help but be reminded of this image:
(http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lmohwflNZU1qkfxqfo1_500.jpg)
Altourus: Your second attempt with the shading rough in place looks like a decent start - I like what you have for the tree trunk design, it looks pretty organic and its interesting to look at. And as Cyangmou showed - make some visually interesting clumps of leaves together and fill out the top a bit and you should have a pretty decent tree started :)
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Except his example has like 8 more steps than the owl. This is a subject whose construction has been discussed pretty thoroughly in past tree threads, so repeating it would be redundant.
And searching the forums for those threads would probably be quite helpful. Briefly though, you need to break up those clumps into more natural foliage patterns. Can't understand the foliage itself, are the leaves dripping or is that moss or some weeping willow hybrid?
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the only really big step in the edit is where he changes the foliage for the first time. Everything else you should be able to follow the edit. How he changed the foliage, for that I suggest studying photos of trees, or looking at real trees and learning to simplify the shapes. Alot of people do the make trees out of balls thing, but trees dont actually look like that. Sure, you can see different clumps of leaves, but they are secondary to the whole shape of the foliage, and they arent enclosed isolated shapes. Here I took a random photo of a tree and applied some filters and color reduced it so you can see how you can simplify the shapes. If you can learn how to do that, then start there, and the rest is texturing/ detailing, which is documented pretty well in the gif above.
(https://imageshack.com/scaled/large/23/nsl.png)
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@Vakinox: about half an hour, I don't applied any pixel level detailing. How I did it is exactly displayed in the gif.
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Wow, that was incredibly impressive. I see you went with a palette change which makes it look fantastic, do you have a standard palette you use or did you generate it from a base brown and base green?
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I started with a few shades and developed the palette over the process. for demonstrating purposes I recolored the first steps with the final palette.
I don't have a standard palette, I create the colors just how I need them.
It might be a good idea for you to start out with Dawnbringers palette, because you won't have to think about colors and could concentrate on the other art aspects first.
DB 16
http://www.pixeljoint.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=12795
DB 32
http://www.pixeljoint.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=16247
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Continued reworking the tree heres the current status of it, will probably put some more work into the leaves then move on to the bark
(http://nickcrook.ca/images/treev3.png)
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Updated with some texturing on the bark, added a knot in the wood, and did some more shading for the leaves
(http://nickcrook.ca/images/treev4.png)
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this is looking much better but the trunk isn't matching the foliage. the foliage looks much more realistic. the high contrast, saturated colors, and black outlines on the trunk make it stand out. the black lines in particular I would eliminate, and also try to make the texture conform of the contour of the tree and vary a bit instead of a random uniform texture. pushing those browns closer to gray would probably help too.
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Trying a new colour and style for the trunk
(http://nickcrook.ca/images/treev5.png)
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While your leaves look nice, they don't show where the light is coming from. You've fallen into the pitfall that many people fall into when making a tree. You shade each individual leaf but you omit shading the whole canopy of the tree. This also occurs on your trunk, you have shaded the details of the trunk like the ruts in the bark, but you haven't shaded the actual shape of the trunk, a cylinder. Don't forget to include cast shadows on the trunk from the leaves, and shadows from the roots onto the trunk behind it.
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Updated to include more shading as was suggested above by Mr. Fahrenheit
(http://nickcrook.ca/images/treev6.png)
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Its a lot better but you are still leaving out how the tree's canopy is shaped like a giant fat cone, the clusters of leaves on the right should be darker then the ones on the left. Shade it like you would a cylinder, then add the detailed shading you have now ontop. Sort of like this, which i stole from someone else's help for a tree thread. (http://i.imgur.com/emwq8xX.png) .
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Updated the tree to contain 2 levels of shading on the trunk, have a more spherical shading to the tree's overall leaves and added a shadow to further show the light source
(http://nickcrook.ca/images/treev7.png)
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Now it seems like the leafs are a little under defined :-X but the shading looks a lot better.
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Now it seems like the leafs are a little under defined :-X but the shading looks a lot better.
Actually think the new one is an improvement...
the leaves blend together to actually form like a treetop,
rather than separate bushes clumped together at the top of the tree.
My criticism mostly lies with the trunk.
It could use some pruning on the roots (shouldn't stretch that far out),
Maybe a different color too, the light brown really throws it off.
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It could use some pruning on the roots (shouldn't stretch that far out),
I've seen many trees with roots similar to that so I disagree that you NEED to trim their length.
Whats wrong though is they're all a little round at the end.
It would be ok if 1 or 2 of them were like that but we should be seeing the rest blend into the ground more.
You can also try to make at least 1 of the roots go in and back out of the ground.
With roots like that, we should also see some stronger definition of the forms blending into the trunk.
Start with some higher contrast blocking in of highlight, mid-tone and shadow (with optional backlight).
Try not to just do a line of the brightest pixels along the of those roots on the left, rather use a bit darker line and bring your highlight to the point that marks the highest point, since THAT is where the light would be most seen.
Vary how close your highlight is too the shadow (width of the mid-tone) to further define your forms.
You should feel comfortable with the forms based off these 3 shades only.
THEN tone down the contrast accordingly and start blending with some extra colours.
Again, you can vary how much blending you use to make the shapes more interesting, so some bits have a sharper edge and some are rounder.
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Nice foliage! It's come a long way :)
I think the trunk could use more contrast and less pixel noise. That kind of texture detail will only hurt overall clarity. Better to use your colors to define more overall shapes. I also reduced the colors, it's easier to handle that way.
(http://i834.photobucket.com/albums/zz263/ErekT_Pixel/tree_zpse83b56c5.png)