Pixelation
Critique => Pixel Art => Topic started by: DementedHero on September 09, 2005, 08:52:37 pm
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First off, I must say, I missed this forum.
I wouldn't find it weird if nobody remembers me, as I wasn't that active, nor very good, but I had alot of help from you guys. Thanks to godslayer for pointing me this way again :D
So, I was sketching a bit, and this little dragon was the result.
(http://img253.imageshack.us/img253/4801/pixeldragchar8ed.gif)
Worked on it a bit, mainly colours.
I have to admit a cheated a bit, the recoloring isn't all done manually. Please forgive me :D ;)
(http://img296.imageshack.us/img296/7826/pixeldragchar2az.png)
And that was the second version.
Any idea's/suggestions for improvements?
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Good lord, thanks to zoom, I can actually properly crit this.
To start, I have to say that 32 colors is a bit unnecessary. Its my understanding (someone please correct me if I'm wrong) that the more you can do with less colors, the more 'power' over the colors you have. It's easy to gradient something and have it look ok, but getting the same effect with 3 colors is pretty skilled, wouldn't you say Demented?
Also, his tail looks too big. He would have to have the buttocks of GOD to heft that around all the time, especially to the side like that, he looks rather unbalanced.
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This is a really cool design, but executed carelessly?
There are a lot of tangents that are confusing me. When I first looked at it, I thought his mouth was open, but I realized it was his armour. Also, where his shoulder and neck meet ... to be honest, I can't tell whats going on. I'm just seeing a whole bunch of triangles.
The colors in the update make it more interesting, but they could be better. As the green pallete got darker, maybe make it more blue. As the red(its skin) pallete got lighter, maybe add a bit of yellow. Probably not good combinations, but these are just suggestions on how to make your colors more interesting.
It looks like you are having trouble with AA too. You should work from a more comfortable background color; I think black is good, it should help to see what you are actually doing. I don't use AA much, so I could be wrong. Correct me if so.
The overall sprite just seems misleading to me, but it shouldn't take much to get it to work. This looks like something from the Ninja Turtles, I swear. Or the guys from Duke Nukem ...
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Thanks guys :D
Godslayer, I'm still working on getting the basics done of spriting and such, and after that, Ill work on my colours.
It'll be a good learning experience, trying to do more with less.
Darion, you are right, the colour choice of the Shoulder/back pad things is bad. The darker shades are almost similar to his skin colours.
I will work on that.
I'm not too sure about the black background tip though. Isn't it better to work from a neutral background, so you don't mess up with contrast/brightness?
Thanks for the tips though, I will get to work ;)
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I am glad that you've chosed to desaturate the colors. The desaturating the colors help to make the colors stand out and look cooler. Having saturation value like 240 can be neon and burns the eye. Feel free to adjust the sat color to whatever value you want to make it look. You can make the colors better by varying the hues. The lighter something the more it will go into yellow. The darker the more it will go into blue. Great work there Demented Hero.
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I'm not too sure about the black background tip though. Isn't it better to work from a neutral background, so you don't mess up with contrast/brightness?
( I just realized I kept saying "AA"; I meant to say "Selout" )
Well, it would certainly help if the background was darker than the sprite. You are only using selout to interpret it as an outline .. but not quite; you shade darker, not lighter. At neutral, I couldn't imagine what hell that would be to go through.
It depends what background you want it against ... I guess if this were to be the player in a game then you would have to adjust every levels brightness so that the characters would stand out.
There is a lot of contradiction in this, I know. It just depends on where and why you are using selout. I haven't used selout in years, so ...
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Using AA with dark backgrounds are good. Also anothing I want to critique on it is a suggestion. Make the skin, horns, eyes, mouth, have blueish(not like make them look blue, but like the red shadows turn into kinda purpish) shadows. And yellowish highlights (red orangish highlights heh) like that. You can leave the pants the way they are. There's no point in making it have yellowish highlights.