Pixelation

Critique => Pixel Art => Topic started by: rasenken69 on January 26, 2018, 02:38:13 pm

Title: Fist of the north star fan art critique
Post by: rasenken69 on January 26, 2018, 02:38:13 pm
(https://ibb.co/hNkbtb)
Hey guys , been doing pixel art for a while now, doing it somewhat semi professionally. Never really joined communities ,so wanted to try out here and see what you guys think about my art . I am well acquainted with things like hue shifting etc . been an artist for years , now just want to focus on pixel art and get to the level of artwork done by the guy who worked on the first 3 metal slugs and the other masters of pixel art at snk . let me know what you guys think . will be posting here frequently
Title: Re: Fist of the north star fan art critique
Post by: rasenken69 on January 26, 2018, 02:43:32 pm
(https://i.imgur.com/MbXIyT2.png)
Title: Re: Fist of the north star fan art critique
Post by: eishiya on January 26, 2018, 03:09:29 pm
Could you please upload a version that's not zoomed in? It would make it easier to give feedback and to make edits. It looks like you're using the same image as your avatar, why not just post that?

All the shirt blues are so blue that they feel out of place with the warm colours of the skin. The hue-shifting towards purple is negligible, I think you could push it more.

Almost all your highlights have banding going on, bands of pixels of multiple colours lining up to form blocky thick lines. Try to avoid pixels lining up like that. It'll help a lot.

I think it might be worth it to add an extra skin colour to use for AA between the lighter and darker skin colours, as the difference between them is very stark currently. I think the starkness looks great, but without AA it makes for some pixelated edges. Alternatively, you could slightly darker your 2nd lightest skin colour. I think the latter option would also make the rim lights on the right side stand out a little less, which would be good as they currently draw more attention than they warrant.

The face appears to be stretched vertically. Did you work from a stretched reference image? I know Fist of the North Star had some long faces, but I don't remember them being this long/narrow.
Title: Re: Fist of the north star fan art critique
Post by: rasenken69 on January 26, 2018, 07:08:22 pm
(https://i.imgur.com/CcBPThu.png)
here you go and yes please edit it and show me how to remove this banding , ive never really made portraits in pixel art so this was my first try , i know i was messing up but didnt know how to remove the banding , if id try to remove pixels it would look in complete and if id add different hues from the palette it would still look weird , so yes please, show me how to remove the banding . and as far as the hue shifting goes , i am aware of the kind of hue shifting being done by alot of pixel artists where they'd go towards the purples , but when i tried to find it in the pixel art done by the artists at nazca (snk) i did not see that level of hue shifting , so i myself try to stay away from it as im trying to follow them . and would the jacket being more desat help?
Title: Re: Fist of the north star fan art critique
Post by: rasenken69 on January 26, 2018, 07:11:14 pm
(https://i.imgur.com/NE5ktxw.jpg) the face proportions looks close enough here
Title: Re: Fist of the north star fan art critique
Post by: eishiya on January 26, 2018, 10:56:44 pm
That image looks squished. Reverse Google Image search turned up this other version (https://i.ytimg.com/vi/h_L9_bDH4T8/hqdefault.jpg), which is wider and more in line with other faces from the show.

Desaturating the jacket would help, but it would probably teach you less about colour harmony than trying to get the blue to work would. Hue-shifting isn't merely a stylistic thing, it's a matter of light in the scene too. Shadows shift towards the ambient light in the scene, highlights shift towards the key light.

Here's an edit reducing the banding:
(https://i.imgur.com/Yt9H3Sd.png)
Try putting it as a layer over your version and toggling between the two to help you spot the differences. The key thing is just avoiding areas where pixels line up, such as by shifting some things over, using larger or smaller AA, or simply not AAing when it isn't necessary.

In addition to reducing the banding, I made some other changes:
- Reduced the brightness of the 2nd lightest skin tone (reused a colour from his eyes), which makes it more suitable as AA on the face and makes it stand out a bit less in the rim light on the dark side of the neck.
- Made the rim lights on the neck and shoulders fade off a bit so they're less prominent. This helps keep the focus on the face, and makes the jacket look like it's actually on his body rather than pasted above it, because it now casts a shadow on him.
- Darkened the bright ear a little. It was distractingly bright before, I think this change is better for the overall composition. I did the same with the small highlight on his cheek, it looked like it was sticking out too much.
- Smoothed some curves on the hair. There's more work you could do with that, hopefully my edits give you some ideas.
Title: Re: Fist of the north star fan art critique
Post by: rasenken69 on January 26, 2018, 11:30:51 pm
i see , i guess it was stretched lol .thanks alot for the edit , ill save it for future reference aswell . yeah hue shifting is a pretty important part of color theory ,although i guess traditional artists probably have a different term for it , so i dont consider it a stylistic choice. the only thing that's on my mind is to not get too deep into saturated purples with darker areas like i see alot of pixel artists doing ,cuz i dont see that level of contrast in the stuff we see in real life,it's a bit more subtle .The only thing from metal slug that i would like to not follow is the complete black borders on their sprites. im trying to learn how to do selective AA but cant get it down yet. for backgrounds ive been doing master studies of ,you guessed it , metal slug , but that is much more forgiving since we dont treat them like sprites.Anyway , thanks again :D