Pixelation

Critique => Pixel Art => Topic started by: KidChaos on January 25, 2007, 07:26:25 pm

Title: Gallery of Chaos! - New Member, Micro Creator
Post by: KidChaos on January 25, 2007, 07:26:25 pm
Hi!

I am a Micro Creator who normally hangs out at one of the various Microhero boards throughout the web.  I have admired Pixel Art for some time, and decided to make the jump, take the step...  Hopefully I can learn to make Pixel Art as well as some of you...

I'm 35 years old, and a Wine and Spirits Account Representative for a major supplier here in the United States.  I've been married for 10 years, and I have a son.  I enjoy Comics, Movies, computers and Star Wars.  ;)

In order for you to know what level of work I am producing, right now, I thought I'd at least post a few of my Micros so you could tell.  After reading the Rules of this Board, I realize that I have been mostly "dirty tool"ing my work.  I will try and learn how to do it otherwise...

FOR THE RECORD, most of these were created off of one of the standard Microhero templates floating about the web.  Some of them are custom, all of them are manipulated, to break from the template.  I start with the template just to maintain my proportions.

Please feel free to comment on anything here, as I do need a lot of help!!!

(http://i63.photobucket.com/albums/h158/Jason_Everett/Manifesto02-JME.gif)(http://i63.photobucket.com/albums/h158/Jason_Everett/Cylon-JME.gif)(http://i63.photobucket.com/albums/h158/Jason_Everett/DeadTom02-JME.gif)(http://i63.photobucket.com/albums/h158/Jason_Everett/StriderGift01.gif)
(http://i63.photobucket.com/albums/h158/Jason_Everett/Steppenwolf-JME.gif)(http://i63.photobucket.com/albums/h158/Jason_Everett/GrannyGoodness-JME.gif)(http://i63.photobucket.com/albums/h158/Jason_Everett/Okeanos-JME.gif)(http://i63.photobucket.com/albums/h158/Jason_Everett/DeadTom-JME.gif)
(http://i63.photobucket.com/albums/h158/Jason_Everett/CaptiveSystem-JME.gif)(http://i63.photobucket.com/albums/h158/Jason_Everett/OmniVishnu-JME.gif)(http://i63.photobucket.com/albums/h158/Jason_Everett/Emissary01-JME.gif)(http://i63.photobucket.com/albums/h158/Jason_Everett/Cloud-JME.gif)
(http://i63.photobucket.com/albums/h158/Jason_Everett/Name-Me--JME.gif)(http://i63.photobucket.com/albums/h158/Jason_Everett/HauptmannEnglande-JME.gif)(http://i63.photobucket.com/albums/h158/Jason_Everett/CrimsonFright-JME.gif)

Thank you for your time in any respondings....
Title: Re: Gallery of Chaos! - New Member, Micro Creator
Post by: cryssy on January 25, 2007, 07:34:08 pm
I know you admitted to it but using tools sorta disqualifies it as pixel art, but here I am sure you will learn how to make things wonderful with just pixels.
Title: Re: Gallery of Chaos! - New Member, Micro Creator
Post by: Wayuki on January 25, 2007, 09:12:48 pm
Hiya KidChaos! Good to see you here. You've come to the right place to learn.  :)
Title: Re: Gallery of Chaos! - New Member, Micro Creator
Post by: Helm on January 25, 2007, 09:26:39 pm
Do you want critique on your pieces you've posted, or would you like to try something cleanly pixel-art before the crittage commences? I suggest the latter.
Title: Re: Gallery of Chaos! - New Member, Micro Creator
Post by: eqko on January 25, 2007, 09:41:05 pm
I suggest the latter.

coming from Helm, I'd take that advice
Title: Re: Gallery of Chaos! - New Member, Micro Creator
Post by: Helm on January 25, 2007, 09:52:25 pm
What does that even mean? I'm just suggesting that so we can best help the guy, it's not ment in any other way.
Title: Re: Gallery of Chaos! - New Member, Micro Creator
Post by: eqko on January 25, 2007, 09:57:32 pm
just meant that (from my point of view) you know what you're talking about and that advise from you
should be something to be considered at the least.

other then that it was my way of saying post something of your own to get the full critique you can really use.

but as with most things my mind ran of and what I posted wasn't all that clear.

in short, I meant nothing wrong with it
Title: Re: Gallery of Chaos! - New Member, Micro Creator
Post by: Rox on January 25, 2007, 10:45:06 pm
Hey, welcome. Looking at those stuff, you've clearly got potential to do some nifty stuff, but like Helm suggested and eqko emphasized, it'd be best if you tried to make something pixel by pixel first. You might have some problems with pillow shading going on, and there's a possibility you'll want to tone down your saturation on some of the stuff, but we'll take care of that once we get to it, right? Now try to make something the old-skool way. Push some pixels, preserve some colors, and we'll nitpick the hell out of the result!

All for the sake of improvement of course. Good luck!
Title: Re: Gallery of Chaos! - New Member, Micro Creator
Post by: GOODNIGHTdestroyer on January 25, 2007, 10:46:01 pm
Basically they're saying these aren't pixel art. Because you used anti aliased brushes to color them.

Why don't you ask some questions that could possibly help you better understand what pixel art is.
Title: Re: Gallery of Chaos! - New Member, Micro Creator
Post by: sharprm on January 25, 2007, 10:49:46 pm
I like the pilot best. He has a good design. Maybe you could do more to make his arm look metallic. The
shading is a bit inconsistent. For the head, the light source looks above and centre, for the circle thing
on his belt it looks above and to the left, for the boots it looks like there is two light sources, for clothes it
looks like its front on. I think it would be improved if you picked on light source. Maybe if the gold stuff was
dithered that would be good. Also you could have a few bright white higlights etc. The skull and cross
bones is cool.
Title: Re: Gallery of Chaos! - New Member, Micro Creator
Post by: KidChaos on January 25, 2007, 11:15:48 pm
Questions, then....

No Airbrush, Smudge, Magic wand, or the likes.... right?  Do I make it piece by piece or as a whole?  I would like to stay with the comic art, and the posing isn't all that important to me, so that will change...  I just have to make these things without all the special little tools.... :(       :-\

Well, it's going to take a lot of work, but I will try.  I will spend most of these opening weeks for me just checking on how you guys do things, and try to learn some new techniques, but I will make something shortly.  Then the real work can begin...

By the way, I really appreciated the comments on picking the lightsource.  It was something tangible that I can work on.  That's what I need.  Plus.... :-[ what does "dithered" and "anti-aliased" mean?  And, should I abandon the comfort of my Adobe?
Title: Re: Gallery of Chaos! - New Member, Micro Creator
Post by: KidChaos on January 25, 2007, 11:18:45 pm
And ..... Hi, Wayuki.  It was your presence at MIB that caused me to take things a step further.  I'm glad to see you here!
Title: Re: Gallery of Chaos! - New Member, Micro Creator
Post by: cryssy on January 25, 2007, 11:20:23 pm
basically you are right about the no smudge, airbrush and the tools like that.
pretty only the pencil tool
I am not sure about the magic wand because I don't use it

Dither is a type of shading
Good tut here http://spriteart.com/tutorials/01_dither.html

Anti Aliasing is the smoothing of edges
and a good tut is here http://spriteart.com/tutorials/01_AA.html
Title: Re: Gallery of Chaos! - New Member, Micro Creator
Post by: fil_razorback on January 25, 2007, 11:44:36 pm
"And, should I abandon the comfort of my Adobe?"

You don't have too, some pixelers (including me) use it.
Title: Re: Gallery of Chaos! - New Member, Micro Creator
Post by: Wayuki on January 26, 2007, 01:01:40 am
And ..... Hi, Wayuki.  It was your presence at MIB that caused me to take things a step further.  I'm glad to see you here!

Glad I could inspire.  ;)

I use Adobe for pixel art as well, it works just fine. You can use the magic wand tool if you uncheck the "Anti-alias" box and set the tolerance to zero. You can also use layers, as long as you keep them at 100% opacity and don't use any layer effects.
Title: Re: Gallery of Chaos! - New Member, Micro Creator
Post by: sharprm on January 26, 2007, 01:10:44 am
(http://i39.photobucket.com/albums/e199/sharprm/pilot.gif)

I use graphics gale. Just set the pallete size to 16 colors and fixed some little things like the light source and stuff. I meant to say
antialias before.
Title: Re: Gallery of Chaos! - New Member, Micro Creator
Post by: ptoing on January 26, 2007, 01:51:14 am
Welcome to Pixelation

My 2 main concerns are the solid black outlines and the colourcount.

It looks like you have a base outline and then you just colour that with whatever colours.

This bit of the head in yours has 130 colours (with the bg) --- mine has 16 with bg
(http://ptoing.net/edit/pilotedit_00.png)(http://ptoing.net/edit/pilotedit_01.png)

If you look at what I did you can see that firstly I removed the black outline and corrected the lightsource, straight from the top. Not that nice, slightly asymmetrical would be better but for the sake of the edit it will suffice.

Mainly there are 4 colourramps in the head:

- Skin
- Cap
- Golden rims
- Glasses

The skin can share the darker tones with the gold (the 2 brightest shades after the white for each are unique the darker colours after that are shared.
The brighter colours of the cap can be shared with dark colours of the skin and to antialias between the both as I did around the cheek area.

Now this leaves the glasses, for which i have 3 colours left, 2 of which also occur on the leather as highlights and the darker desaturated purpelish colour on the leather is in the glasses as well. We call this general technique tinting or rampmixing. When working with low colourcount and not for game with swapable palettes it is a good practise to do this, to maximise the use of the colours at hand, as well as giving a more unified, coherent look.

I also used som basic dithering to smooth out the transitions on the leather and to give it a kind of texture as well, show that it is a bit rough.

You wondered which tools you could used for pixelart: There is a consensus among many of us that as long as you have full control over every colour, and the placement of every pixel, then your art is pixelart. Any tool that generates new colours for you on it's own, such as soft brushes or layer effects can be considered dirty tools. Some more than others. So you can use the magic wand and similar selection tools as they have nothing to do with manipulation of pixels as such.

Hope this helps, feel free to ask if something is unclear.

Have a nice stay.
Title: Re: Gallery of Chaos! - New Member, Micro Creator
Post by: KidChaos on January 26, 2007, 04:22:18 am
So, the fewer colors I use, the better off I am?  What is the purpose of that?  Is it the challenge?  I'm not understanding. 

As far as "dithering"...  That is okay, but the Smudge tool is not?

I just need clarification.  I am absorbing all of this info...

Lastly, The tools on Adobe, PSP, and those other programs were developed to make all of this work easier.  Why do you not use them?

Again, I'm just asking so I can learn the philosophy of the art...

Thank you, everyone.  You are all being VERY helpful!  This is helping me immensely, and I haven't even clicked one pixel yet!  This has been an incredibly supportive experience!
Title: Re: Gallery of Chaos! - New Member, Micro Creator
Post by: Stwelin on January 26, 2007, 04:50:40 am
the reason pixel artists shun the tools that make things 'easy' is because they can also ruin a pixel piece. By placing each individual pixel you have control over everything, whereas if i draw a line and then smudge it, i have no idea how many different shades of that color have been created.

The idea behind color limitations is to do... a number of things, depending on how you look at it:
style: pixel art is a style of its own, and differs from CG. A lot of game developers will still use pixel art in games because the style is cleaner than CG work.
color theory: sometimes artists will limit themselves to a certain number of colors for a piece, and then see how many different effects they can create with only those colors just by changing the patterns of the "dithering." for example, if you were limited to a palette that had no skin-tone color, but it has a red and a white, and a yellow, you could interchange the pixels in some fashion to make it look like a skintone. here is a really good example of a restricted palette piece done by a member here: http://www.wayofthepixel.net/pixelation/index.php?topic=3059.0
limitation and size: when you limit colors, you drastically reduce the size of the image file. it's just basic logic. if you have less colors to define, you have less imformation in the file. this allows for faster loading in games that use pixel art, as well as allowing low-bit machines to process the art with no color loss.  For example, if you tried to display one of the works in your first post on a machine that could only render 16 colors at a time, it would give you an error saying that there are too many colors, or it would result in the loss of integrity of the artwork, whereas Ptoing's edit would render fine, as it has only 16 colors, and would generally look better under those circumstances. if you want to read into some more color limitations and things like that, head over to Wikipedia and search for a little machine called the "Commodore 64"

Hope this is... enlightening. :)
Title: Re: Gallery of Chaos! - New Member, Micro Creator
Post by: Sherman Gill on January 26, 2007, 04:55:53 am
Using fewer colors gives you better control over the little 'pool' you have.
Smudge is bad in all cases. Most professional artists will tell you never to use it. Ever.
Not using the 'shortcut tools' is good because they don't have the control or the heart of the simple tools.
Title: Re: Gallery of Chaos! - New Member, Micro Creator
Post by: pkmays on January 26, 2007, 05:23:43 am
So, the fewer colors I use, the better off I am?  What is the purpose of that?  Is it the challenge?  I'm not understanding. 

You make something look good using as few colors as possible. It's the joy of creating aesthetically pleasing art within the (arbitrary) limitations laid out by archaic hardware and software of the past. It's pixel art.

Lastly, The tools on Adobe, PSP, and those other programs were developed to make all of this work easier.  Why do you not use them?

Photoshop and its imitators were developed primarily for photo editing. Tools like blur, smear, dodge, and burn are also useful for mid-to-high resolution digital illustation. But when applied to low resolution detailed images, they create unattractive, inappropriate, inaccurate, amateurish results. It sounds pompous, but a small image with shading does not equal Pixel Art.
Title: Re: Gallery of Chaos! - New Member, Micro Creator
Post by: AdamAtomic on January 26, 2007, 06:11:32 am
I suppose I may as well chip in, as there is something bugging me about the direction of the thread and crits here.

BUT FIRST - welcome :)  this community has been a huge boon to me personally, and I know that I can attribute much of my development and success as an artist over the last few months to the feedback and inspiration I've found here.  I hope that you find the same opportunities!

NOW on to business...this thread seems to focus on how these character portraits differ from traditional Pixel Art, which is a practice derived from developing games and software for mostly old hardware (but some new - DS, PSP, GBA, and mobile phones) - and thus has some kinda crazy rules about how many colors you can use, etc.  For me and many other members practicing these strict color restrictions is just pragmatic as we have to use these skills every day developing new games.  For others its a little more esoteric but no less important...

HOWEVER!

The main problem with your character portraits is not that they violate color restrictions, or any such arbitrary rules that may be specific to the realm of "true" pixel art (whatever that may be).  The main issue is that your grasp of color and form is weak and/or non-existent, irregardless of Pixel Art's specific rules.  Every single character is pillowshaded in straight monochromatic ramps; regardless of what tools you decide to use, or even what software (or IF you are using software) this is a really bad idea if you want your results to look good.  The renaissance masters did not use the gradient tool or the airbrush tool, and its not just because they didn't have it.  These are special purpose tools that are designed for the manipulation of an existing, photoreal surface, or for simple graphic design purposes.  Painters use paintbrushes.  Just like they always have, and just like they always will!  Our paintbrush just happens to say "wacom" on the side.  No matter if you are painting in photoshop or pro motion or graphics gale, and no matter if you are even doing pixel art, your work will look noobish unless you understand color and form and light and shadow and you paint it to look like it should!

The fact that ptoing's edit has 16 colors instead of 130, while notable, is not the point of his edit (or at least it shouldn't be).  Pay attention to what he DID with those 16 colors!  Notice the clear light source - the varied, lifelike hues - the accurate shading and crisp, clear details.  The only reason he did that with 16 colors was to exaggerate these points.  Getting a perfectly smooth gradient across your surface is useless if it doesn't communicate anything about the form you are rendering!

Prometheus says it better (or at least more efficiently) than anyone I think: http://www.itchstudios.com/psg/art_tut.htm
Re-read it every night before bed.  There are very few times in your life where you'll be able to improve just by reading something; especially something short.  However, this is one of those times!

I hope that you are taking all these posts as encouragement, rather than discouragement - it is rare for a new member to receive so much attention, at least since I've been around :)  it means you have a lot of potential - welcome to pixel art!
Title: Re: Gallery of Chaos! - New Member, Micro Creator
Post by: Helm on January 26, 2007, 07:23:38 am
I'd like to have an additional word about low color usage:

If you're that awesome, be my guest and use 300 colors if you can.

What do I mean by that? Pixel Art has a few special qualities about it that no other art has. They have to do with the level of control on the image. In pixel art, that level of control is potentially huge because every color is selected by hand, every pixel placed by hand, and both can be changed at any time during the creation of the piece. There is no other artform in the whole world where I can just go "oh hm, every single pixel of this exact shade should have hmm... +2 lightness and +5 saturation now' and you press one button and the change occurs without ANY errors or approximations. Even color channel control by MASTERS in Photoshop isn't as precise and easy t o do. Pixel art is Goldly control of one's small universe, with the pixel being the atom of it. Makes sense, right? If I were painting with a soft brush, would I have control on every new automatically generated shade created? No. If I were using real media, would I be able to magically alter all my green hues to have a yellowish tint in the middle of drawing?

When most of us learned to make pixel art we started studying from video games, as for good or worse, that's where the artform was taken to a great level in the beginning. Therefore we tried to keep to palettes of 16, 8, 32 so on as those obsolete machines as the Amiga and SNES required. However in doing so we learned good control skills we keep to in all of our pixel art, not just game art. It's just a matter of how many different shades your mind can keep tabs on to make optimal use of them. For non-game-art it is only out of homage to the past that we keep to the counts of 8,16,32 and such multiples, but the best equation always remains:

Number of colors the piece needs to number of colors you can use effectively

That being said, there's stuff posted here that keeps to 16 colors that still doesn't have the optimal palette (ptoing showed you what an optimal palette does) so those can be refined even more. Likewise, if someone is so good and has such great control over every shade of his pallete and use them in unexpected places and so on, if they are drawing something that calls for 32, 64, 128 colors, so be it. I still haven't seen any such pixel art around here so far, but theoretically nobody would consider such color counts an error if the artist seemed to have control over such a huge palette.

So yes, partly it's tradition. But partly it is just using the medium in the way it seems to be the strongest, having as much control as possible over your art.
Title: Re: Gallery of Chaos! - New Member, Micro Creator
Post by: KidChaos on January 26, 2007, 01:03:15 pm
I want to continue to thank everyone who is offering this information.  I will probably use this thread as my "textbooK" as time goes by.  It is all very informative and helpful.

Can someone define and point out what "pillow shading" is?

Can some one tell me what "color-ramping" is and how to effectively select it for my piece?

How do you pick out an appropriate palette?
Title: Re: Gallery of Chaos! - New Member, Micro Creator
Post by: Meta|Fox on January 26, 2007, 01:21:09 pm
As i understand it pillowshading is shading without a correct lightsource, usually particularly bad pillow shading will involve front on gradients.

lets look at ptoings edit again,
(http://ptoing.net/edit/pilotedit_00.png)(http://ptoing.net/edit/pilotedit_01.png)
notice how he has made the shading look more realistic (and more dynamic) by adding a lightsource? while yours, due to being pillowshaded, looks flat in comparison.


oh and

http://www.wayofthepixel.net/pixelation/index.php?topic=2836.0
This thread on Hue Shifting should help you with colour ramps.

Welcome to the community
Title: Re: Gallery of Chaos! - New Member, Micro Creator
Post by: Opacus on January 26, 2007, 01:36:35 pm
The horror!  :'(
(http://www.pixeljoint.com/files/icons/shadow_wolf_upper_body.gif)
That's my first Pixel Joint submision :>
Makes me cry just looking at it. This forum has a zoom function, zoom in, and find out what pillow shading is.
Because this one is really pilow shaded :3 Especially the arms and the chest.

At pillow shadding the highlight is located in the middle, and is shaded all around, like a pillow from the top.