Pixelation

Critique => Pixel Art => Topic started by: BadMrBox on April 16, 2007, 02:18:14 am

Title: [WIP] Hellsing - Alucard
Post by: BadMrBox on April 16, 2007, 02:18:14 am
(http://badmrbox.googlepages.com/alucard.gif)
Alucard - 13 colors
Made in Graphicgale
This is something I have been working on for an hour or two and I'm somewhat happy with it. What I'm not happy with is the hat band (or what it is called) and I need some help with it.

Any C&C is more than welcome :)
Title: Re: [WIP] Hellsing - Alucard
Post by: crab2selout.png on April 16, 2007, 03:29:02 am
This isn't pixel art. Ref?

Title: Re: [WIP] Hellsing - Alucard
Post by: havocplague on April 16, 2007, 12:13:54 pm
Yes, it is pixelart. It's somewhat rough on the outlines, and I'm not overly enthused by the use of black for shadows. I know that it's a mangastyle, but if you look at the "masters", they will tell you shadows are really never black. But as a starting piece, it's certainly going in the right direction. it's going to be hell to finish though, because of the size, unless you go with a simple shading technique. :)
Title: Re: [WIP] Hellsing - Alucard
Post by: Akira on April 16, 2007, 12:59:23 pm
Well, no, currently its not pixel art.
my c&c is to start smaller.
or if you really want to stick with this piece clean up the lines, maybe use different thicknesses to show volume if you're going to go with an outlined approach. from there move on to shading, you have quite a few references on shading from the anime. pay close attention to posters, figurines, fanart, images that are meant to be still rather than screen captures from the anime itself. anime (and most manga) tends to be over simplified because the artists have to draw large amounts of images. you are only drawing one image so you have no excuse not to detail the image well.
Title: Re: [WIP] Hellsing - Alucard
Post by: Ryan Cordel on April 17, 2007, 12:32:17 pm
Yes, it is pixelart. It's somewhat rough on the outlines, and I'm not overly enthused by the use of black for shadows. I know that it's a mangastyle, but if you look at the "masters", they will tell you shadows are really never black.

Ofcourse, shadows are only the sections of areas on an object where the light does not reach/reflect, and the color of the shadow is dependant on the atmosphere. Say the sky is blue, shadows are blue (and on white objects too). On the grass, they're blackish. Now if it sunset, the shadow would be less stronger, but it would have a red/purple like color.

Just from what I know.
Title: Re: [WIP] Hellsing - Alucard
Post by: Larwick on April 17, 2007, 01:20:10 pm
Just to note, with this artistic cell-shading black shadows are fine.  :huh:
Title: Re: [WIP] Hellsing - Alucard
Post by: Panda on April 17, 2007, 01:42:58 pm
The whole thing hasn't been treated as pixelart. It feels more like a traced picture which got filled with a paintbucket, and then got simple shadows.
But leaving that aside, I don't think the hat band thing is the part that has more problems.
Cel-shaded? Alright, but what's up with all that zigzag stuff? I mean, I googled up for Alucard, and indeed the original has something like that, but in yours it isn't working to show volume, they look like they are there just because. The light sources on your picture feel rather random, and the color choices aren't the best, not to mention that you are not using them wisely so far. (That dark red could be used to smooth out the black for example.)
Overall it could use more AA if you are going for that flat coloring, looks really jaggy.
If you are working that big, you should put all the effort needed so it doesn't look half assed.
Title: Re: [WIP] Hellsing - Alucard
Post by: BadMrBox on April 17, 2007, 03:31:08 pm
What are you meaning crab? Not pixelart? What are you basing that on? Me, my mouse and graphicsgale thinks otherwise. I wouldn't have posted something here that I haven't pixeled...
@Panda
The colors are the same as Alucard has in the anime so I cant really be blamed for that ;).
The zigzags is kinda a pain in the 'you know where' to get good. I had started to smooth the black with the darkred but decided against it as I will have to redo the ziggies. I agree with you on the lightsources and will do something about that.

Title: Re: [WIP] Hellsing - Alucard
Post by: Zee on April 17, 2007, 08:19:44 pm
As it's been said, it could really do well with some AA & general cleaning up. One thing you could do, if you're tracing an image is to flip it upside down initially, and draw what you see, so you don't draw what you think should be there and only draw what IS that.

 :y: good start though.
Title: Re: [WIP] Hellsing - Alucard
Post by: AdamAtomic on April 17, 2007, 10:26:42 pm
The colors are the same as Alucard has in the anime so I cant really be blamed for that ;).

Did you pixel this?  If you did, then you can SO be blamed for the colors.  Pixel art is NOT the same medium as cel+digital animation for television, so there is no reason for you to use what you perceive to be identical values.  So, I'm blaming you right now!  The colors are crap.  Pick better ones, and use the ones you have picked better.
Title: Re: [WIP] Hellsing - Alucard
Post by: crab2selout.png on April 17, 2007, 11:04:34 pm
What are you meaning crab? Not pixelart? What are you basing that on? Me, my mouse and graphicsgale thinks otherwise. I wouldn't have posted something here that I haven't pixeled...

I thought the other guys had explained well enough, but, ok, this isn't pixel art because it shows no attention on the pixel level. There's no AA, no use of pixel techniques, and your pixel steppings don't show much care to reduce unnecessary jaggies to show a few reasons. I said that mostly because you said you were satisfied with this when you should not be satisfied at all because the pixels still need a lot more attention. I'd seriously consider shrinking to as much as a quarter of the original and proceed from there. Pixels get more interesting at the lower scales as you are forced to choose what information you want/need to show

I'd still like to know if there was a ref. It looks like there was a ref used, which would be useful for seeing if you captured the look and feel of the original.
Title: Re: [WIP] Hellsing - Alucard
Post by: BadMrBox on April 19, 2007, 02:04:50 pm
I think it was a mistake to say that I was kinda happy with a w.i.p ::)
@Crab
I understand and agree with you. I will most likely follow your advice in shrinking the piece.

Sorry, I missed your question about ref the first time around. I just frozed in the middle of an episod and worked from that. Heres some other pics on him.

http://media.film.ru/anime2003/Hellsing.jpg [big]
www.absoluteanime.com/hellsing/alucard.gif
and the wikipage with some pics on it www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alucard_(Hellsing)