To touch on what Pixel said about finding mixed reviews...

I think you'll find that about any school. Certainly, I know people that hate Full Sail, even though I swear by it. Really, in the end, it's not the school that will teach you, it will be about your willingness to learn! So take the reviews with a grain of salt. If at all possible, visit the campuses and teachers. Ask students that are actually there, if you can! That's what I did when I decided.

Hope that's helpful and good luck!

Hi everyone!

Someone approached me today and asked if I would be interested in doing paid sprite work for them! :O Floored as I am, I really don't know where to start and there's a few things I need to find out.

• I have 2 years of personal experience, no "field" experience yet. I've never taken a real, paid gig. How much should I charge? Do I charge a flat rate or by the hour?
• How do people expect things to be delievered!? If I am doing tiles... do real games use chipsets, or...? I've done stuff for myself but I don't know how to even start delivering tiles or sprites for games developed on the iOS or Android.
• If the person asking to hire me isn't based in the US, will a contract still hold up? Do you usually ask for 30% or an amount up front? (I always do with my web work.) Does anyone have a template contract I could have or build off of?
• Is there an easy way to tell if someone is trying to scam you? Does that usually happen a lot in the pixel art world?

This person wants me to get back to them so if anyone has any answers that would be greatly appreciated!

Heya Ambi.

Thanks for all of the help! I definitely see what you mean with the light and using the contrast with sharp angles to get that sharper look. I did that and it DEFINITELY worked. Than I tried to translate that 'style' into a style more like SoM and that's where everything fell apart [again]. 



So, I feel like these definitely look more like 'rocks'... but I'm still not where I want to be. >_< I've been trying to nail these rocks down for about a month and I'm ready to throw my hands up. Maybe I should just give a try at something like this instead http://www.wayofthepixel.net/index.php?topic=7798.50

The more I look at fantasy games that I like the more stylized I realize they are, and I feel like my stuff doesn't even touch that.

Okidokey so here is an updated version!

Decroded I worked on the elements that you said, however; I chose to keep the pillars square. When I was working on them I wanted them to kind of have a 'chisseled out of a square pillar' feeling >_< I feel like maybe I should go back and fix it if they *don't* look square. <.<; But I'll try non square ones later as well to see which look better--just haven't had time yet.



I also need some help with these rock walls. Like tons. I'm using Sword of Mana's walls as a "guide", both for color and shape. But clearly I'm missing something here... I can't figure out how they're placing the last highlight color. The second to last I understand (or think) is the shape of the rocks themselves and that's all well and good... but I can't make the final color work. >_< (Also, I can't vary the colors much. They're snapped to the game client's colors.) And no, this is not a rip so I figured it's OK to post.

I don't know why but rocks have always been the hardest thing for me... >_<

Hi everyone!

Decided I would start a sketchbook. That just means that it's all of my recent pixel art. I love feedback and critique so please feel free to give it! I only started doing pixel art 2 years ago. My goal is to eventually work at Square Enix doing games such as Children of Mana. I grew up on the Mana series and used to play it with my father on our SNES, so it's very close to me. You'll probably see a lot of my style derives from styles such as those!

Everything below is 32x32 isometric tiles. Unfortunately the game client I'm uploading it on has the crappiest palette available to man [and women ;P] so I've decided to start doing it NOT in their palette, than forcing colors into their palette and fixing it later. That way I might have some better portfolio pieces. The game is "Furcadia" and I'm creating my own "level" on it, so I'll be sure to let you know which ones are the Furc color palette. I know we'll have some comments about how gross the colors are.

Most of these are for my game level "EcoVerse". It's an RP game via text based chat, so there's really no mazes or monster fighting. It's more a social game. So more areas for people to sit / interact with other people. Please also note that the game client I am using this for does not accept alpha and all lighting has to be "faked" using tiles.

The Black Market



Right now this is the only one I am going to post, since the others are old and outdated. Obviously no colors here yet, and it's not finished either! I'd still love some feedback on the non-finished bits.

This is The Black Market, the area where players can go to sell and buy illegal items. Since there's no honor among theives, there's also a prison here--or an area where things such as live animals can be held for purchase. I've been thinking about putting the 'prison' inside a wall... but I just have to make sure I can code that in the game client.

TBM is constructed out of a ruined temple that was build on the inside of a mountain. And since I don't think theives would be too concerned about making the place look 'hospitable', I'm thinking of trying to bring a bit more beauty into the scene by adding overgrowth or other natural things. (There's a forest right out side with glowing plants and such, so maybe that would work... although that color scheme is different than the color scheme I was going to go with here )

This is not the actual room or how things will be laid out. This is just a small room where I can build and test the tiles.