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Messages - Lukkas
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11
Pixel Art / Re: Guyver piece, need critique
« on: December 04, 2010, 08:29:25 pm »
I do see what EvilEye means, and I agree. The perspective immediately looked a bit fishy to me but I couldn't articulate it. The shoulder is definitely a few pixels too high for that perspective.

To expand on his comment about smaller subtleties, I think the perspective of the arm furthest away also seems to suggest the viewer is at eye-level and the figure is standing straight, but the height of the shoulder conflicts with this.

As for the rest of the construction however, great job. My only additional suggestion beyond what others have stated is that your shading method is too... "cloth-like". Color diffuses across the surface in a fragmented, rough way, rather than the way light reflects off of more smooth/metallic/plastic materials. In the folds and contours of the material, like the impressions on the spikes of the gloves, the lightest shade and darkest shade should be closer, perhaps even next to each other. I'm probably not doing a very good job of explaining, maybe this picture will illustrate what I mean.

See here? Pay attention to how the highlight of the barrel meets the shadow on the other side of the barrel? Generally, with a shiny material, the neutral or inbetween shades are sparse, whilist highlights and shadows are very dominant. I think, assuming your figure is supposed to be shiny, you should try to emulate that.

12
Pixel Art / Re: Is this a good start?
« on: December 04, 2010, 03:09:04 pm »
That looks quite good, especially for only a start. I really like it.

The only things that appear obvious to me are the wing details (the veins disappear in one frame, and overall they lack proper shading), the top of his head lacks shading (I think you need the light green to go back a bit further. Right now he looks like a little bit like Gorbachev.

I also think the arm movement needs a little more smoothing. The drop is a bit too sudden and deliberate. It looks a little bit like he's playing a piano. The elbow joint probably needs to move more.

Really great design/idea though. It looks great, and aside from the wing detail thing, it'd probably look fine as a finished product (to me anyway.)

13
I like it. :) Very nice first start.

The grass is actually pretty nice I think. It could maybe use one darker shade, just sprinkled towards the roots of your grass clumps. Otherwise, I think it's quite nice.

one thing you will want to do is make variations of that grass tile. Right now, when you combine your grass tiles, it looks very obvious that it's one tile being repeated over and over. The same shapes and artefacts are visible where the files come together, and this looks unpleasant. The best way to resolve it is to make variations of the same tile, and draw them in such a way that they connect interchangeably.

An easy way to accomplish this is covered here. http://www.wayofthepixel.net/pixelation/index.php?topic=9865.msg107103#msg107103

I realise your tiles are isometric, unlike those in vierbit's example, but the same concept applies.

As for your rock and foliage, they are nice starts. I think your flower will look more like a flower with a simple palette shift. The orange doesn't read very well against the yellows of the grass. Also, make it rise from the grass further. That will make it read more like a flower.

The rock looks nice enough right now, assuming your game is going with a more flat-shaded, cartoon-y feel, but I would recommend dithering your highlights on the rock, or perhaps adding new shades. Right now, it lacks shadow. It could actually look really nice with some purple shadows, as it would complement the yellow-highlight grass quite well, but that's a big stylistic choice you'd had to stick with in shadowing everything else.

Great job overall, and I'm quite eager to see your improvements. :)

14
Pixel Art / Re: New "artist" here.
« on: October 10, 2010, 10:42:05 pm »
Not to be rude, but, it's supposed to be a spaceship, right?

It'd help to have more information about what you're trying to achieve and what the sprite is supposed to be for, and maybe what there is about the sprite that you're unhappy with.

I think that you need to make the purple shade darker, to better contrast the light blue, which I am interpreting as glass, for a cockpit and windows.

You seem to be using a lot of pillow-shading in your sprite. You should try to find a lightsource, and stick with that. You'll come up with a better defined shape if you do that. This is a really good tutorial on how to shade when doing pixel art. That might help you some. :)

Another tutorial, which relates less directly to your current piece, but is pretty much required reading for any new pixel artists, is this.

I really hope I'm not coming across harshly. I'm not trying to make you feel bad about your artwork or anything. For your first foray into pixel art, this is really not bad at all. You should see the first sprite I made. Uck. Keep at it, and you'll get good, I promise. :)

15
Pixel Art / Re: C&C on some work I've been doing [GAME]
« on: October 10, 2010, 01:43:26 pm »

16
Pixel Art / Re: C&C on some work I've been doing [GAME]
« on: October 09, 2010, 02:35:06 pm »
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_depth

That should be a good start. Basically, if you go one-bit, you have two colors, one being your transparency. You could use black, or you could use some other color and it's still technically 1-bit. Think like the alien ships in Space Invaders.

2-bit would be a little harder to convey. You're technically allowed 4 colors, one being transparency. But I think if you go 2-bit, you need to stick to black and greys, like Gameboy graphics.

As far as eliminating the grid by making your tiles not, well, tile, you basically need more tiles. Variation tiles to make it so that it's not immediately obvious that there's repetition.

The easiest way to make alternative tiles that will fit together that I've found was posted on this board a while ago, but I can't find it. :(

Basically, the idea is you should take your original tile, divide it in half both ways, horizontal and vertical, and then flip the pieces around so they're all facing the opposite way, before putting the pieces back together into one tile. From there, erase everything except a 2-4 pixel border all the way around in your new tile. This new "frame" tile will serve as the basis of all your new tiles. Just fill in the middle part such that it is flush with the border you've created, and you can make limitless numbers of tiles that "fit" together, but have unique variation and thus, you eliminate the obvious tiling.

If anyone knows the tutorial I'm talking about, could you please post a link to it? Not only because I suck at explaining things and I probably didn't make any sense, but also because I want to credit the guy that came up with the technique. It's proven very helpful to me, time and time again.

17
Pixel Art / Re: C&C on some work I've been doing [GAME]
« on: October 09, 2010, 03:56:09 am »
Pretty neat looking. :)

I think the most obvious thing is that there's very obvious tiling on your grass and dirt. It doesn't look horrible, but under anything more than a passing glance it sticks out.

I really like your bushy tree background. Once it's properly dressed with a good backdrop, I think it'll look great. :)

The water could also use work. It's hard to immediately tell that it's water.

As for the 8 bit man in a 16 bit world... I think it's a little bit hard of a concept to convey. When you're in a 16 bit environment, especially a pretty one (which I think yours is), I know that I at least do not take much notice of the character being less detailed. Really, he doesn't look 8 bit so much. It just looks like he was done in a different art style, or that someone was more lazy in making him. You could probably convey your concept better by going with a 2 bit sprite. It'd make a bigger contrast, at least.

bit argument aside though, I like how that's shaping up. It has a lot of promise. :)

18
Pixel Art / Re: Help on hair
« on: October 09, 2010, 03:46:18 am »
Looks really good. :) I see few flaws to point out.

I think the top, main highlight (the one that connects three locks of hair), has too perfect of a line at the top. If you work that out, I think it'll look a bit better. Also a bit of dithering here and there, especially between the three darkest shades, could go a long way.

Really great work. I like it. :)

19
Pixel Art / Re: Lurch
« on: October 09, 2010, 03:39:29 am »
I really like the modified Lurch :) My only suggestions would be to maybe make the bolts a little larger, and I think the highlight on his nose is too big. It looks a little off. Everything else is great I think. :)

I like the concept for the monkey. I agree with Platypotter though that you should raise the ears, and make them larger. Maybe more round, saucer-shaped, to make him look more like a monkey. I also think the fur isn't very well defined just yet. You've made little tufts of hair to show it's fur along the edges, but they're too sharp and unnatural. Try making the hairs curl more. Maybe cut away from the block a little bit more as well, as he's a little over-dominated by the monotone blue. I think it'd also look good if maybe you add a little tuft of hair on the top of his chest. It'd make the transition to the chest much more natural I think.

Really cool concept, and I'm sure he'll look great in another iteration or two. :)

20
You know, what's the opposite of walking backwards?

Just swap the animation in reverse. ;)

D'oh! You're amazing. Can't believe I didn't think of that. The "play in reverse" button has been sitting there in Pro Motion all day long and I didn't think to try that. It looks perfect now. :)

I think that your are bringing his hand too far forward as well. There is a giant skip from mid-placement to full forward. Maybe his hands shouldnt fling so far forward?

You might be right about that, but I actually like the way it looks at the moment. I may experiment with making the movement less violent, but I think this is the template I want to use, at least for the main character. To me, it makes his stride look very strong and determined because of the exaggerated arm movement. Thank you for the critique :)

I've completed some running animations now. I'd love some feedback on these too. :D It may seem a little counter-intuitive, but I've actually given the running animations fewer frames than the walking. I think the effect is working.







Once I get this good and I feel confident in the animations, I'll shade the template, and then I'd really love some nitpicking. I haven't done pixel art in a while really, and my shading is probably rusty. Not that it was anything remarkable to begin with.  :-[

Thanks again to everyone for their assistance. You're definitely improving my skill, and proving extremely helpful. :D

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