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Messages - Chonky Pixel
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1
Pixel Art / Re: Female Character
« on: October 12, 2020, 01:02:42 pm »
Something I've learned about shading on limbs is that it can serve (at least) two purposes. One is to show direction of light and areas of shadow. Another is to give a sense of depth.

In essence, both have the similar effect of creating the feeling of a 3D shape.

So in simple terms, a leg that's further away can just be made darker to give a sense of depth. But, also, the lower part of a leg that's nearer the viewer can be made darker to look like it's "tucked in" or bent back (and thus in shadow).

So this piece by Kenthecaptain shows the lower part of the legs bent back, giving a strong sense of 3D and emphasising the exaggerated 'hips thrust-forward' pose.




And after a quick scan through Twitter, here's an example of some characters with darker 'rear' legs:

https://twitter.com/_alihusain_/status/1315397330170978304

I'm sure you can find more!

The reason I mention this is that your recent version:



seems to do the opposite, if you see what I mean. The leg in front is darker, even though it's not bent back. The rear leg is bent back and lighter. This makes my brain interpret it as a very awkward twisted leg pose... But you know, that's just me.

2
Pixel Art / Re: [WIP] How can I improve this piece ? Quiet island
« on: October 12, 2020, 10:30:01 am »
Beyond that, you've done a good job making the large cluster of rocks in the middle look realistic and rocky. I'd think about applying similar techniques to other rocks dotted around, as well as the areas of grass. :)

3
Pixel Art / Re: [WIP] How can I improve this piece ? Quiet island
« on: October 12, 2020, 10:27:45 am »
There's a couple of things I noticed in the more recent post:

 - The roof tiles on the right-most building.

The roof is actually going inwards as you get closer to the top. It's not a rectangle with perspective, like a road or a runway. It's actually a trapezoid with the top side shorter than the bottom. Any perspective effect will be small. However, the tiles you've put on there act like the surface is a rectangle and follow the lines as if there's lots of perspective involved. If I look at it with those eyes, it becomes a comically long piece of road at a shallow angle.

Lessen the perspective effect and allow there to be fewer tiles across the top.

Here's a photo to show what I mean.

https://grouptegula.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Tegula-Roofing-Grey-Tiled-Roof-PH-2.jpg


4
Pixel Art / Re: [WIP] Lake house
« on: July 17, 2020, 04:32:05 pm »

- Sometimes it can be a good idea to "suggest" detail rather than render all detail, especially when the detail is regular. The wood slats in the hut for example. You could put more detail around the edges and in patches, so you don't have that hard grid pattern throughout.

Good call on that. I've reduced the detail a bit, particularly around the sitting girl. I think it reads a lot better.


Awesome! That looks so much better to me! I mean, it was good before... :)

5
Pixel Art / Re: [WIP] Lake house
« on: July 17, 2020, 04:29:27 pm »
I love the impressionistic feel of the rocks

Thanks but they're not rendered yet lol... I might stick with the "looser" feel though and not get too bogged down in small details. One of my pixelart weaknesses is focusing too much on fine detail and neglecting to design the bigger picture.


This is totally a taste thing, but I've been enjoying pixel art like this recently. For areas of background, a lower-detail feel can help focus the viewer's eye on the parts you want them to look at. If you put detail everywhere, then everything is competing for attention. Or so says Some Random Pixel Artist On Twitter. (Honestly, when I stopped using Twitter for politics and started following pixel artists, it became a much more pleasant place. And there are some astounding artists on there.)

Here's an example of what I mean:

https://twitter.com/Franrekkk/status/1279393666549735426

In the older image, while everything is rendered well, it's hard to know where to look. With the new one, the eye is very much focussed on the important part. And in that part, the detail is still there.

This stuff is way above my pay grade, but I find it really interesting.

Back to your image, the low detail rocks and vegetation look great to me. I'm a massive fan of that kind of watercolour feel you get with large clusters like that. There's probably more work that could be done, like blending the grass into the rocks more smoothly in some areas, but this kind of style makes me happy looking at it. But like I say, it's a taste thing.

6
Pixel Art / Re: Lake Wanaka inspired piece
« on: July 17, 2020, 03:25:16 pm »
That does look very nice! Excellent work.

Some people don't accept that gradients like that can be called "pixel art", so for example, you wouldn't be able to put it up on Pixel Joint. But on the other hand, if it looks good, it looks good.

Initially, I felt that the upper clouds on the right didn't have the right highlights to match the ones on the left, but then I noticed more sunlight/gradient on the left. So I assume this is where the sun is. It's subtle though, and in my mind, it's confused by the highlights on top of the clouds on the lower right.

But that's really nit-picking. This is a great piece imo.

7
Pixel Art / Re: [WIP] Lake house
« on: July 16, 2020, 10:42:52 am »
I think this looks really good! I love the impressionistic feel of the rocks and the water is a great effect.

Trying to find some critique:

 - Sometimes it can be a good idea to "suggest" detail rather than render all detail, especially when the detail is regular. The wood slats in the hut for example. You could put more detail around the edges and in patches, so you don't have that hard grid pattern throughout.

 - Composition-wise, I understand that putting the focal point in the centre of the image isn't the most effective. Then we get into phrases like "creating a story" and "drawing the eye" to the important parts of the image. Oh and the "rule of thirds". To be honest, I don't really understand all that stuff, but I would probably try putting the main component of the image off-centre and using your handy shoreline to draw the eye towards it. Then you can make sure viewers take in the bathers (both water and sun) on the way.

But honestly, I'm no expert.

Anyway, yeah, great work! I love it.

8
Pixel Art / Re: [WIP] How can I improve this piece ? Quiet island
« on: July 07, 2020, 01:53:03 pm »
Your cloud:

Your stripes go some way towards giving the cloud volume, but they don't seem quite right. Here's a real cloud:



In general, the top parts are brighter and the underside is darker. You can see there's a sense of volume because there are individual parts with their own shading.

I attack clouds by creating a collection of spheres of different sizes, arranging until I get a nice shape. Then I'll mess things up. Fluff up edges, join or separate areas of highlight and rough them up, make the dark shading at the base of the cloud darker and join it up, that kind of thing. There are loads of ways to do clouds though, I broke some down in a recent thread. Have a look down, I think I'm the last to post on it. But my way may not suit you. Have a look at artists you admire and see if you can work out what's going on.

Here we are:

https://pixelation.org/index.php?topic=48706.0

9
Pixel Art / Re: [WIP] How can I improve this piece ? Quiet island
« on: July 07, 2020, 10:13:23 am »
When shading things, be careful not to fall into the trap of just embossing everything.

Only got a few mins so here's a rough example.



The left object looks more like a solid sphere because thought is given to how the light will fall on a 3D object and produce areas of shade and highlight.

The right image looks like an embossed circle, because shading is just applied to the top-left and bottom-right areas of the shape, with no thought given to the volume of the object and how it will interact with light falling on it.

I'm looking at your rocks especially here.


10
Pixel Art / Re: [Feedback Needed] Female Run Cycle
« on: July 07, 2020, 07:01:06 am »
Definitely much less of that sashay. The arms going through the hair is an interesting move, and I think you pulled it off. Nice.

In the down animation, the bare legs are 6px wide, in the up animation they're 5. Again, I prefer the wider ones.

So IMO there's still a bit of a wiggle, and you could still interpret the arm movements as finger clicks if you wanted to. But overall it feels so much more like running than it did before. The work you did on the hair really pulled it back. I'd call it a good job and move on, but as I say, I'm no animation expert.

Great work though.

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