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Messages - Chonky Pixel
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31
Pixel Art / Re: How to improve this
« on: May 31, 2020, 08:28:43 am »
Looks like you have a bit of a Hollow Knight vibe going on. You've got some nice cluster shapes in the wings there. A few tweaks could help bring this alive I think.

Here's some ideas for things I would do:

 - It's very dark. Use a lot of contrast. Make the internal colours bright against the dark outlines. This will help readability and, in a scene or game, help bring the whole sprite into the foreground.

 - Get rid of "staircasing". these are where you use double thickness lines on the "corners" of your outlines. It makes things look jagged. Remove the corners on the inside and allow the outline to be a single pixel thickness all round.

 - Make the silhouette readable. If it was all black, could you recognise what's going on? I would focus attention on the legs. Separate them out so you can see there are supposed to be two of them. You could probably remove some of the dark area between the horns as well, so the rightmost horn pops out.

 - You have a single anti-alias pixel on its ass. It looks out of place. :)

 - There's no depth information telling us the rear wing is behind the front one. If you brighten everything up, make the rear wing a bit darker than the front one.

Let me know if you'd like any examples of the things I'm talking about.

Anyway. Just some ideas. I hope you find them helpful.

32
Pixel Art / Re: [C+C] Three portraits based on One Piece characters
« on: May 31, 2020, 08:13:47 am »
This is great work overall! You have excellent definition of hair shapes and volume, and some great features. But I see what you mean about the middle one.

I'm aware of, but not familiar with OnePiece. However, looking around for inspiration pieces for Robin, I see what the original artists are trying to do. It's a very narrow nose with a flat front, so it has a couple of long, sharp angles.

What I noticed was that there was always a way the artists used to separate the eyebrow from the nose... corners? Let's call them corners.

Either there's a gap:




Or something that breaks up the line:



And/or a significant change in the line style.



(These are random grabs from Google Images, apologies if any are fan art or whatever.)

Another thing I noticed was the the underneath of the nose was only ever in shadow if a large chunk of the rest of the face was also in shadow.

Here's one from a similar angle to yours:



Your band of shade across the left side of the nose makes me think there's an overhang, like she has a plate stuck on the front of her nose. I would remove that, and the shadow under the nose. Then keep the dot at the base to imply the width of the nose, and add a little more shadow to the right of the nose there.

I like the hair colour and the highlights, although the detail is lost so you might be able to get away with using a lighter shade for the main bulk of the hair.

For the rest of your work, I would personally spend some time tidying up. Specifically:

 - Removing single pixels and replacing with clusters implying shape and direction. I consider single pixels to be "noise" in most cases, and where you're using them (in the pink hair for example) you probably just need to point the viewer's eyes in the right direction with a pointy cluster. In other areas you're almost dithering along a single line (left image, between clumps of hair) and it feels like you could get a better effect by sticking with one colour for solid sections of line.
 - The necks have some banding going on. I prefer to use a single shade for shadows like this, as bands of colour can start to look unnatural.
 - Removing jaggies. There are areas where I would consider some of your line work to be a bit messy still. Taking a little time to smooth off some curves, remove "corners" and generally round things off or sharpen things where they need it might help bring it alive. I'm no great artist, but if you'd like some examples of how I'd approach cleaning some things up I'd be more than happy to have a go. :)
 - Some of the shading around the edge of the faces is using very tight bands of a few shades. This feels a little forced to me. I think you only really need a single shade, and in some cases you can probably make the shaded area larger. (See examples above.) This is a cartoon style. You just need solid outlines and a single shade for shadows in most cases.

Apart from that, some of the anatomy feels off, but that's not my area!

Anyway, great work, I hope you find something helpful in there!

33
Pixel Art / Re: How to improve this piece?
« on: May 26, 2020, 08:21:19 am »
I'm glad you found it helpful.

I like your wood pattern better now.

I tend to go through curved items in my images and remove jaggies and hard corners, so you can see my cables are smoother and curvier. However, I probably go too far sometimes. If you want kinked cables, adding hard curves and jaggies will probably be how you do it. :)

It might be possible to follow the shape of the cables a little more with the shape of the shadows. If the cable kinks, the shadow probably will too. Bit it's a tiny nit-pick.

34
Pixel Art / Re: How can I improve this piece?
« on: May 23, 2020, 07:11:59 pm »
This looks pretty awesome! Excellent work. Linework and shading are on point, and I love the cartoony style.

The only potential issue I see is around the face. The dark red/brown against the black/grey outline doesn't allow me to see any detail. I'm assuming the single dot of white is supposed to be a tooth, but I had to zoom in to figure out what was going on. Also it's a single pixel, so I can only assume what it is because of its location.

I tend to try to avoid single pixels myself, but tbh I can't make characters look this good! But fwiw I'd try some face colours that stood out against the black or try using a light colour for detail. Also I'd choose a tooth colour with a bit of yellow or brown in it so it doesn't ping so much, and try to make the tooth at the very least 2px long. (Preferably wider as well, but I know you have the tiniest amount of space!)

But you know, feel free to ignore. It's a great piece imo.

35
Pixel Art / Re: How to improve this piece?
« on: May 22, 2020, 11:30:52 am »


Very very quick micro-edit!

Just a couple of ideas:

 - I tried to make the cables curl more naturally. Fewer kinks, and curling instead of hanging straight down.
 - I separated the shadow from the cables. This is an attempt to make them read better as shadows (instead of anti-aliasing) and it also gives a bit of height to the cables.

The other edits are pretty inconsequential. The wooden front of the desk, I tried to imply texture by adding it just at the ends instead of all the way across. It's a matter of taste though, you may want more.

36
Pixel Art / Re: Need help reviewing Character design
« on: May 22, 2020, 11:21:37 am »
A couple of things I'd try, just ideas:

 - The hair and skin are similar shades. Giving a different colour or shade to the hair might help define them better.

 - The legs both look like they're the same distance away. Make one darker to push it back.


37
Pixel Art / Re: Ancient rock
« on: May 22, 2020, 11:19:37 am »
Thanks!

Some great stuff there. I am using multiple references, I tend to go on a Google Images spree before starting anything!

When I looked at your edit, I noticed a few little embellishments and tweaks that helped tell the "story of the rock" I guess. I tend to think in narrative terms when drawing, like "This beam of light is travelling from the sun but gets blocked by this leaf" or "at some point in the past some water froze in a crack, expanded and widened it until this piece fell off." I guess my hope is that it adds a bit of realism and cohesion to an image... And if the narrative is off it can really bug me.

A good example of this is the horizontal crack about halfway down on the front-facing vertical corner. I didn't like the way the rock seemed to twist in mine. The narrative was off: I couldn't conceive of any way it got from the original rock to there. One of your edits fixed that...

Anyway you're right. I'm definitely zooming in too early! I'm justifying it by saying I'm practising technique before embarking on a full piece, but it's definitely time to pull back and get the overall composition down.

Still, I do believe I've learned a lot from this exercise! Thanks for your time, and I look forward to seeing you around more.

38
Pixel Art / Re: Ancient rock
« on: May 22, 2020, 06:14:23 am »
I love this, but not for this rock. This one needs to be something that was once sculpted (or extruded?) but has fallen on hard times.

Before working on that one I was playing with this:



Which was an experiment in drawing a silhouette using a large brush, then carving it into a rock. I like it but this one IS too regular. Instead of a silhouette, your idea as a starting point could really help give it some width and interest.

And it could definitely help provide some extra scenery.

Thanks!

39
Pixel Art / Re: Ancient rock
« on: May 21, 2020, 09:02:42 pm »


So adding extra shades for the spots really boosted the colour count. Darkening the bright spots was worth it. Making the dark area brighter wasn't.

To me this feels like a much better piece now. Big thanks to both of you!

40
Pixel Art / Re: Ancient rock
« on: May 21, 2020, 07:58:01 pm »
Well, it is a matter of taste jajaja I found it very spiky so I wanted to lower it a little, but not so much that it loses your style and details.

Thanks. There was something a little off about the angle. You helped me spot it.

Quote
Your next sample looks so much better! Using several minor cracks instead of a long one gives it the same personality but much better visually.

Thank you, but it's also true that they disappear when seen from a distance. I need to find a middle-ground I think!

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