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Messages - Ian
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1
Pixel Art / Re: Dreadnought
« on: July 14, 2009, 01:59:59 am »
Might be a good idea to try pushing the bottom left (our right)  side of his torso and leg a bit back into space to let the arm on that side pop forward a little more.  Right now I'm immediately drawn to that part of the robot despite it being farther from me than any other part of the robot (this is probably because there is a huge range of values on that one leg).  Your reference does a really nice job of leaving the leg as a flat silhouette which works wonderfully.

Anyway, it looks really great so far and that's just a very small idea you might want to play around with.

2
2D & 3D / Re: Official OT-Creativity Thread 2
« on: April 03, 2009, 11:17:32 pm »
Jakten: this is suffering pretty bad from all the problems you are already aware of, the thinness makes him appear quite effeminate and likeness has been lost.  The hair appears more like a hat lying over the hair that was rendered.  Although it may have been possible to quickly sketch in the curls, your giving off more of a folds vibe.  This is further hurt by the unbroken curvy lines that make up the outside of the afro.  There are some nice things going on with what details you invented and you have built up a good variety of tones.  However spread out your darkest black more (the one on the tip of his biggest curl of hair lying over his forehead and under his chin).  Put some of that into his eyes as well of the rest of the drawing and it will pop much more.

There's a lot of good things here but it definitely does not read as your reference at all.

3
Pixel Art / Re: The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated
« on: January 30, 2009, 08:05:01 pm »
These look great.

Small thing I noticed is that the Druid's arm resting on his hip seems very strangely angled. The hand itself seems to be angled downward when it should be resting near horizontal.  And then the lower half of the arm protrudes too sharply upward and should be a bit flatter I think.  Thus the gap between the torso and arm should appear bigger than it does.

4
Pixel Art / Re: Begginer
« on: January 14, 2009, 02:00:28 am »
This is a great start.  You have a pretty amazing natural ability at something which is really difficult in pixel art: which is showing a full object/figure/whatever in a very small space clearly.

However, obviously there's a lot to be learned.  One thing pixel artists look very carefully at is their line work. Many use line cautiously and sparingly; other's choose to remove it entirely (as outlines are simply unrealistic, they generally don't exist in real life).  But very often they are necessary to separate different segments of a figure (such as the hair and head in your piece's case).  I would recommend to you attempting to remove the outlines from your piece entirely and seeing if you can make it work without them.  You may find out this is not necessarily better for the piece, but playing around with different approaches will help you learn pixel art all the more faster.

Also, your piece lacks any sort of shading.  Sometimes, because of the limited space of a work, a single tone can be enough for a part of a figure.  But if a pixel artist can successfully add a highlight or shadow to their work it can make that part pop all the more.  I would play around with shading the hair of your character.  Try adding a highlight or shadow to the one tone you have now.  Think about the direction the line is coming from onto your character (perhaps from above him) and then apply the highlight or shadow where you would think it would hit the hair.  To really make the shading pop, use a color that is highly contrasting with the one you have already.  Often times the more contrast you can get away with between shades without losing the illusion of a single surface the better looking a pixel art piece will look.

Anyway, these are just some general ideas to get you thinking about what you can do with pixel art and how to approach it.  This is a really great first piece and shows a lot of promise.

5
Pixel Art / Re: PJ Portrait [WIP]
« on: January 14, 2009, 01:44:41 am »
Yes the latest is too lacking in shading but it does make one change I really like and removes the dithering which only made your skin look grainy.  So I would spread that highlight but keep with not having any dithering.

Also, you're definitely right about what you said about using a mirror.  Always work from life if you can afford to, don't use photographs unless it's necessary (though with self portraits it can be hard to pose yourself and work at the same time but if you can pull it off go for it).

6
Pixel Art / Re: Treasure Chest
« on: January 14, 2009, 01:39:27 am »

Quick visual of what Jad said about the lid also needing perspective.

I'm less sure about the accuracy of my horizontal lines.
Your's get smaller in height as they move upward on the chest.  However they are closer to the viewer in regards to topdown.  But they are also farther from the viewer in regards to seeing the chest from the front.  So I guess that's really nitpicky and your horizontal lines are probably just fine so disregard my changes to them in this edit.

Anyway, the chest itself looks really nice great job it has a very clean look.

7
Pixel Art / Re: Getting back into that groove
« on: October 23, 2008, 07:56:11 pm »
I agree my main point is that the upper left corner is quite unengaging and that the crystal elements don't work to build a real sense of filling space (they act entirely as negative space) so we are kinda left with two simple areas of positve and negative space.  So yeah, the reaper's shape itself is pretty interesting but I think the upper left corner could do with more interest.

8
Pixel Art / Re: Getting back into that groove
« on: October 23, 2008, 03:59:43 am »
The blade of the scythe appears to be part of the background way too much.  I know you're trying to conserve colors and perhaps even create unity in the piece but there is such a thing as too much unity and in this case part of your foreground is becoming part of the background.  Adding more contrast between the tones of the blade doesn't help you need more contrast between the blade and the background (and not just value contrast more then likely hue).  Also the composition isn't too good is fairly boring, you only really have two levels of convincing space, the reaper with his scythe and the background with crystal elements.  Try bring some of the crystals forward and pushing the others back to give a nice sense of receding space and perspective.   Looking at your image abstractly and sorting it's compositionally this is basically what it becomes:

Kinda boring right?  Your pixel rendering and sense of form is quite exceptional but I think it's time you start thinking more critically about composing your work, especially if you are going to be doing scenes such as this.

9
General Discussion / Re: RandomLand 2D RPG Alpha .40
« on: October 06, 2008, 04:19:59 am »
WOW!  What you have so far is really really impressive.  Obviously it's a very empty engine and there's not much to do but the graphics are very very charming.  I love the simplicity of the main character and the town/level was extremely luscious.  The NPA elements are extremely well done also.  I'm hoping that the HUD is a temporary placeholder though because the quality of the rest of the graphics is far far beyond it.  Anyway good luck programming the battle engine, i know that's a beast for any RPG, I hope you can think of a fairly original concept for it and get this game finished.  Hopefully some more experienced pixel artists snoop around you game for a few minutes and can give you some crits on the artwork.  Stick with it.

10
General Discussion / Re: Official Off-Topic Thread
« on: September 09, 2008, 12:47:40 am »
Awesome link, got 0 was pretty fun to do.

With only a few months left I'm wondering if there's going to be a Pixelator '08?  I didn't participate last year and I don't think i have the time/dedication to do so again this year but it was really fun to watch and learn from.

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