Yeah man it's not easy to shade that.  Cylinders can be quite difficult.  Quite difficult indeed.  Light traveling in a straight line and hitting some of the form but not others.  It's not easy to grasp.  I can't even imagine how I would tackle this problem......I definitely wouldn't consult google or do any light studies.  I'm stumped.  Sorry dude.

Too bad I already did, and nothing seemed to help me produce something that didn't look somewhat awkward.  Looks like we're both stumped then.  Good thing we have good artists here to help us both!

Anyway it's so cool and totally not lame to see Pony fans come out of the wood work and post on pixelation.  Awesome.  We do not see enough pony work here!    You guys were in hiding or didn't know about this place for awhile.  And now that's all changed.  I for one see nothing wrong with loving a show about female ponies(pony's?) having wacky nonsensical adventures that are pointless no matter what gender you are.  I don't find it odd, weird, degrading, shameful, sad or immature in the slightest.  Your parents would definitely not have a problem with it.  Who would?  I truly believe and stand by this.

Fellow Jedi council, the sarcasm is weak with this one.

I certainly wouldn't 'not mind seeing more! I hope you keep posting your work forever and never mysteriously vanish.

... Anyways, back onto my topic I guess ^_^ I appreciate all of the rest of the feedback.

@Cupcake: Not sure I agree with the leg shading there (the "stupid" one that I pointed out, at least), but that shading on the back legs/flank intrigues me.  Makes it feel even more dimensional.  I'll definitely have to play around with that like you did on those back legs.

@Ai: lots of great tips that I'll be sure to consider/take Eyebrows: definitely going to do some sort of eyebrow expression once I get everything else a bit more polished, since while it makes a big difference, it's not a huge piece of work to do compared to what else I have to do.  But thanks for the reminder.  Lighting: thanks, I've been studying other pixel art for how they shade for subjects like this (well, not ponies, but legs and plot, et al), and I decided to apply my newfound knowledge with this pixel, but having it in a slightly less common pose, with a slightly different lighting angle than what I have done with my previous ones.  Single pixel issue: thanks for the catch and the tip I'll be sure to scan the rest of it for single pixel noise once I fix a few other things.

@Triple: Not sure I completely agree with your edit, though mostly only because you added a whole new shade for lighting (and I'm trying to keep it to only 3 for now ^_^) thanks for the edit, though.


As for my own edit based on the great insight so far, I should have something by tonight (sorry it'll take until then, I'm slow at pixeling, mostly because I'm easily distracted, stuck on a bad trackpad lately that I have yet to get efficient with, and have a lot of interruptions in my schedule today that will leave me little open free time to work on this).  Thanks again, you guys are great

The main problem with the bottom one is that it has a bad case of the jaggies, mostly.  In addition to that, it doesn't seem to have much correct anatomy to it.  (yes, there is more than that wrong with it, but let's start with small steps to improve upon it)

Stupid quick reference:



Here's just a quick example of what a head on the side should look like, even if you're going for some sort of rounded chibi style (right now it really just looks like an oval)  As you can see, you don't define the chin, nose, etc., and it therefore doesn't look very human.  I would play around with the front area of the face more one you clean up the jaggies.  In addition, I suggest defining the base even better by coloring it, adding in eyes+nose+etc, so that it's easier to visualize what you're going for, and can therefore work on the outlines to make them better defined as well.

Just my USD0.02.  Would contribute my own edit, but I just barely had time to get my thoughts in a post before I've gotta head out for tonight.  I'll play around with it tomorrow.

Yay! More ponies!
I think her eyes are too square, considering this almost a profile shot the eye should be really ecliptic.
Looks extremely cute, well done!

I think you're right; my only excuse is that the hardest part of drawing ponies for me are the eyes   I'll play around with it some for sure.

And thanks!  Brohoof! (\

I love your works but I think you have a terrible obsession with that ponies. Maybe you could tell your psychologist

...  I'm going to pretend that wasn't said

Well, I think the horn is a bit too small and I don't like how the round shadow under the pony looks. Apart from this, it's a really good work.
I watch it for the plot pixel!
(Ah, you don't have to post it 2x, clicking on the image increases the size)

Indeed, I might need to lengthen the horn.  I added the shadow just for fun; I think it looks better with than without.  I'll try using a lighter shade with it in my next edit and you could then decided if it looks better   As for the size, I just hotlinked it from dA, where I always scale up everything at least 2x; I'll be sure to make my edits normal-sized, though.

Nice work! I think there's a lot that's good about this piece, yet a lot that can be improved.  Here's what I picked up:

- The outlines are what is hurting it the most.  Some areas have an outline, some don't, and some have varying shades of outlines.  I suggest you just stick to a single pixel-thick outline consistently around the drawing, since it's a bit toony.  From there you can try to do selout, but you need to be careful with it so that it doesn't remove the outline, but rather just makes it blend into the color(s) the border is surrounding.

- Quite a few jaggies, and the arms are all inconsistent in how thick they are.  The length of them seems about even, though.

- The shading doesn't seem to be clear on the actual tentacles themselves; it makes sense on the head/body, but on the limbs the lighting looks like the source of light is coming from tons of different directions.

I made an edit that took these things I noticed into consideration, and tried fixing as a result:

Original:

Edit:

I then made another small edit on top of that with better AA, selout, and some very simple added detail (just to make the body a bit less bland to look at):

Edit2:

Just my USD0.02 on this piece again, nice job on it.