And it suddenly came to me...

I'll keep it simple and to the point:

Rules:

1. Find a Partner
2. One of you will announce that you're Pixel Partners in this thread.
3. Give your partner 3 descriptive words which describe your personality.
4. Give your partner a single piece of pixel art done by you.
5. Use the words your partner gave you combined with the pixel piece they've supplied to you and create a pixel painting for them using the template I've provided.
6. You may modify the frame and matting of the template except for the black lines. You may change the color of the black lines, but not the position.
7. Submit the painting to this thread.

TIPS:
1. Be creative, have fun, don't stress!
2. Everyone is good enough, don't doubt yourself
3. Make friends!

Template:

I want something portable and more suited for doing mainly pixel art. Things I need:

Ability to hotkey the following tools:

Eyedropper
Eraser
Paintbucket
Pencil

I've used Photoshop for almost 8 years now but Photoshop CS has been crashing on me like crazy lately. Any reccomendations on a more simple product suited for pixel art?

This doggy doesn't want a treat nor bone, but rather a nice siggy to take on home. Are you up to it? 

Ok, so for some reason today I seem to be obsessed with dither styles, hand dithering is fascinating to me so I've been messing around for a couple of hours with my own dithering patterns and realizing that they are far lacking from any kind of style whatsoever. So after much practice, I've decided that I could include you guys in on my quest for the ultimate dithering.

So what I figure is I made this gradient of 16 colors, all solids, what we're going to do is hand dither the ENTIRE thing, no making a pattern, then copy and pasting, all by hand, it will be good for you, put hair on your chests, even the ladies *wink*. Anyway, try and analyze your skills, sure some of you have incredible dithering skills and I don't think this really applies to you, but I encourage you to share your talents with us so we can learn. Browse the internet, look up the word dithering on google, do some research, see what kind of styles there are out there. Then try and tackle the gradient with something neat and unique. We'll all post our gradients, and whatever research materials we've found in this thread, who knows maybe we can make a good dithering guide for our newbies out of it or something.

Lastly, use your imagination, don't let the boundries of each color hinder what you're trying to accomplish, think nature, think curves instead of straight lines, and lastly lets have some fun together!

And although, this is totally un-official, I want to thank everyone who's supported me as a Daijin during my term, and good luck to the future daijins.

  OR 

Pirate Challenge Main Post

Firstly, to clear any "timeline" things up, the event "starts" on monday, and goes either until all participants have turned in their pieces, or it officially becomes dead and nobody cares any longer.. With that all cleared up:

This is the main post for the Official Pirate Challenge. Please limit your postings in this thread to WIP works, Final works and critiques. If you think having a WIP only thread and a Finals only thread would be better suited to prevent spammage and to make things easier to go through, please send me a forum message and if I get enough considerations this will become the finals thread and I will create a WIP thread. People who are not involved in the challenge can post here but ONLY if it is critique of a piece, and only if the critique is given some thought. When the challenge is oficially closed, everyone is free to post their comments on the pieces.

The actual challenge doesn't begin until the 19th, but I thought i'd get things going a day early, to give people some time to get familliar with their partner, look up some references etc.. I'm going to try and lock the thread until tomorrow, or late tonight, and when it is unlocked, feel free to post away. Other than that, I think we have a great turn out for this event, 15 total teams comprised of 2 people each. If anyone is interested in joining, go ahead and say so in the sign-up thread. Other than that, have a great time, and I look forward to seeing some great stuff from you guys. Without further ado, the list!!

Group [ 01 ] BrotherInWar -- Negative Gravity
Group [ 02 ] Godslayer -- Helm
Group [ 03 ] Dogmeat -- Peppermint Pig
Group [ 04 ] Flaber -- Needs a partner
Group [ 05 ] G Dragon -- Pawige
Group [ 06 ] pHASE1 -- Sawtooth
Group [ 07 ] Xion Night -- istvan
Group [ 08 ] Darien -- ehwhy
Group [ 09 ] Lief -- sedgemonkey
Group [ 10 ] Monsoon2D -- Zolthorg
Group [ 11 ] Indigo -- jeiki
Group [ 12 ] Zach -- Pegucha
Group [ 13 ] Niss -- Kclic
Group [ 14 ] Kryon -- Akira
Group [ 15 ] pixelblink -- Pixel32
Group [ 15 ] DrDerekDoctors -- Neoriceisgood

And of course, heres the outline again:

1.0 - Description
1.1 - Date: STARTS Sept 19th – 9/19/05
1.2 - Time: As long as needed
1.3 - Size Restrictions: 180x145 : Template Provided to you ( right click, save-as to download )
1.4 - Color Restrictions: 18 or 32
1.5 - Style Restrictions
1.6 - Props
1.7 - Background
1.8 - Partners

1.0   – Description
This is the official Pixelopolis Pirate Challenge. The challenge will test users strengths in line-art, coloring, shading and scene creation. It will also force users to interact together to possibly create new friendships, or strengthen old ones.

1.1   – Date
We’ve chosen to start the event on September 19th because it is annual pirate day.

1.2   – Time
The Event should hopefully run as long as needed for everyone to complete their work on their partner.

1.3   – Size Requirements
I’ve created a template which is 180x145, it has a border around it and a space at the bottom that MUST be used to come up with a creative name for your “pirate friend” and also so that you may place your signature if you’d like. The border color can be changed, but keep it dark in nature.



1.4   – Color Constraints
18 Colors no transparency if you are doing just a pirate, 32 colors if you want to fill the entire area, this is for your scene only, the template with bottom area has a 8 color restriction, and it would be preferred for you to use colors from your image in these areas to try and learn to conserve colors. You must use at least 6 colors in your picture.

1.5   – Style Restrictions
Once you have a partner, you must try and get to know them, feel for their style, look up some of their artwork, talk to them, see what they like, etc.. When creating your pirate you want to incorporate your partners traits into the picture. For example, Dogmeat is fond of dogs, so maybe your pirate for him would look like a dog! Other then that, use your imagination.

1.6   – Props
Your pirate has to have at least 1 prop, and an optional animal. Props consist of peg legs, eye patches, hook hands, scimitars, etc.. Animals would be like parrots, dogs, etc..

1.7   – Background
Background can be whatever you want, but you have to keep it in the theme of pirates and what not. Ships, beaches, digging up treasure, etc..

1.8 - Partners
Partners will be partnered together at random and a list will be compiled of all the people and their partners before the actual event starts.

The other rules are as follows:

HAVE FUN!!!!

- Dog