The Oregon Trail doodle, a "pixel Alchemy".

[skw]

Well, I don't really know if that's a good idea to put this thing into this section, or to show it off it at all, but I'll give it a chance.

Recently, I've been playing with the Alchemy project, and basically decided to employ some of its principles in a pixeling software. You can't really make shapes by shouting at the computer, or turning off the canvas in ProMotion (possible in Alchemy!), but what I could do is to sketch, and to sketch madly until some decent thing comes out. I remember at one point I've been making a similar thing, it's still on the forums, and then most of you said it's just too random to be considered a proper work of pixel art. What I did today's evening is this:



There's a story behind it, but I'll leave it for your own consideration. I could polish this thing until I drop dead, but I'm afraid that it would lose some of its features during the process. That it is practically not finished leaves vast space for your imagination, but isn't the brain diverted from the story by its harsh execution? There goes the hook. What would you do with such a picture, then? Waste it, try to make something out of it, or simply call it done and stop bothering? Or maybe just let it rot, and never show to anyone?

Waiting for your opinion and possible suggestions,
-- Johnny

[Jakerpot]

2 picture is a man in the lakeside inside the woods. It reminds me of a level of Crysis. It's pretty cool! 

I would say its done. But you could polish those big black squares :x

[Helm]

They're really beautiful. You have sacrificed one thing (precision) to get another (fluid imaginary landscape), looks like a lot of impressionist art. Are you going to proof it all for c64 hi-res mode? If so it has a lot of errors.

Yes you could clean it up marginally without losing any of its power really. It'd take a light hand but it would benefit from it.

The feeling I get from these is like I'm peering from behind some bushes and I've been in the darkness for a while so the moment I see the clearing my eyes blur trying to adjust to the warmth and light, something like that. They work well as a sequence too.

Not very pixelly as far as that goes but the end result is really interesting to look at and evocative so although I can't offer much critique I can tell you it's effective as art for me at least.

[Ultimaodin]

Logged in solely to comment this. I love them.
'm not sure if it was intentional but when I look at these two together I gt the feeling that they are both the same setting just a different angle, one comes from behind the person (the first) and the second is facing towards the person.One shows the water as a black mass the other as a reflective surface, probably due to the hidden light source.
The only thing that ruins this composition for me is the line that forms on the first piece up the top left. everything just cuts off at this vertical line and everything in your image has flow except this small point.
I'd personally remove any horizontal and vertical lines that aren't the pseudo frames as they kind of mess up the energy in my opinion. Not that my opinion is that great lol.

Neat work! 

ps is that meant to be a mini-shrine at the bottom left of the second piece?

[skw]

Thank you! I'm really glad you like it!

Helm, honestly I don't know if it makes sense to proof them for c64 specs, I wonder if there's any possible hi-res mode that would not "squarize" the piece too much. It would probably take some extreme programming. But I'll think of that. As for the feeling it evokes for you, I'm really happy to hear that, it's very close to what I was aiming at; also think of old 19th c. photographs as they look now, desaturated, overexposed etc..
I think I'll balance them a little bit more, and clean up some parts of it. I have a few new ideas too, thanks for the encouragement!

Ultimaodin, I like your idea, never considered it before. Basically, the first image was meant to show a guy walking through the plains, no water (I wanted to portray some hunting scene, i.e. I would give him a rifle aimed somewhere at the trees, maybe I'll return to this idea), whereas in the second picture there is the guy meditating in the lakeside. Hmm, the shrine. . . never thought of that as well, but I guess it's very nice everyone has its own idea of the picture I'll reconsider the composition, thanks for pointing it out.

The updated piece will be posted soon.

[Jakerpot]

How you did it??? I downloaded alchemy, but can't really do pixel art with it 

[Olothontor]

In Paint with a lot of patience, I imagine.

Great work.

[Gil]

Seeing the different brushes used, this is probably GraphicsGale or Promotion, Olothontor

[saimo]

Helm, honestly I don't know if it makes sense to proof them for c64 specs, I wonder if there's any possible hi-res mode that would not "squarize" the piece too much. It would probably take some extreme programming.

There are several modes that might suit your piece - have at look at this great round-up.

[skw]

Olothontor, thanks! Gil, that's right -- this was done in ProMotion.

Saimo, thanks mate. I always just skim through that page and try not to wonder what a hassle it would be to search for all the compilers. I'm still a kind of layman in those spheres; still -- maybe it's the high time I should reconsider using some interlaced modes (this could even go as a sequence -- a minute's work for an average coder, I guess).