Monkey samurai

[Monkchi]

I've always been a fan of pixel art, and i would like to try to be good at it so i can implement them in my games.
My first attempt at pixel art, sorry its not that great, but id really like some critique on what i can do better.

[Senevri]

Well, I'm an amateur myself, but...
I count six colors there, one of which is so close to the lightest red that it's indistinguishable. You can do something about that?

What's your color target, anyway? I don't usually care, so I end up with something like 15-16 colors - three to four shades per color, or so.
The pose isn't very good, what were you going for? In general, I'd maybe go for a more arced, 'ape' back, and such...


Something like this? The hand still looks odd, though.

[Monkchi]

thanks for the feedback, i tried to fix the posture and darken the indistinguishable red.
as for the color target, i have no idea, just wanted to draw pixel

oh cool thanks for the edit i like

[Senevri]

I'm liking the head Also the lines in body.
Two things, don't make the chest cave in just before the arm (I'd say needs about 2 more pixels there), and make sure you're balanced regarding the center line - I think you need to move your legs a couple of pixels forward, now it sort of looks like it's toppling over.

[TheSilentRoomate]

Well first I would start with posture or pose, at the moment your character is standing in a very flat, unrealistic looking stance completely side on. Try to imagine how someone would stand in real life and match that. I'm assuming your game is a platformer or sidescroller because the way your character is facing. I've worked on a platformer for a very long time and I think that if you angle the character slightly towards the camera it becomes way more interesting to look at! Also I find it very hard to work with such a large canvas, maybe squeeze it down to 32x32?
Also as senevri mentioned you are using a lot of colors that are very similar and do not add anything to the piece!
I've done a mockup to demonstrate all of this, I got a bit carried away though and did some scenery with it too haha, sorry this isn't great I didn't have much time to do it. The monkey is 3 colors, and i know the style is very different than yours but it's just to give you an idea of what i'm talking about and what you can do



anyways this is my first time giving advice so i hope it helps!

[Senevri]

Ah, yes. Idle stance -> walking/running stance. Idle stance can be more angled towards the viewer, while running can be sideways.

[NaCl]

The problems are fundamental in this piece, tweaking it wont solve them. The pose needs to be more carefully considered, I mean the shape of the entire thing as one object. How does a real monkey stand or sit? Right now you're just constructing individual piece and trying to hook them together, but you can't do that you need to think of the entire thing at once, and then work out the details. I can see right now that the details are your main focus, like getting the samurai stuff right, but none of that matters if the basic form is off. Just draw with like one or two greys until you knock out a form that looks like what you want. If you do it this way then the silhouette will need to be clear for it to make any sense.

Also, I agree with SilentRoomate about the angles. Even while running, there should be twisting and bending that prevent this perfect alignment.

[Monkchi]

Thanks so much guys for the critique! i tried to listen to all of em, except for the angle on the head lol.
how can i make it better

[Shrub]

Thanks so much guys for the critique! i tried to listen to all of em, except for the angle on the head lol.
how can i make it better

Hmm, you're still making the same problems as before - you're trying to add detail before the basic form is complete.
That monkey would fall over in real life. It's got about one toe touching the ground, and nearly all its weight in front of said toe.
Try looking at pictures or videos of monkeys. What you've got is really off, anatomy-wise.

I've attempted a basic edit, which should show you what I mean. It's very rough, though, and I make no claim to be an expert on either monkey anatomy or pixel art, but I think it may help you.

[TheSilentRoomate]

monkey still looks like it's dumping.