Trying pixel art again ... C+C Plz! :)

[gennoveus]

Hello!!

I've decided to try to get into pixel art again. I never stuck at it long enough to get very good by here is my attempt after an hour or so:

It came out better than I though it would, I am esp. happy with the shell.
It's roughly based on this:
http://www.naturephoto-cz.com/photos/others/roman-snail-21973.jpg
I've obviously simplified it because the original photo has two light sources but I didn't want to make things too complicated for myself.

Anyway, brutal C+C please! I don't get offended so give me hell! 

[adamisgr8]

Preeeeteh shiny :/

Mabye tone down the shine on it. (Less contrast?)

It looks AMAZING though, I love it

[gennoveus]

Preeeeteh shiny :/

Mabye tone down the shine on it. (Less contrast?)

It looks AMAZING though, I love it

By shine do you mean the specular highlights on the shell? Or on the fleshy bit of the snail? Or both!? lol
I want to get the wet slimy texture of the snail down, but he (she?) ended up being one gooey blob, and it's lost the slimy scaly texture of the original image. I wonder how I could replicate that sort of texture with the resolution I'm working with?

Anyway, I fixed the shell a bit:


I've highlighted exactly what I've changed here:


The shape of the shell looked a bit funny after looking at it again.

Any suggestions on the flesh texture would be very much appreciated - I'm wondering where I should go from here. Later on I'll get rid of the back outlines more, and I want to do some AA on the shell. Tried it a seconds ago but just made it blurry so I'm going to do more homework on how to do AA first!!

[gennoveus]

... it's late and I'm tired! I did a mock-up of a background but it sucks. I going to throw it away but considering I spent the time drawing it I might as well post it.

Rocks are harder than I though!

I'll go to sleep now and I'll do a proper job tomorrow. I can already see so many mistakes that I didn't notice before!

[Tourist]

The body of the snail in the reference picture is much thicker than your image.  Mostly in the area behind the head, where if first meets the shell and rock.   That will give you some more pixels for texture as well.

If you intend to add in rocks and background, maybe remove the black outline from the snail body.  The dark rocks contrast enough with the snail body that you don't need it.

As far as the scaly, slimy texture... hm.  You could reproduce the shapes of the source texture, but they would be magnified relative to the size of your snail.  Instead of 8-9 scales across the body you would have 3-4.  Honestly that's just a guess though.  Otherwise I think you're looking at some tricky pixel work to suggest the presence of scale and shine.  I don't have a process suggestion, beyond 'lots of fiddling with the pixels' for that.

Tourist