couple unfinished things..

[AlexHW]

c&c appreciated.
Things ill probably be changing are the guy's shirt so it is more loose at the waist and not tucked in and weird.
Possible changing the little dude's right arm(our left), the pose of it is awkward.

[Helm]

some of the things you're doing with colors work, some not so much, but it's too early to tell for sure what will survive your tweaks in pulling it all together. For now, I'm intrigued. Show progress, if you will.

[Xion]

What's with the laying-down dude's near lower pant leg? In the back, it looks like a skirt or something.
His head looks kinda flat.
It looks like his right pec (our left) is coming too far left.
I'm having a hard time imagining what he could be laying on and where the viewer is in comparison.
It looks like his shoulder is too bulbous in comparison to the rest of his arm...like samus' shoulder. *


In the smaller one, it looks like that grey you used on the shins and chest are a bit too neutral when set among the surrounding hues of flesh. There's no kind of buffer, and it looks very out of place. Also, in such a small piece where every pixel counts, the grey makes the character look quite cluttered unless zoomed in to, like, 3x, and even then it's somewhat confusing. I like the low contrast on the large piece, but not so much on the smaller one.


*Yeah, you know way more about anatomy than me, so I may be quite wrong.

[Zach]

i wish there was more stuff like this here... ;_; kudos to you mang

[Dhaos]

Interesting, folds are really good on the pants, but since the 1st image is very unfinished, its hard to say much more. I can't figure out what the 2nd image is, maybe a dude with an tatoo pattern on his body?

[AlexHW]

i wish there was more stuff like this here...

here's another..

[Helm]

this is the kind of stuff I usually have to deal with, but are you hue-shifting just for the hell of it? It seems hue-shifts (since we gave then a name and everything) might be the next pixel-art trend! Suits me, but a little theory (not too much, I ain't pretending to get it all) might be in order

[AlexHW]

hm? I dont understand what you said.
I like to work with aspects of the Munsell color theory.
The last pic uses a green, orange/tan, purple, yellow, red, and grey. If you look at your skin, you can see all these colors in it.
The purple/blue you can see in your veins, the red near less fatty areas. The yellows near lit areas(or light grey/blue due to the sky).
The green can be seen near shadowy areas where it can be also a bit desaturated or near veins. The orange/tan for the general skin mid-tones.
Nothing is completely one hue or value.
The munsell system incorporates Chroma which is a value scale between neutral color(greys) and saturated color.
I like to use different chroma values froms different hues to help produce the effect of light effecting different surfaces.

[Helm]

You seem to understand what I said just fine. The color theory you present seems sound (for all I know!) but the resulting effect is -whereas interesting- not as effective as it should be I guess. Maybe you're working too small here? The bigger piece doesn't suffer as much as the small ones. They look a bit patchwork-ish due to the colorshift rendering. Also, greenish tint flesh shadow might not be the most appealing choice ever.

Do you want anatomy critique?

[AlexHW]

sure, anatomy critique is always welcome(i'm not sure what isn't)..
an arm..

[ndchristie]

i wonder what the proper name for hue shifts is, i use it because thats what's said on these sites (from what you say i gather you coined it, helm?), but im sure its a simple enough concept (basic full color representation combined with basic rendering) that its been named before in traditional artwork (its been around hundreds of years).

i think the reason that these pieces are not shining as bright as they could is not so much a problem with the hue choice but the value and saturation choices.  when colors are mixed with their complements, the overall saturation tends to take a nosedive, so for works involving such color relationships, you really should choose colors that are already high in saturation.  im not saying my your people rainbows, but try not to make them lepers either.  also, its a natural tendency when mixing colors to take things of closer value so that it belnds better, but what you end up with is a (very smooth) pile of bland.

heres my suggestion:

yours color - yours black and white
edited color - edited black and white




you may disagree, but i think the one with higher saturation and value contrast reads better while still showing off your impressive hue mixtures

[Helm]

anatomy, sorry if these are kinda bad-format but I hope you'll get what I mean regardless: wooden posture. You have this problem generally. The characters are not relaxed, they're in semi-pose even when the pose should be relaxed. all three sprites suffer from this and I think I'd trace this issue with muscle-tension most of all, as well as equidistance of limbs from each other or other parts of the body. Clarity of reading is good, but don't be afraid to pull in or obstruct a limb to make something more interesting/more relaxed-looking if it calls for it.

big piece anatomy: long arm, chest doesn't connect well with bicep given the relative position of the arm (more stretching on breast muscle I'd say, less definition on the shirt) the muscles behind the neck are of relative prominance although the pose seems to call for their obstruction (leaning backwards chest)

smallest: long arms, short legs (either/or situation. The size of the head would work if you lengthened or shortened contrarespectively) because there's small-framed men and big-framed men etc

stylized middle pic: this is beefman/bodybuilder physique, which I guess can be used as an excuse for any sort of error because there's people that hugely chemically deform their bodies for this 'sport' so I know most of what I say can be reasonably countered, so take that as you will. Again this is very wooden. left breast muscle should have followed the raised arm more, both forearms are a bit 'planks of wood' style, meaning they're too big and definition or variation of size towards the wrist suffers, nice abs most of the part, maybe too harsh a fade towards crotch. Probably too strong thigh muscle definition (at this size you can't signify linework this much without suggesting dented armor scales in my opinion) lower legs grossly overdone, no ankles, left foot too small (even given foreshortening). Leg thing being the bigger crit.

still think otherwise you should pull your shades together (unifying) a bit and have a more consistent approach to what needs to be saturated and what doesn't

[AlexHW]

Adarias, I understand that the saturation would make it pop more, but I don't think that looks as natural as I'd like it to be.
Nice points Helm, I'd be interested in hearing more about the wooden-ness of my figures because I have been trying to get away from that, but it seems to still be a factor somehow..
another dude.. posting new work each post should become a trend

[Turbo]

From the first work you posted up to now, i've had the same feeling on each of the pieces: that you pixelled it then added a grey layer at 25 to 50% percent tranparency on top. I partially agree with adarias, though i believe that you should increase the contrast, rather than saturation, between your colors. I think the key to maintaining the (relative) realism you're striving for is to choose which colors to maintain low-saturation and low contrast, and which ones to increase these factors.
In the third and fourth pieces you posted, i've seen you move towards this goal, but you still have a bit more to go.

Regarding the hue shifts, they look good on the skin, but on the first one's shirt, the pinks/oranges look out of place. Generally speaking, i think pinks/oranges on hue-shifted areas that are mainly composed of white/gray, look like noise. Yellows are okay though. Adaria's edit has fixed this apparently.

On the anatomy, i suggest trying to do slimmer figures, with less muscle volume, to achive easier silhouette reading. The anatomy on your figures, while looking good, seems to have the muscles stopping free movement of the limbs (back muscles attaching the torso to the arms via the biceps, legs touching each other because of the thigh muscles).

Edit: oh, and another thing: in my eyes, eavily hue-shifted pieces look great at 1x zoom, but not so much 2x or larger. The more radical hue-shifts just look out of place (not you work specifically, speaking generally).

[ndchristie]

personally i think that the real world pops and is high-saturation, but thats jsut me

regardless, these pieces need their values pushed much farther, or it is always going to look like they need the dust blown off. i hear what you are sayinf and understnad that its a style choice, but (as ive been told many, many times ) style choices dont always look good and if your goal here is realism im afraid that you're missing the mark by not pushing the values

[AlexHW]

You'd be surprised to know that the natural world is very much desaturated and low-contrast.
I understand the benefits of a high-contrast high-saturated image, and I often go that route, but here I do not want to go that route, period.
About the white shirt. It is more liekly you'd see reflected light on it, so variable colors should be expected, part of the deal is that I'm managing my color palette and felt like useing colors from say the skin in order to make it more unified peice.
yes, I should try slimmer people..

[AlexHW]

here's another:
more slimmer than usual..

[Xion]

posting new work each post should become a trend

Yes.

Man, how fast are you making these things? I don't like the new one as much as the others. The torso lacks hilights.

[Godslayer]

His forearm looks very thick compared to his torso.

[Turbo]

You'd be surprised to know that the natural world is very much desaturated and low-contrast.

That's very true, specially if you're referring to the natural world of fog. No one's talking about cartoony high-contrast here, but enough to not need an outline to distinguish itself from the background as you do here.

[AlexHW]

update:


Xion, these small things are pretty quick to make.. Maybe I should try adding clothes to make it tougher..

[Gil]

That last one is a treat! These are improving so rapidly...

[big brother]

Most recent one:
- forearm looks large (nearly as thick and as long as quadriceps. The distance from your wrist to the inside of your elbow should be the same length as your foot is)
- neck should be slightly shorter. It also currently looks to be offset to the left
- navel should not be centered on the ab lines (should be slightly below six pack)
- hip flexors should stand out more
- kneecap should be centered on his left leg, lower on his right (also should be overlapped by the vastus medialis)
- his hands are larger than his feet
- his abs should appear over his ribs just below his pecs

The colors could use more contrast as your mid shades are relatively close in value.