(WIP) Tree for a game

[Atnas]

It's generally not a good practice to edit things from commercial games....



From this image its easy to tell you just resized the tree and then editted on top of it, because the pixel placement all along the top border is exactly the same as the SoM tree. (not to mention the exact same palette)

The light brown cobble tile looks to be from rmxp, and the character's head looks to be from rmvx.

If you borrow heavily from reference, post it, it helps us critique when we know what is original and what isn't. And everything SHOULD be original, ideally. Your art is suffering from cobbling together assets from a bunch of different games, it lacks unity because the style is all over the place. If you use reference and DONT just steal the pixel placement or edit other people's work, everything you do will be distinctly your own and will be a lot more cohesive.

I much preferred your first image to this new one. Even if the pixel work wasn't as good, it was unified and pleasant.

[Livsgladje]

From this image its easy to tell you just resized the tree and then editted on top of it, because the pixel placement all along the top border is exactly the same as the SoM tree. (not to mention the exact same palette)

i used the same palette because i suck at making palettes (and it looked like allot of people use that palette) and tried to make something close to it but i didn't copy anything. I did however look how they did on the brighter side and tried to do the same but as you can see it turned out rather crap. I will be making a new tree anyways this was more for just feed back on how it looks because this is the second tree i have ever made.

The light brown cobble tile looks to be from rmxp, and the character's head looks to be from rmvx.

First off i don't know what rmvx and rmxp is, second I used a tutorial for the stone path and from that i made my own light brown cobble path.

[rikfuzz]

It's fairly obvious that the tree is somewhat a modification of the SoM tree, not just the same palette.  Atnas isn't trying to embarrass you, it's definitely beneficial to examine and modify existing artwork to get a feel for what makes it work, but obviously we can't crit properly if you're not up front about this, and ideally your artwork should be all original and separated from studies of other game's art. 

[PixelPiledriver]

i used the same palette because i suck at making palettes

Relax.
Only what you believe can remain true.

I also like the old image better.
But you don't actually have a palette.


While the original colors aren't perfect it has some fun stuff in there.
I pulled out a handful and made a doodle without changing any:


Many of which could be compressed or thrown out completely to make room for other hues.

[Livsgladje]

@PixelPiledriver, Why is it important to have few colors in a palette and how do i see how many colors i have used like you did in the example above?

This is the new tree that i have been working on since the last picture post:

[rikfuzz]

Just out of interest, what software are you using?

[Livsgladje]

photoshop

[Atnas]

First off i don't know what rmvx and rmxp is, second I used a tutorial for the stone path and from that i made my own light brown cobble path.

Ah, then I'm sorry for accusing you on the path, it just looked very familiar to me and some people in IRC who have used rmxp.

But how can you say you don't know what rmvx is?



I mean, all I'm asking for is transparency so we know what is your own and what isn't. The colors are exactly the same - the hair and skin and even the gray tones. The hair's shape is original as far as I know, but you cant just take a commercially made sprite's face and put a mouth on it and call it your own. For the sake of further critique, post your references. This is only necessary because you're following them so closely.

[Livsgladje]

First off i don't know what rmvx and rmxp is, second I used a tutorial for the stone path and from that i made my own light brown cobble path.

Ah, then I'm sorry for accusing you on the path, it just looked very familiar to me and some people in IRC who have used rmxp.

But how can you say you don't know what rmvx is?



I mean, all I'm asking for is transparency so we know what is your own and what isn't. The colors are exactly the same - the hair and skin and even the gray tones. The hair's shape is original as far as I know, but you cant just take a commercially made sprite's face and put a mouth on it and call it your own. For the sake of further critique, post your references. This is only necessary because you're following them so closely.

Many of the palettes for different things are borrowed from pixel art stuff i found on google. For the "hero" i have used colors from some char i found on google because the last char i made was so white he looked dead and also had about 8 different colors. I did also use different pixel art armors as reference when making mine.

This is how he looks with nothing on:

[rikfuzz]

To see unique colours in photoshop if you go Image > Mode > Indexed you'll get a little dialogue for reducing the palette (might need to okay a layer flatten first, don't worry you can still cancel it). If the Palette option is 'exact' and the Forced option is 'None', the colors box will show how many colours you're using.  (Exact won't be an option if you're using > 256).  Don't actually okay the dialogue box; if you edit in indexed mode you can't use layers etc, though you can reduce this way, just remember to turn it back before editing.

Alternatively if you File > Save for Web, and look under the color table there's a number of unique colours in the palette (for Gif or Png-8).  Make sure you're not reducing the colours with the Colors option first (set to 256 to make sure), cos it's the number in the output (after the colours have been reduced).  

Genuinely you should post all your references so you can get the most useful critique.