Color Fruits [C+C]

[NeithR]

After several hours lurking here, I decided to join here and post something.

I have been drawing pixel art long ago, but somehow I often feel something wrong or something missing (especially when I read more tutorials again, I found a lot of mistakes in my previous art).
Then I tried to read more tutorials of pixel art then tried again.
So as a start, I drew these 6 of 16x16 fruits:


How to make them better or something I should fix? Thanks 

rev 1:


rev 1(attempted-to-be-textured version):


-Others-
Random Objects 1:

[Ai]

All the ways of getting better are 99% the same as with any form of visual art. I certainly found a dramatic improvement in my pixel art through developing my general art skills via traditional pencil/pen work and digital painting.

For example, I would have given these same crits to your icons whether they were pixelled, painted, or done via vectors:

* You have differentiated the fruits through their response to light. Now also differentiate them in texture and sculpting. (eg you could roughen the orange in places, add a deeper crease to the pear, add some speckles to the blueberry..)
* Some of your color choices lack contrast. Consider calibrating your monitor (eg. via the series of checks at http://www.lagom.nl )
* try to avoid that banding (happens a lot on the banana) by exaggerating shapes and planes to be more iconic/less busy.

[NeithR]

All the ways of getting better are 99% the same as with any form of visual art. I certainly found a dramatic improvement in my pixel art through developing my general art skills via traditional pencil/pen work and digital painting.

For example, I would have given these same crits to your icons whether they were pixelled, painted, or done via vectors:

* You have differentiated the fruits through their response to light. Now also differentiate them in texture and sculpting. (eg you could roughen the orange in places, add a deeper crease to the pear, add some speckles to the blueberry..)
* Some of your color choices lack contrast. Consider calibrating your monitor (eg. via the series of checks at http://www.lagom.nl )
* try to avoid that banding (happens a lot on the banana) by exaggerating shapes and planes to be more iconic/less busy.

Thanks for the crits .
After I read your crits, I immediately modified my drawing again (from several hours ago) .
I have removed the branding by removing some color.
I have also changed some color for more contrast (I tried modify the color for contrast after trying the test from the link you gave me. It gave me some idea of the contrast of the color I shoud use. )


And for the texturing, I still don't get it why it is often turned into dither or noises xD...

[Decroded]

Here's an orange (warning: large image).
http://www.dailycolorstoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Orange-2For-Post-113.jpg
And here is the same orange in 16x.

I don't see any texture.

I wouldn't bother texturing something this size or its probably going to end up noisy, unreadable and flat.
The way you control the bands of light, dark, and speculars is more important to defining the material.
Try copying it as you go along and do several versions with varying contrasts, experiment with outlines etc, and go back and compare versions as you move along.
I duplicate layers myself to do this then i can look through the layers and compare them all.

[NeithR]

Here's an orange (warning: large image).
http://www.dailycolorstoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Orange-2For-Post-113.jpg
And here is the same orange in 16x.

I don't see any texture.

I wouldn't bother texturing something this size or its probably going to end up noisy, unreadable and flat.
The way you control the bands of light, dark, and speculars is more important to defining the material.
Try copying it as you go along and do several versions with varying contrasts, experiment with outlines etc, and go back and compare versions as you move along.
I duplicate layers myself to do this then i can look through the layers and compare them all.

Thanks for the clues .
It will really help me when to decide when to use texturing especially when the size of the image is very small and when to control the band   .

So, I have drawn pixel again and here are the results. It was different than before, but I have included the orange to test the texturing xD. But I will modify the 16x16 pixels again after this one .

[Ai]

Here's an orange (warning: large image).
http://www.dailycolorstoday.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Orange-2For-Post-113.jpg
And here is the same orange in 16x.

I don't see any texture.

This is a misunderstanding. Of course you won't see any texture because it's not exaggerated; but a pixel artist will intentionally exaggerate certain features of an icon to make it more recognizable. Doing otherwise just doesn't work that well. A pixel artist can't afford to be too naturalistic or literal.

The rest of your post is good advice, though.

Here's an edit illustrating some of my crits:



* Set the background to neutral gray so that color adjustments are more accurate
* Increase contrast generally
* Texture on orange
* Adjust apple lighting/shape to be better defined
* Sculpt pear more
* reflections on blueberry(? I think this is supposed to be a blueberry -- I got confused after it became a strange sky-blue color in recent versions)
* removed banding in many places


@NeithR: Texturing looks noisy because you are doing noisy textures As I say and demonstrate above, you need to a) minimize single unconnected pixels (they do look like noise, almost always); make coherent shapes, and b) exaggerate the texture and try to imply its existence with only a few pixels.

[Decroded]

Of course you won't see any texture because it's not exaggerated; but a pixel artist will intentionally exaggerate certain features of an icon to make it more recognizable. Doing otherwise just doesn't work that well. A pixel artist can't afford to be too naturalistic or literal.

Yes I see you're right thanks.

Had a little fun with the orange example...

First I rotated and zoomed to give myself more room within the canvas.
Texture is done not by adding random dots around the place but rather by carefully varying the smooth lines on the edges of the banding.
I found the main issue doing this avoiding adjacent pixels forming clusters of misleading lines and shapes.
I also wanted more colours to work with so the effect is not so harsh.
On references I found orange skin to be a fairly diffuse material with large speculars, so the banding is fairly evenly spaced.

[NeithR]

@Decroded and @Ai:
Thank you very much for the feedback .

So, I modified my pixel drawing again using both of your feedbacks:

It looks better than before .

I also tried using a single color palette to all the fruit:


For the orange, I tried texturing again by more exaggerate some of the banding:


I also updated my previous pixel drawing using the same feedbacks:


Also, a new pixel drawing again:
- Platform Grass 1

[Decroded]

Cute Mario-style grass I like it 

These could use alot of work though.
Take the grass/plant thing for example, you could benefit from studying other ways to do it.
Check out The Cluster Study Thread http://www.wayofthepixel.net/index.php?topic=15566.0, and experiment with using the contrast between clusters of colour to define shapes rather than relying solely on outlines.
Outlines are useful.
Cyangmou said it pretty well here - http://wayofthepixel.net/index.php?topic=15762.msg144039#msg144039

[Ai]

@NeithR: I get the impression you misunderstand the meaning of the word 'banding'. I suggest reviewing the "Banding" section in Cure's pixel-art tutorial/guide.
You actually have only a tiny amount of banding on that revised orange, in the upper-right.