C64 Knight Portrait

[AlcopopStar]

Hello forum,

So i'm doing some c64 fantasy portraits for a client. Here is the first among 6.

Current:
The Necromancer,



Finished:
The Knight,

Peasant Girl



The pixels are double width. And I should point out that the black is a slightly off blue for the sake of the engine it's going into.

whadoyathink?

(crossposted here)

[wolfenoctis]

Quick edit, I think the eye slit should be a little higher up, and helm should be a little taller. Also is there a reason you have double pixel and single pixel size lines and clusters everywhere ? ( I don't know anything about c64 restrictions, if it has something to do with that) Because its causing a lot of banding all over the piece:

I adjusted the helm size to show you what I mean, also the cross on the helm doesn't line up. Hope it helps 

[AlcopopStar]

Hey wolf,

thanks for your reply. So I raised the eye slot and helmet height a touch, It might need to be higher still but for now i'll leave it alone. Oh I also fixed up the cross section, the reason it was off was that the head was meant to be slightly tilted, which may have been a bit ambitious given these restrictions.

To my understanding the limits, beyond the pallet, are that the "pixels" must be 2 pixels in width and 1 in height. if that makes sense.

Anyway here is my latest update,

[wolfenoctis]

Don't know if I got all the pixel sizes right, one of the more experienced artists here would have to say. I tried making him a little more shiny and straightened out some lines. It's still a little rough though but it might give you some ideas 

[Mr. Fahrenheit]

Are you following all the c64 restrictions alco? Looking really cool so far.

[AlcopopStar]

Ahh, no one shades armor like you wolf! Okay I I tried ramping up the contrast and making things a little more metal like in your version. I think part of the problem is that I was following the shading on my reference pictures too carefully (which was dull metal), where as I should of gone for something a bit more "ultra-real" like you did. Looks a lot better.

Okay so here is my attempt, (2 variations)




Not 100% on the colour ramps for the gold yet.

@Mr. Fahrenheit, Thanks, the only two restrictions I've been told to follow are the ones I've mentioned. Are there more?

[Helm]

Absolutely. The simplest mode (multicolor) has this great restriction: For every 8x8 cell (4x8, if you look at them like widepixels), you can only have 3 colors. Plus, you get one color that you can use everywhere, which must be the same for the whole picture. So it's 4 max colors per cell.

Don't be afraid of this limitation. You can easily apply it for your picture with minimal changes, and often the changes that it'll force you to make will open your mind to new shapes of clusters and smart solutions to problems. Most of the time we use too many colors. The c64 can teach a pixel artist that they can do more with less in a lot of cases.

Also a handy thing: if you're working in a way that might result to stray square pixels in such an image, make a habit of compressing the 320 width of the image to 160, then back to 320. Do it before the final image is produced as well. That'll take care of any stray square pixels.

As to your image as it stands right now, I really like it. There are many little bits I would change, but with an entry into the c64 I would suggest first to make a few more pictures, and to do them in multicolor or hi-res and then work on the nitpicks.

[AlcopopStar]

Hey Helm,

Thanks for that information . My latest version should adhere to those restrictions. (barring any small mistakes) And I think it looks better for it too.

[ptoing]

I assumed grey (aka mid grey) to be the global colour. Very few errors, and all of these should be pretty easily fixed.


Good stuff, I really like this too.

[AlcopopStar]

Ahhh thanks for the sharp eye ptoing! i've fixed those areas up.


I guess i'm ready to call this one done then i'll get to work on the next. Thanks again guys! i've learned a lot.