Undead Alchemist

[Neo Berserker]

Hello guys. Recently i started working on this, i don't have a lot of experience working with pixel art this size so i've been experimenting a little, right now i'm kinda blocked on how to continue, so incase any of you have any critiques or advise i'd really appreciate it.

[HezaKey]

I wonder why your primary and secondary light source are the same color.  Might be more interesting if the top light was not orange like the fire.  Or you could do magical fire and make it whatever color you like.

You also seem just a tiny bit inconsistent with your lighting.  Secondary light it from top left, yet right arm is lit as if from opposite side.  Also no secondary lighting on the hands for some reason? 

Could probably get away with more warm highlights on the face and necklace, from the fire light.

That's all I got.

[Neo Berserker]

Thanks for pointing out the lighting inconsistency milo, that made me think a little more so i decided to focus just on one light source, also i tried to fix some smaller details and some lines, here's an updated version:



I feel like there are a few other things wrong but i can't get my head around them, i'll try to tweak it some more and see how it goes.

[Ymedron]

I feel like you could make the light more directional than you have.
(this is not advice on the technique of the lighting itself, since I just brushed with the normal photoshop brush.)

[Neo Berserker]

That helped Ymedron thanks . Here's another update on it, i'm trying to get a better lighting on it, hopefully it's an improvement in the right direction.

[Kosvid]

Despite I`m completely inexperienced as an artist and I haven`t made any good art yet, I can`t help saying I don`t like the hands. Not exactly the hands but their position. They are not "living". The alchemist seems to be asked to stretch them forward. The thing you should do is to change their situation towards the fireball and to add some energy. Just to spread fingers, for example. Look at all these https://www.google.ru/search?newwindow=1&hl=ru&site=imghp&tbm=isch&source=hp&biw=1280&bih=693&q=magic&oq=magic&gs_l=img.3..0l10.664.1242.0.1439.5.5.0.0.0.0.93.428.5.5.0....0...1ac.1.32.img..0.5.428.3p0mGM6w6mo#hl=ru&newwindow=1&q=magic+hands&tbm=isch pictures and compare the hands with those which you`ve drawn.

P.S. The sleeves usually hang on the arms, don`t they? I`d remove the black space between the arms and the sleeves` upper parts.

[r1k]

I think it would look better if you added some folds to hit cloak, right now it looks like his cloak is made of hard plastic.  I think you could also remove some of the black lines seperating parts of the cloak too.  Quick paint over

[PsylentKnight]

I think that separating the upper and lower teeth would help. As is, it looks like his mouth is some sort of singular giant eyeball, with the space between his upper teeth being the pupil.

[Neo Berserker]

@Agent00X, thanks for those suggestions, the hands have been giving me a hard time, i tried to make them more fitting this time.

@R1k, thanks alot for taking the time to make that edit  , using it as reference i went and implemented more changes.

@PsylentKnight, mhmm i'm not sure if the mouth's giving me that impression, i will tweak it and see if that makes any difference.

This is how it's looking so far.

[Mathias]

The face is still odd.
I suggest it more obviously appear as a skull. How about darker ocular cavities with your glowing highlight right in the center?

Ymedron made a good point about lighting. You can do much better. For instance, why is the top of his hood lit, at all? Go for stronger light/dark contrast. Up the creepiness. Maybe try a secondary light source, blue or green.

[PixelPiledriver]

Had some thoughts based on mathias's thoughts:


You might want to ref more than I did.

[Stava]

I continued on PixelPileDrivers edit,
this is what I got


Think the colors were too pale.. and the eyes were a little messy

[Shrike]

Whoops, thought Stava was the original poster. My bad.

Looking nice, otherwise! I might tone down the second brightest orange a bit to make the yellow pop a bit more, and saturate the yellow more. For something like flame, it's looking very desaturated.

[Neo Berserker]

Nice edits PixelPileDrive and Stava, very useful  , also i had this idea of adding some sort of aura so here's mine:



Not too refined, i didnt have alot of time today but tomorrow i'll make some more changes. Do you guys think the aura is helping this piece?

[Facet]

I think the aura is cool but is he sat at a table? If so I'd light that too 'cos it looks a bit like a floating torso. Good call on the new hands, much more engaged.

This is potentially pretty nice but the lighting is really confusing me atm; contrast-wise the lightsource is was darker than the lit surface and the ‘darks’ themselves no real value change, the lightest material colours are blues from a warm source which you'd expect to be neutralised somewhat, and as mentioned the overall direction is a bit unclear.

[Neo Berserker]

Thanks for your input Facet, yeah I'm basically going with my gut on this, the shading has been rather confusing but i hope it's improving as i go. I started with a vague idea but now i like the creepy look of it. Anyway here's another update on it.



Also changing the image to grayscale is actually really useful to check the values of the colors, that's something i'd never done before, will come handy in the future definitely.

[Shrike]

Great improvement so far! As was stated earlier... where is his torso? You need to establish it's presence somehow, even if you just cut out the background where it ought to be, or as someone suggested, put him leaning on a table of some sort.

[Neo Berserker]

Yeah that's what i'm probably going to do, i will try to make it look as if he's sitting and there's a table in front of him, and so i will light it up as Facet suggeted.

Edit: Alright so i added the table, i went for this odd texture on it, not sure if the colors work for it.

[Neo Berserker]

Alright i refined it more and added some (not the best) AA to the aura, the table texture is still odd in a way but i think it fits. This is pretty close to final, ofcourse i don't mind keep working and improving it even more if possible.

Thanks for the help everyone 

[Shrike]

It's so symmetrical! Maybe look for some ways to break up the symmetry? It's a huge improvement from the beginning. Great work