AuthorTopic: Young pixel artist looking for critique!  (Read 10591 times)

Offline Fizzick

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Re: Young pixel artist looking for critique!

Reply #20 on: July 01, 2014, 12:24:02 am
You're still using highlights on random edges. This pokemon is not made up of bladed edges- it is a soft thing. It would probably not even have such bright highlights unless wet.

Offline Fizzick

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Re: Young pixel artist looking for critique!

Reply #21 on: July 01, 2014, 12:41:45 am

six colors. a bit sloppy in some spots since it's quick but i hope you get the idea.

edit:
ambivorous did great with the shading, especially neck and tail. listen to him! do exercises with only a very few colors. your understanding of light and shadow will improve much faster.
« Last Edit: July 01, 2014, 12:44:35 am by Fizzick »

Offline LarkoftheRiver

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Re: Young pixel artist looking for critique!

Reply #22 on: July 01, 2014, 01:25:38 pm
I redid the shading, and dulled down the highlights. I also removed the shading on the yellow markings (they glow, so hey, one less color), and the eyes as well. I am down to six, I believe, which was better than my.. like 10+ yesterday.

Any better, or should I work on refining it more?

Offline Drazelic

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Re: Young pixel artist looking for critique!

Reply #23 on: July 01, 2014, 02:29:38 pm
Stronger contrast! You should be able to immediately see the boundaries between colors. Right now your palette still looks like the same sorta-murky near-black.

Offline LarkoftheRiver

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Re: Young pixel artist looking for critique!

Reply #24 on: July 01, 2014, 02:33:36 pm
So, should I brighten up the base colors and add contrast with that? I don't want to make it too gray looking (the original character is black/dark gray.)

EDIT- Started a request for a friend this morning as well. Felt like posting it here too just to hear you guys' thoughts on it. I managed to use only five colors per animation frame. I'm not going to edit it anymore (I'd rather continue with my sprite), but it would be great to hear opinions.


EDIT 2- More contrast? A bit?
« Last Edit: July 01, 2014, 04:08:33 pm by LarkoftheRiver »

Offline Manupix

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Re: Young pixel artist looking for critique!

Reply #25 on: July 01, 2014, 08:49:38 pm
Request: that's 7 colors (this checker only sees the first frame colors). Some might be accidental. The blacks are so close that I almost can't distinguish them; same for the greens.
The way you use layers is not going to help your pixeling progress  :hehe:
Way to go is: 1- create a palette, including the fade-out dark greens which you can choose and edit in an interesting way, apply hue-shifting to etc; 2- apply palette to frames.

Sprite: yes to more contrast. There's no reason that all colors are dark (= darker than your medium gray bg; I'm not counting yellow). Even black fur has bright reflections. So yes, highlights are needed.
Yellow: if it glows, it should show. Right now it's just patches of yellow paint. But that's not easy and you should maybe leave that aside for the next lesson =)

Offline LarkoftheRiver

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Re: Young pixel artist looking for critique!

Reply #26 on: July 01, 2014, 08:59:14 pm
Oh gosh, that was when I was still playing with colors, my bad.
Okay, so I shouldn't use the tweening option in Photoshop to get a glow, and make it myself? I'll try that. Should I also stop with layers, and only use the first one for the pixel?

I'll see what I can do about the highlights.
I was going to do a glowing animation to show the glow as well, but I'm going to wait on that until the sprite is all good. ^^

Offline Manupix

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Re: Young pixel artist looking for critique!

Reply #27 on: July 01, 2014, 09:08:56 pm
Layers are great to organize your work, try options, move stuff etc. Just keep them basic, 100% opacity, blending mode normal ;)

Glowing: I wasn't thinking of animation. Just glow.

Offline LarkoftheRiver

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Re: Young pixel artist looking for critique!

Reply #28 on: July 01, 2014, 09:15:24 pm
Oh um
Probably the next lesson
I'm really trying hard to control my colors, I'm not sure that will help.

Edit- Brought out the highlights a bit.

I also got bored, so I decided to try a bit of glow. I'm not too pleased with it, but I'll post it anyway.
« Last Edit: July 01, 2014, 10:28:08 pm by LarkoftheRiver »

Offline questseeker

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Re: Young pixel artist looking for critique!

Reply #29 on: July 02, 2014, 07:34:29 am
I cannot help thinking that the yellow ring pokémon you are editing and reediting as an exercise is too small. Too small for decorations like the rings (Manupix already observed that they are a complication and an obstacle, but they are also too small to look good) and too small for the short of shading you are trying to do. Look at the foreleg of the last iteration: 3 pixels wide, with bands reducing to 1 pixel columns. You seem to be attempting a bad middle ground between large sprites that allow outlines and shading and small sprites that allow simple shapes.
Maybe you could try redrawing at the same size with only two shades of blue-gray, simplifying shading and shapes where you don't have enough pixels (e.g. jaw and legs), and/or scaling the same picture to double size with similar shading but better pixel clusters (e.g. more eye-shaped eyes, asymmetrical right ear, smaller left ear).