GR#228 - Alcopops Pixel Sketch Thread - Sprite Process

[FrostPumpkin]

Hello ! Really nice works, I enjoy your designs and that last portrait is great.
My only concern is that, I think, you style doesn't really suits to pixel art. I mean, it looks good but the pixel lines adds a sense of restriction that doesn't suit your spontaneous line and designs.

I think the dynamics of your drawings would have much more impact in CG, where you can have another dimension working with line art, varying thickness and intensity of the lines in order to support your already spontaneous design style.

It's very nice tho, keep it up !!

[Manupix]

Mr Thompson is awesome =)
Only thing is his dead eye could be more obvious and scary if it was larger, as people with such impairment usually develop facial asymmetry because (my guess) their useless eye muscles relax into oblivion.

[AlcopopStar]

@Frost

Thank you for the nice words!

You might well be right about the jagged lines being discordant with a more fluid style. And I think eventually i'll head in two different directions with it. One i'll head back to paint tool sai and try to apply with i've learned here to my digital art. And two i'll slowly start colouring and rendering more complexly until the figures resemble something closer to traditional pixel art. (but still hopefully keep their flow)

Either way I think this works as a good starting point. Like, i'm breaking down elements and placing them back in order one by one.

@Manupix
Ahh great idea I quickly sized the eye up a little thanks ;0

[AlcopopStar]

Okay!

So I put my other sketches on hold to work on this:


Axewitch!

original sketch:
Spoiler

I've got big plans for this one, I want to try to manually control line weight through hand placed AA, which will be difficult because my AA skills are... limited.

I'm going to fully colour and shade it too, but for the moment i'm just trying to finish cleaning up the line work, the axe + foot is being a real pain. And the boars fur isn't quite working.

Thoughts are welcome as always.

More as it comes!

[YellowLime]

  This is some great stuff, keep it up

[AlcopopStar]

Cheers Yellowlime

Okay, so a hectic week meant some slow progress but I've made a lot of headway with this picture nonetheless.



Pretty happy with this. I feel like this is an evolution of the style I've been working with. I'll keep pushing it, and hopefully I think i'll try to work a whole comic with this approach.

Things to note,
High contrast colours are joined by a manually AAed buffer colour.
Used a dirty technique i whipped up to auto line the background leaves.

Suggestions welcome as always.

[Daimoth]

It bothers me that the gruff fellow's face is tilted a little. I don't know why.

That said, it's obvious you have skill as an artist, and not just pixel art. I look forward to your future work!

[Cyangmou]

I would say the lineart is lovely and powerful, but the colored version lacks visual impact and power.

color/light - everything is pretty gray, you don't have many details of interest to look at, so compensate this with strong colors for a quick and effective impact.
Also considering the quality of the sunlight you can seperate light and shadow planes with light and shadow hues to even strengthen the impact.
eyes: second spot of interest are the eyes, in yours they look dead, which is pretty bad for the character. Even if it's an undead, a vampire or whatever you should add the pupils and rather go for a more fancy form.

cast shadows - at some spots you could add pretty simple cast shadows to make things pop and give the things more form, you have them in a few spots (like beneath the hat) but you can add them at a lot of other spots and much more powerful.

framing elements: the framing elements of the leavas add a pattern where you don' twant to have the viewers eye, simplify them in a big single cluster there.

composition lines: you can use open space like the sky to add a few powerful composition lines to emphasize depth and guide the viewer to the points of interest.
 

[Manupix]

Agree with Cyangmou.
Also the bg foliage doesn't need outlines, and its shapes are boring and sloppy.
Great character =)
Don't bother with AA, your pieces are large enough to be viewed at 1x and it is lost on the viewer.

[Daimoth]

This guy could make a killer pixel art coloring book. Fully rendering all that beautiful line art would be extremely fun.