AuthorTopic: My first Pixel Art! A Warrior's Helm  (Read 2119 times)

Offline TheMightyKrang

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My first Pixel Art! A Warrior's Helm

on: December 30, 2014, 02:24:48 am


I guess you could say this is me dipping my foot into the water of pixel art, getting a feel for how it works so up close  :P
I'm definitely not done yet as you can see the helmet is still very crude, and not in the cool ancient relic type of way  :yell:
From what I've gathered from some pixel tutorials so far that I need to work on is to get rid of the black outline surrounding the helmet, establish my source of light, and just more retouching  :lol:
If you guys have any other pointer or tips to lead me in the right direction on this helmet it would be greatly appreciated
   Sincerely,
       Krang the Newbie

Offline Rosier

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Re: My first Pixel Art! A Warrior's Helm

Reply #1 on: December 30, 2014, 04:40:27 am
Removing the black outline isn't 100% necessary.

I would look at actual helmets on Google if you're trying to imitate one.  Right now, it's a bland design with a few shape issues.

Offline Decroded

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Re: My first Pixel Art! A Warrior's Helm

Reply #2 on: December 30, 2014, 06:17:29 am


I guess you could say this is me dipping my foot into the water of pixel art, getting a feel for how it works so up close  :P
I'm definitely not done yet as you can see the helmet is still very crude, and not in the cool ancient relic type of way  :yell:
From what I've gathered from some pixel tutorials so far that I need to work on is to get rid of the black outline surrounding the helmet, establish my source of light, and just more retouching  :lol:
If you guys have any other pointer or tips to lead me in the right direction on this helmet it would be greatly appreciated
   Sincerely,
       Krang the Newbie
I'd advise working from reference at this level.
It seems like your having underlying issues with design, perspective and visualising form which need to addressed before the other steps you mentioned (which are all good steps).
So I'd say head off to google images and find some good references.
Generally look for images with strong lighting and shadow as this will be easier to work from.
Don't try to create a palette then restrict yourself from that unless you've got loads of experience with palettes, just don't add colours as you need them.
Generally try to recycle existing colours first and avoid creating unnecessary and similar colours.

Suggested starting steps below for a simple object at this scale (or bigger). Its good to make a new layer or file as you make progress between each step or major changes for easy comparison and rollback, and also so you can make an animated gif to show the process you followed as this helps us help u.

1) Fill canvas with grey at 50% brightness.
2) Using a larger brush like (4px in this case), rough in the general shape of the object in a darker grey.
3) Block in the shadows in dark grey (I use Photoshop so first I use Magic Wand to select the shape then press CTRL+H.
4) Add just a few shades of grey for your gradients and highlights etc.
5) Quickly clean up your mess. At this point it won't look great but you should often be able to see tell what the object. If you can't, then you should clean up and tweak a bit.
6) Now the magic happens. Start blending in some hues into your greys. You can start by using software's built-in saturation & hue tools then tweak it manually in colour picker.
7) From here its pretty much pixel evel detail and continued tweaking of colours, increasing contrast etc.