AuthorTopic: In the Company of Wolves [WIP]  (Read 8885 times)

Offline burritoEclair

  • 0001
  • *
  • Posts: 12
  • Karma: +0/-0
    • View Profile

In the Company of Wolves [WIP]

on: May 28, 2015, 07:35:24 am

Not sure how this piece is progressing. Struggling to reuse colors and keep the world interesting without going over board. Clearly spent a lot of time on the tree and AAing.
Worried the composition feels lopsided and that I'm wasting colors. I'm at 32 colors, think there are some stray 1 pixel colors I can toss in order to get some in between tones for the background blues, or the lighter beiges on the woman's ?mantel? and the case on the wolves back.

Would love some criticism on the wolf. It's based off of a maned wolf though possibly the body is too heavy?


Progress:



« Last Edit: September 27, 2015, 07:11:25 pm by burritoEclair »

Offline rikfuzz

  • 0010
  • *
  • Posts: 427
  • Karma: +1/-0
    • View Profile
    • twitter @hot_pengu

Re: In the Company of Wolves [WIP]

Reply #1 on: May 28, 2015, 10:32:26 am
The boring perfect green of the grass / leaves and plain blue sky really kills the atmosphere for me.  I don't really feel any sort of emotions or story looking at the latest versions - but the earlier piece without a bg I felt hints of journeying, mystery, silent companionship, desolation etc.

Offline burritoEclair

  • 0001
  • *
  • Posts: 12
  • Karma: +0/-0
    • View Profile

Re: In the Company of Wolves [WIP]

Reply #2 on: May 28, 2015, 05:50:56 pm
The boring perfect green of the grass / leaves and plain blue sky really kills the atmosphere for me.  I don't really feel any sort of emotions or story looking at the latest versions - but the earlier piece without a bg I felt hints of journeying, mystery, silent companionship, desolation etc.

You are painfully right. I did a few quick color changes, but I think I'll need to fine tune them and the contents of the world to get the right mood. It's more like an outside photo-shoot and less of a quiet repose before continuing the rest of the journey.


I think I'm going to try to progress with the red, it's the most interesting to me. Also might help with colors.
Thank you for point this out.

Edit 5/31/15:

I think I had to leave the square canvas. Might change this a little bit later but right now it's fine.
Trying to flesh out some of the town the duo left and something to head towards.
« Last Edit: May 31, 2015, 09:12:19 pm by burritoEclair »

Offline Seiseki

  • 0011
  • **
  • Posts: 915
  • Karma: +1/-0
  • Starmancer
    • OminuxGames
    • http://pixeljoint.com/p/35207.htm
    • StarmancerGame
    • View Profile
    • Starmancer Patreon

Re: In the Company of Wolves [WIP]

Reply #3 on: May 29, 2015, 05:01:31 pm
I assume the girl is kneeling? It reads more like a really short person.
The wolf also looks more like a horse with those long legs and the size of the girl. Maybe the neck is a bit long, I'm by far no expert on wolf anatomy though.
Edit: I just saw the reference Image, the long legs do look correct now, but as you said, it's a bit heavy and not as slender as the reference.

I do like the colors, but the grass might be a bit too saturated when it's that dark.
Also, consider making the image more rectangular to give it more of a direction.

Offline burritoEclair

  • 0001
  • *
  • Posts: 12
  • Karma: +0/-0
    • View Profile

Re: In the Company of Wolves [WIP]

Reply #4 on: June 04, 2015, 09:22:45 am


I think I'm spending too much time on the subtle stuff in the distant background, but I'm finally getting the palette tightened up a bit more. Changing this from green to red really helped. Stills some stray colors that eat up 1 pixel or so.

Does the tree fit in the scene anymore? Either as compositional divider or even conceptually?

Offline Skaz

  • 0010
  • *
  • Posts: 111
  • Karma: +0/-0
    • View Profile
    • My DeviantArt

Re: In the Company of Wolves [WIP]

Reply #5 on: June 04, 2015, 06:43:01 pm
I like the pixel art by itself. I'm not the colour guy, but the background seems over saturated to me. I made a quick n' dirty edit:



Lowered the saturation of the background a bit, the blue was to strong IMHO. And if I'm correct, that also how atmospheric perspective works.

Offline Decroded

  • 0100
  • ***
  • Posts: 1285
  • Karma: +3/-0
  • Oh hai
    • View Profile

Re: In the Company of Wolves [WIP]

Reply #6 on: June 04, 2015, 10:01:12 pm
I found the links in Ai's post here very interesting it clarifies a technique that I was subconsciously trying to do without understanding it.
http://wayofthepixel.net/index.php?topic=18295.msg162471#msg162471

I didn't get to try the editor tool thingy but the gamut masks made for a very interesting read.

Offline burritoEclair

  • 0001
  • *
  • Posts: 12
  • Karma: +0/-0
    • View Profile

Re: In the Company of Wolves [WIP]

Reply #7 on: June 07, 2015, 01:43:23 pm


Bit of tweaking. Mostly retuning the colors relative to the witch. Moving a lot of colors around still.

@Decroded: I'm not entirely sure what you're saying. I started scribbling out my palette on the piece now, finding better color transitions and unneeded colors. Down to 33. I'm sure I can get it to 32 with no issues. PJ image spec tool says I've got ~5 colors used less than 0.1 %

I keep getting lost in AAing things. Slowing down a lot of work, so I'm trying to just scribble things in and move on.
« Last Edit: June 08, 2015, 07:45:05 am by burritoEclair »

Offline Decroded

  • 0100
  • ***
  • Posts: 1285
  • Karma: +3/-0
  • Oh hai
    • View Profile

Re: In the Company of Wolves [WIP]

Reply #8 on: June 08, 2015, 02:26:17 am
i dunno if its just me but the scene feels unbalanced when they're on the right hand side facing right (out of the scene).
maybe move then onto the path on the left and flip the tree horizontally or something.

in terms of colour i found this an interesting read - http://www.tigercolor.com/color-lab/color-theory/color-harmonies.htm
its not something u need to follow but its good to be aware of.
ur primary focus stands out ok with the bright skin colour but i feel like the girl could use a touch more colour followed secondarily by her companion beast.

Offline burritoEclair

  • 0001
  • *
  • Posts: 12
  • Karma: +0/-0
    • View Profile

Re: In the Company of Wolves [WIP]

Reply #9 on: June 09, 2015, 03:59:30 am


I think I need to scrap the tree. Introduce some nicer color into the which, maybe pull in some of those blues. Right now I'm separating foreground and background with the warm and cool colors.