[WIP][C&C] First attempt at pixel art

[cbamf]

Hello everyone,

Pixel art is something I've always admired and I decided I would give it a go, I'm at a point where I feel I could continue creating tiles in this style for days, they aren't really for any project in particular but I'm trying to be mindful of their modularity and keeping them as environment pieces for an isometric game.

So there are a few things I would love to receive some criticism for; namely the tree. I think the shading looks alright but I am not really too happy with the leaves, I would really appreciate any suggestions people could make in improving these.

I would also love to know if there are any areas I can optimise my colour pallet, I am not really limiting myself as much as I would like to in the future when I am more comfortable with pixel-specific shading techniques but at the moment I'd like to cap it at 28 or 32 colours.

If there is anything else you think I could do to make these pieces better I would be grateful for any suggestions, please feel free to obliterate these with criticisms, I really have no idea what I am doing yet.

I would also love to know how you guys manage to make things look good at 100% zoom, I'm currently just having fun zoomed in to 200% and pretending everything is fine.

Most  Recent:



Original:



Update:



Update 2:



Update 3 Study based on Decroded's reference suggestion:



Update 4: New tree



Update 5:



Thanks in advance,


Cory.

e/ removed upscaled version since this forum has nice non-bicubic zooming 

[Poggles]

This is already pretty good, and I don't mean just for a first attempt. You've clearly got the talent. This guide here might help you a little. He starts talking about trees a little more than halfway down the page

http://opengameart.org/content/chapter-8-a-world-of-tiles

[cbamf]

Thanks for the response and encouraging words, Poggles 

That's a good read so thanks also for linking that to me.

If you get the time I would really appreciate any meticulous criticisms, I'm sure there are many things that could be done better.

Thanks again,

Cory.

[kullenberg]

I like the grass/dirt patches. They have a nice organic look. As for the tree, it kind of looks like a cabbage head i.e. thin slices overlapping each other. Try to think more in terms of sphere clusters. I think you should definately try to copy a style you look. Have a sprite with the art style you like on the canvas next to your piece and try to understand why it works.

[hapiel]

I think, to make it look better at 1x, you'd have to worry more about the shapes pixels form together rather than work with individual pixels. There are a lot of details/texture elements that are one pixel in size, which looks better at 2x indeed...

The highlight on the leaves of the tree seem odd to me. Wheras everything is so low contrast and softly shaded, the tree suddenly has these unrealistic light effects, from the brightest color.

[cbamf]

Thanks for the reply guys, my main inspiration (not direct reference) was this piece

I tried adding that edge highlight on the left side of the different leaf clumps but it looks a little flat still, yeah, I'll do more to try and give it a more realistic sense of depth.

I have also taken your advice and had a look for more actual pixel art to use as direct reference for choosing a style when rendering leaves.

Thanks

Cory.

[hapiel]

That tree in your ref is so much more full of life because of its curvy shape! Consider emulating that too

[cbamf]

I made some changes to the tree in an attempt to give it more depth, let me know if you think this helps



Thanks,

Cory.

[Cyangmou]

the tree in your ref not only looks a lot more alive because it's curvy (yellow-line which is of course the most outstanding difference)

But if you look at the colors the top part is very bright (pink line) while closer to the bottom of the crown near the trunk there is one big dark green shape with a clear leaf-contour (cyan circle) which a a lot of depth

there is also refelcted blue ambient light on the left side of the trunk (red lines)

All in all the mood of your reference is very bright and lush, while your actual artwork is very dark.

[Decroded]

Welcome and be warned! Pixel art is addictive as hell 

Wow I really like your style 
I normally don't like single pixel noise but you pull it off and you've got the perfect amount of little highlights scattered around the place without going overboard.
If you stick around you will learn all sorts of other cool techniques but I hope you don't loose your cool style in the process.

Crits:
Lose the nasty cyan background colour and go for grey or low saturation colour at 50% bright to get the best balance in your work.
Colours are great but pure grey is horrible. Look up "hue shift". Do you understand HSB mode in colour picker? I personally prefer this mode as it gives so much control.
Stone highlights are to strong but suits the spade handle so I'd say add a colour.

Some of your highlights conflict with your light source. Look at the vines, they look awesome but the highlight needs to move a few pixels left and shading on tree trunk should be adjusted accordingly.
Some of your shadows don't line up also.
IMO you should use the shadow angle on the gravestone (45 degrees up and right) as this will give strong light and dark to your objects and cast the shadows partially behind objects so they consume less tiles and cause less interference than going sideways.

Give the tree some bigger roots to make it more interesting. If you have layers, draw a grid over each tile them some ellipses around the trunk base to help you line up the perspective. Its a common mistake that the bottom of a tree looks kinda flat like cardboard cutout where it meets the ground. Use the grass blades to blend the roots in use dark green to suggest bumps where the roots are going into the ground.

Top of tree is all wrong in terms of shading and u have a bad reference.
Refer to something like this where the lighting is offset...
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/00/9e/1a/009e1aeb06100c534290c79d8f0a3b7e.jpg
Some other good references with strong lighting (important) to get a feel for the clumps but obviously you need to adjust the light source to your scene...
http://fc07.deviantart.net/fs70/i/2014/230/e/7/tree_on_street_png___dsc_0557_by_annamae22-d7vofp7.png
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/2b/31/b4/2b31b4035aad78ed526633ea454ff7a4.png

Now its good ur attempting to make clumps but I don't think you're going to get away with rendering the leaves using noise.
Who knows you might pull it off but usually it takes time to draw the leaves using a bunch of little controlled clusters of pixels which cast little shadows onto each other.
Here's an example of leaf clustering I did not so great and wouldn't suit your scene but hopefully u get something out of it (i forgot to pause the last frame sorry) http://i.imgur.com/1W1rBw5.gif
This guy does it much better obviously but looking at his stuff can bring a tear to the eye  http://fool.deviantart.com/art/Dragon-rider-149899562