AuthorTopic: [WIP] My Space Mermaid  (Read 3612 times)

Offline Lakelezz

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[WIP] My Space Mermaid

on: August 14, 2015, 11:45:15 pm
Howdy Pixelation!

Let us dive right into my new WIP-thread and tackle another piece which came up into my mind:

Here goes the current original piece:



While I did a little experiment - not sure about it though:



There is still a lot to be done on this piece thus I would love to read your suggestions and critique!

Especially hearing as you read this picture would be interesting and helping. How does the background read for example? What do you see? What brings up questions/issues?

By the way, the in the upper left group of stars is representing the star constellation of the the flying fish. It might be removed - I just liked the idea and the interpretation of the star group fits the general scene.

Do you have an idea about the space composition?
Should I tone down the nebula or stars? Originally they were brighter so I am watching this with the wrong eyes right now I guess.

Are the one-pixel-stars too "stray"?

I am not sure whether this is a rather bad way of handling it and if they even read as those. I probably need to tone them down a bit more.

Any suggestions about the mermaid's colours?

I once thought about colouring her like pale (maybe a bit tanned) human skin looks.
Though I came up with no solution actually fitting into this piece's general palette.

If you have anything else to mention, feel free to do so of course!

Thanks for reading my thread!

Offline Pusty

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Re: [WIP] My Space Mermaid

Reply #1 on: August 14, 2015, 11:56:37 pm
amazing O: can't wait to see the finished piece
I personally like the one pixel stars
Also I think the color experiment looks like the planet is giving more light then in the first picture which I think is good

I love love the star group on the left top, I hope you keep it ^^
Just a random hobby gamedev passing by O:
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Offline IrresponsibleFreelancer

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Re: [WIP] My Space Mermaid

Reply #2 on: August 15, 2015, 01:48:58 am
This looks awesome love the outerspace feel.  To answer some of your questions the nebulae in the first one is the one that i personally prefer, I dont think the quick transition looks as good and i find you lose some of the vastness of space with this.  The one pixel stars are not too stray i think they looks good.

A quick note on the composition is that space is very vast and i find this isnt very well conveyed because the piece is a bit crowded.  If the size was amped up a bit and the objects were maybe all put slightly closer together in one corner with the rest being empty space I think it would perform very well.

On the colours of the mermaid.  The mermaid is clearly the subject of the piece so if you are willing to change the monochromatic colour scheme to something else i believe it would work very well to choose a different colour for the mermaid , a complimentary to blue or purple would work best so yellow or orange (or both).  Its completely up to you how the colours go because just about any colour could look pretty cool.

One more enigma that you are currently dealing with is the problem of the hair and the tail.  The mermaid doesnt look as much like a mermaid because it doesnt read well.  At first glance it is a bit tough to tell what the creature is because the hair and tail mess up the silhouette.  There are also a few very minor anatomical issues but they arent really a problem.

In my edit i tried to find a solution to the weird silhouette but i really couldnt.  Ill leave it up to you because you have the creative license to do so.  I did a lazy edit in photoshop to cheatsy doodle around a bit with levels and the clone stamp tool.  Also with what i said i had to change the resoltion that you set which is a bit of a no no in this case but i just wanted to convey my shitty ideas.

Edit: (PS mermaid colour, I have no clue but preferably not pink, maybe blue would look cool)
« Last Edit: August 15, 2015, 02:12:31 am by IrresponsibleFreelancer »
I dont get it done, but when i do its not done.

Offline Pusty

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Re: [WIP] My Space Mermaid

Reply #3 on: August 15, 2015, 02:33:31 am
wow with more space it looks soo much better :O
I would love to see a proper resized version in such a size or something like that !

I bet if you resize it to a 16:9 (or in some cases 4:3) resolution it would make an amazing desktop background O:
(but thats most likely not what you are aiming for lol)
Just a random hobby gamedev passing by O:
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Offline Decroded

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Re: [WIP] My Space Mermaid

Reply #4 on: August 15, 2015, 05:56:27 am
nice piece.
a few initial impressions...

i like the dark patches of nebula but the brighter bits feel a bit too opaque more like some kind of plasticy goo than gas.

pose:
i feel like the pose is a bit awkward assuming her tail is following her movement (feeling of movement making things interesting), its like she's flowing one way then suddenly twisting the other way.
that's probably not an issue except that her tail is curved and flowing then her arms are stiff and straight which looks off to me.
then the flow of the hair doesn't seem to be helping either.

priority:
surely the mermaid is primary focal point and most naturally that would be the face first.
the value (brightness) and contrast of the planet is much too high compared to the mermaid so it is too dominating.
it doesn't help the scene is basically monochromatic, if that is ur intention then u must control the values and contrast accordingly.
otherwise check out some other colour schemes like analogous (google it) where u can just shift the some of the hues of the mermaid to increase its priority.
u can (and should) still share colours between ramps and all u need is perhaps a small hue bounce somewhere in the mermaid ramp to make it pop out of the scene.
and/or u have the option to add a secondary light source such as some gold rim lighting from a nearby sun.
of course she could be magically self-illuminating too.
whatever u do get some more light onto the face imo and thin out the highlight on the breasts they kinda look like headlights atm.

Offline Lakelezz

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Re: [WIP] My Space Mermaid

Reply #5 on: August 16, 2015, 12:45:58 am
amazing O: can't wait to see the finished piece
I personally like the one pixel stars
Also I think the color experiment looks like the planet is giving more light then in the first picture which I think is good

I love love the star group on the left top, I hope you keep it ^^
Thanks Pusty! Good to hear your impression, specially about the one-pixel-big-stars! I will keep in mind what you said about the colour experiment. Though I will rework the palette later on. Right now I rather focus on the composition.

This looks awesome love the outerspace feel.  To answer some of your questions the nebulae in the first one is the one that i personally prefer, I dont think the quick transition looks as good and i find you lose some of the vastness of space with this.  The one pixel stars are not too stray i think they looks good.

A quick note on the composition is that space is very vast and i find this isnt very well conveyed because the piece is a bit crowded.  If the size was amped up a bit and the objects were maybe all put slightly closer together in one corner with the rest being empty space I think it would perform very well.

On the colours of the mermaid.  The mermaid is clearly the subject of the piece so if you are willing to change the monochromatic colour scheme to something else i believe it would work very well to choose a different colour for the mermaid , a complimentary to blue or purple would work best so yellow or orange (or both).  Its completely up to you how the colours go because just about any colour could look pretty cool.

One more enigma that you are currently dealing with is the problem of the hair and the tail.  The mermaid doesnt look as much like a mermaid because it doesnt read well.  At first glance it is a bit tough to tell what the creature is because the hair and tail mess up the silhouette.  There are also a few very minor anatomical issues but they arent really a problem.

In my edit i tried to find a solution to the weird silhouette but i really couldnt.  Ill leave it up to you because you have the creative license to do so.  I did a lazy edit in photoshop to cheatsy doodle around a bit with levels and the clone stamp tool.  Also with what i said i had to change the resoltion that you set which is a bit of a no no in this case but i just wanted to convey my shitty ideas.

Edit: (PS mermaid colour, I have no clue but preferably not pink, maybe blue would look cool)

First of all thanks for taking your time to try to express your ideas with an edit. As a result I tried adding a new shade to let the nebula fade out more easily.
Additionally I made a change to the canvas: Left and upper part are now bigger than before (180×180 instead of 140×140).

Nonetheless I am not sure about breaking the monochrome scheme. Specially because I am not a big fan of using the complimentary in this case. Since a usual pale skin would not work anyway (I assume), I rather stick with this for now.

Well the tail was at that position to make the pose more interesting. Maybe I have to rethink that.
What anatomy issues did you find?

wow with more space it looks soo much better :O
I would love to see a proper resized version in such a size or something like that !

I bet if you resize it to a 16:9 (or in some cases 4:3) resolution it would make an amazing desktop background O:
(but thats most likely not what you are aiming for lol)

Haha, no, I am not aiming for a new desktop background. I rather would not take one of my own pieces since they are not good enough for my personal taste anyway.

nice piece.
a few initial impressions...

i like the dark patches of nebula but the brighter bits feel a bit too opaque more like some kind of plasticy goo than gas.

pose:
i feel like the pose is a bit awkward assuming her tail is following her movement (feeling of movement making things interesting), its like she's flowing one way then suddenly twisting the other way.
that's probably not an issue except that her tail is curved and flowing then her arms are stiff and straight which looks off to me.
then the flow of the hair doesn't seem to be helping either.

priority:
surely the mermaid is primary focal point and most naturally that would be the face first.
the value (brightness) and contrast of the planet is much too high compared to the mermaid so it is too dominating.
it doesn't help the scene is basically monochromatic, if that is ur intention then u must control the values and contrast accordingly.
otherwise check out some other colour schemes like analogous (google it) where u can just shift the some of the hues of the mermaid to increase its priority.
u can (and should) still share colours between ramps and all u need is perhaps a small hue bounce somewhere in the mermaid ramp to make it pop out of the scene.
and/or u have the option to add a secondary light source such as some gold rim lighting from a nearby sun.
of course she could be magically self-illuminating too.
whatever u do get some more light onto the face imo and thin out the highlight on the breasts they kinda look like headlights atm.


Hey Decroded!
Let me clear up the pose-concept: She came from above. Her tail shows the direction from which she flew. As you can see, it was in a curvy way. In the end she entered a bit of atmosphere and "hovered" above/within it. That is why her arms are like that, to keep up the balance.
If there is anything to improve this idea, I would be really thankful. Originally the planet was even tinier thus I increased it's size before I started this thread.

Secondly about the planet which I can partly understand. As I mentioned about the pose-concept in this post already, the planet is right under her. At least that is what I want to convey. The planet shall be her light source thus her (already very reflective) scales are being lit.

Also about the colours: Well, I am honestly not sure at all right now. I like monochrome palettes a lot. Though I am not quite sure how to control the values in the manner you described. I tend to use 8-colour-monochrome-palettes during my original content pieces which makes it hard for me to manage this palette which seems to expand above it (13 coloures at the moment).
Any tips for my struggle?

I tried to fix some of the mentioned points:




I have done some more edits, especially on the planet:



Any suggestions how I could make the mermaid more pretty? I feel like her face is a bit gloomy :/



I made some changes to her hair, eyes and breasts.



I tried use more clusters on the hair and additionally cleaned up the colour mess.

Then I tried to clean up her face. Furthermore I added eyes even though I know the space for a proper reading of them is quite small.

Lastly there is my attempt of adding nipples and correcting the distance of each breast according to each other.
Nonetheless adding proper nipples is not that easy for me, any suggestions to make them read better?

Also I am not sure about the planet's AAing. Do you think it bands too much?



Many changes!

First of all the skin has been recoloured because using the background colour in does not feel good to me. Additionally I tried to make her look less scary thus brighter colours were just the right decision in my point of view.

Secondly I tried to clean up the hair way more. Therefore I had to redefine the clusters.

Last but not least: I tweaked the palette a bit and finally removed many useless colours. My result for now is 11 colours and of course no transparency.



Is there anything small I could change? I do not want to redo everything nor change the concept. A lot of time was spent into this piece and I just do not feel like I learned a lot from it during the last days. Thus finishing this piece and moving on to another would be something I highly appreciate.
Nonetheless I still look forward your critique of course :)



I did some edits on her nipples and tail according to someone's feedback.
Toned down the nipples to make them look less sharp and long. Also the transition from on the tail got fixed one could say. I used the background colour on some areas which caused a strong contrast. Now I used some less dark colour on it which has been used on other spots on the tail already.
Additionally the hair has been reworked a bit.





Thanks for the feedback!
I finished my piece - for everyone who is curious you can check it our here: http://pixeljoint.com/pixelart/97673.htm

« Last Edit: September 01, 2015, 01:20:09 pm by Lakelezz »