AuthorTopic: My Avatar Tradition  (Read 5976 times)

Offline Lakelezz

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My Avatar Tradition

on: September 04, 2015, 02:21:09 pm
Hello Pixelation-community :)

I am currently working on my avatar tradition which started on December 2013. The tradition is about pixeling Mei Misaki from the mange and anime "Another".



These three pieces represent the stages of own pixel art career.
Even thought the first two pieces have 45 and 44 colours, the third one already limited itself to 11 colours.

Furthermore the canvas size adjusted to it's aimed purpose. Thus the latest one - November 2014 - marks my early months on PixelJoint.
As a result the canvas size increased to 64x64 to make the piece "avatar-viable".

However I started working on a new piece for this avatar tradition.



The palette has 7 colours and the canvas size is still 64x64

Right now I am struggling a little bit with the AAing of the hair. If you have any tips for me, I would greatly appreciate them.

Lastly, thanks for taking your time to read this thread.



Offline Pusty

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Re: My Avatar Tradition

Reply #1 on: September 04, 2015, 03:22:32 pm
I don't know if this is helping but:
Looking at it on smallest size the  top right and top left sides looks a bit weird
Although zooming in it starts looking right so I don't know what exactly is causing it

A bit of topic:
I'm shocked..
I underestimated the power of AA. I never thought the picture from Nov 2014 would only be 64x64
I guess I just learned something :D
Just a random hobby gamedev passing by O:
[Ludum Dare][Itch.io]

Offline dpixel

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Re: My Avatar Tradition

Reply #2 on: September 04, 2015, 11:59:35 pm
Personally, I think it's done and looks great.  The AA looks fine.  Add any more an it'll start to look blurry. 
Nice palette too.

Offline Decroded

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Re: My Avatar Tradition

Reply #3 on: September 05, 2015, 12:41:04 am
edit: oops just realised i was critiquing the wrong version  :-[
« Last Edit: September 06, 2015, 06:49:20 am by Decroded »

Offline Joe

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Re: My Avatar Tradition

Reply #4 on: September 05, 2015, 05:15:04 am
A lightbulb moment for me was when I was shown that perfect AA doesn't require a buffer pixel against every single pixel.
Another thing is, the foundation of good AA is a solid contour. You can't buff out a bad line with AA.
AA is really fun to get good at and makes images look immediately better. But try not to overdo it, in particular avoid having the buffer reach up to the next row as much as you can, and cut back in areas it's not needed as much (like the chin).
Perhaps you haven't considered this, but an interesting mental shift for me was: what if I'm not AAing from black to yellow, but yellow to black? What would an ideal yellow look like? This is in the same vein as negative space in drawing.
After you shift your perception to that, you can then switch back and forth regularly, working on that theoretical infinitesimal edge.



Also, great progress.

Offline wolfenoctis

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Re: My Avatar Tradition

Reply #5 on: September 05, 2015, 10:51:45 am
Had a stab at this, may be helpful:

Offline Shackhal

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Re: My Avatar Tradition

Reply #6 on: September 05, 2015, 07:45:21 pm
The image is very nice. Sweet AA...at simple eyesight. But there have some places to check:



First is the red circle. In the center there's a little bulge. It feels like the jaw is very big on the sides and I'm sure that's not the case. A simple AA can fix it. Also, those red stains I put below the image were before a slight different yellow of the background, very imperceptible on simple eyesight. In this case, is not necessary to have it there, right?

And what @Joe said is right: don't overdue the AA. Often doing it very simple looks better.

Here is my fix. You can compare it. Mine is on the right.



Btw, I like the effect you made on the lips. That one was impressive.
 

Offline IrresponsibleFreelancer

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Re: My Avatar Tradition

Reply #7 on: September 06, 2015, 11:21:21 pm
One thing that i see is that the face looks like it is looking slightly to screen right.  Generally in portraiture the space in front of the face should be slightly larger to enhance the composition.  If the resolution of you pixelling isnt set in stone i would recommend adding a few pixels in width to the right side of the canvas so as to make it not feel cramped.

It looks really good though and its super cool to see the improvement from a couple years ago and now.  :crazy:
I dont get it done, but when i do its not done.

Offline Lakelezz

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Re: My Avatar Tradition

Reply #8 on: September 09, 2015, 12:25:34 am
Thanks for all the replies and actually taking your time to help me! I really appreciate this.

The image is very nice. Sweet AA...at simple eyesight. But there have some places to check:



First is the red circle. In the center there's a little bulge. It feels like the jaw is very big on the sides and I'm sure that's not the case. A simple AA can fix it. Also, those red stains I put below the image were before a slight different yellow of the background, very imperceptible on simple eyesight. In this case, is not necessary to have it there, right?

And what @Joe said is right: don't overdue the AA. Often doing it very simple looks better.

Here is my fix. You can compare it. Mine is on the right.



Btw, I like the effect you made on the lips. That one was impressive.
Thanks for pointing out. I tried to fix these problems :)
Also happy to hear you like the lips! However I readjusted their rotation since the head is slightly tilted.

Had a stab at this, may be helpful:


Thanks for your effort, Wolfenoctis. Though your edit is a completly different style :o As a result I could not take much out of your edit :/

A lightbulb moment for me was when I was shown that perfect AA doesn't require a buffer pixel against every single pixel.
Another thing is, the foundation of good AA is a solid contour. You can't buff out a bad line with AA.
AA is really fun to get good at and makes images look immediately better. But try not to overdo it, in particular avoid having the buffer reach up to the next row as much as you can, and cut back in areas it's not needed as much (like the chin).
Perhaps you haven't considered this, but an interesting mental shift for me was: what if I'm not AAing from black to yellow, but yellow to black? What would an ideal yellow look like? This is in the same vein as negative space in drawing.
After you shift your perception to that, you can then switch back and forth regularly, working on that theoretical infinitesimal edge.



Also, great progress.
Thanks a lot for your insight into AA. The more ideas about it I get the better!

edit: oops just realised i was critiquing the wrong version  :-[
Oh, what version did you give critique for then?

I don't know if this is helping but:
Looking at it on smallest size the  top right and top left sides looks a bit weird
Although zooming in it starts looking right so I don't know what exactly is causing it

A bit of topic:
I'm shocked..
I underestimated the power of AA. I never thought the picture from Nov 2014 would only be 64x64
I guess I just learned something :D
Yes, I already tried reworking that! I am also happy to hear this could help to expand your view onto AAing :)!
Additionally thanks for taking your time to participate in this thread, too!

Personally, I think it's done and looks great.  The AA looks fine.  Add any more an it'll start to look blurry. 
Nice palette too.

Hehe, nice to hear that! Though I did not feel like it is done. It specially lacked more control on the AA which I tried to fix with my latest edit.

One thing that i see is that the face looks like it is looking slightly to screen right.  Generally in portraiture the space in front of the face should be slightly larger to enhance the composition.  If the resolution of you pixelling isnt set in stone i would recommend adding a few pixels in width to the right side of the canvas so as to make it not feel cramped.

It looks really good though and its super cool to see the improvement from a couple years ago and now.  :crazy:

The canvas size is set in stone, hehe. It is meant to become an avatar. Thus I need to restrict the size in order to use it on PJ.
Happy to hear your think there is an improvement!

Here is my current version:



- I added highlights on the hair!
- The palette has been readjusted, specially the value of the darkest colour has been lowered.
- Multiple AA changes!
- Small hair alternations has been done!
- Tried rotating mouth and eyepatch according to the small tilted head.

However I am bit unsure if not the tilting on the eyepatch is a bit too strong. Furthermore it's strap seems to be a bit hard to do well for me. First I tried making it all in the grey colour but then it looked uglier instead of more consistent. Any suggestions or do you even think it is good as it is?

« Last Edit: September 09, 2015, 12:30:45 am by Lakelezz »

Offline 32

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Re: My Avatar Tradition

Reply #9 on: September 09, 2015, 02:26:36 am
This is looking really nice, great to see how much progress you've made ;D

I would say your latest edit is nicer in terms of the AA on the hair but I have to say the highlights don't look nearly as good, I feel like you had a very confident style going before. The earlier colours were nicer too, I don't see the point of taking away that intensity. And I think just using the solid yellow the whole way for the strap looks fine, the little bits of the darker colour just look like a dotted line. You tilted the mouth too much (flip the image horizontally to get a fresh view of it, I often draw a bit too tilted if I don't flip regularly), the old mouth kinda looked like she had a little of her teeth showing, it was a nice expression. Pulling the head down a pixel off the top of the frame is a good call, even one more pixel might give it a little more room to breathe.

I think my critique is really just that you're overworking it, it was very nice when you started, just needed some minor clean up work.