I understand you plan to use those in a webcomic? I can see the point of simple clean design for such an endeavour if you're going to be cranking out new pages rapidly, although I'm still watining for someone that will do his sprite comic with degree of technical sophistication that Moebius or Pazienza do their real-life comics. Lots of shading, all the pixel-art tricks. If it's going to be a pixel comic, might as well, no? The closest we got to that was a comic Scuba Steve was making if I remember correctly.
Well, I'll just chalk this up to another person not liking my comic. Don't worry. You are by no means alone. I don't think technical adeptness is everything though. That's the problem with artists. They only want to see better art...
And no, my plans are not to use these in a webcomic. That has considerably different requirements. For one, all the backgrounds, as someone pointed out earlier, would all be floors.
You are making a mistake in thinking the public record is anything on you here, as only few of the older users remember you, a Modest Destiny or the sprite art/pixel art controversy that occured around you. For most people here you're a new user, so it might be prudent to not call on the past 'record'.
Several people in this thread have recognized me (even though I made no distinct mention of who I was initially), so I don't think I was crossing any lines by assuming that it is common knowledge to at least some of the population of this board.
Also, if you say you care about your pixel art so much, it really keeps bad company. You place sprites next to blur effects, lens flares, gradients and filters.
Well, I've never used a lens flare in my life, so I'm not sure where you are getting that from, but yes I do. I'm more than a little curious what your point is here. Are you attacking my claim as a pixel artist, or perhaps calling my talent out for a duel or something?
What does it tell about your belief in pixel art if you don't try to do your effects and lighting with pixels?
That it... differs from yours? To me, putting sprites against a 3D background, like in Final Fantasy Tactics, and lighting them with vertex lighting doesn't change their status from pixel art to something else. I will be the first to admit that my comic is not completely pixel art, but pixel art is a really damn large part of what I do. And I am passionate about it, regardless of whether you think I've earned the right to be.
As I remember, there was the huge thing about this being a pixel art comic and not just a sprite comic, but for such a hard stance that created so much trouble (and I was, and still am with you on that one, if you remember I went to that comic board and posted in your - and the facts' - defense) your old comic had a startingly odd ratio of pixel art to photoshop filter.
Your problem is that you separate the two. It's all just a tool for expression, and if some tools work better than others, I'd be a fool to ignore that over some warped elitist ideal. 98% of my time spent making the comic is in perfecting the pixel art, of which there is a
significant amount. I'm talking literally thousands of different characters and poses, and dozens, if not hundreds, of pixel art backgrounds. If I use a few gradiants and filters, believe me, the ratio of pixel art to filter is still overwhelmingly imbalanced in favor of pixel art. I can sleep at night, not because I have peace of mind, but because it took two hours to make a comic instead of four.
All this leads to: less talking, more doing. If you really love and care for your pixel art, let it flourish under daring and risky attention I am sure you can provide for it.
I take plenty of risks. You just don't agree with any of them.
But then again, non-artists liked bob and george, and what would we say to the creator of bob and george if he posted his edited art here for critique? There'll always be people to like what you do, no matter its' faults, just as long as you do it long enough, and consistently enough, like you have. This doesn't mean you should be content with it, in my opinion. It's such a sheltered point of view for someone to go 'if it works, don't push it'. Of course, you're free to have that opinion, but I had to say there's an opposite way just for uh... the public record?
Okay, first, you know why people like Bob and George? Because the Mega Man sprites have a sense of life and charm to them. The fact that they are edits doesn't diminish that original quality. If the Bob and George guy posted his comics here, you'd rip him a new one - but only because it's not his art to take credit for, not because the art is terrible. It's that life and charm that people react to, and you don't have to be an artist to find something to emote to. In fact, it usually helps not to be an artist, since artists get so bent out of shape staring at brush strokes, they miss the humanity innate in the image... or worse, think it's there because of the quality of brush stroke. Arists miss the Art for the art.
Second, I'm by no means content with my artwork. I posted here because I couldn't get a damn shoe to look right. What followed was an almost surreal experience of me having to defend my stylistic preferences. Just because I'm not content doesn't mean there aren't things I know I wouldn't like. I've done high contrast shading in the past. I don't need to go down that road a second time to learn it's not what I want. I have priorities of which areas I want to improve in the most, and color choice isn't one of them. One of them, actually, is getting a half way decent isometric base after years of trying - and despite repeated hints dropped about my dissatisfaction with the shoes, the only thing I hear is about shading - which I didn't ask for help on. I half wish I had just posted the line art without any coloring at all, since that's what I wanted opinions on. Hell, I'm now starting to wish I only posted the shoes.
