Reference Practice

[SmashAdams]

Hey guys.
I've been trying to draw this palm tree scene from a reference I pulled off google: http://imgur.com/Rso3r70
This is my first attempt at trying to convert a high res photo (ref is pretty shitty quality) to my own pixel version, and I'm having a hard time pixeling out what the palm tree leaves ACTUALLY looks like... given the limitations inherent to pixel art.

the light source is supposed to be in front of the tree and slightly to the left.


any comments or critiques?

[MysteryMeat]

Looks about right to me. It's certainly recognizable as a palm tree!

[SmashAdams]

Looks about right to me. It's certainly recognizable as a palm tree!

I'm worried mostly about noise. are the highlights too sloppy?

[Yokai90]

Okay so, I saw your last comment and I wanted to help a little?
Okay number one, I don't think your highlights are sloppy at all in fact its pretty spot on!

I think the problem may be with how bright your highlights may be-
I suggest toning down the highlights a little?
from my experience with small pixels like that I find that the colors don't have to be so drastically changed as so-
I think if you tone down your highlights a little it'll help give a better more blended sorta look and not look so noisy?


I did a quick edit to show-

I honestly hope my advice will help you uvu;

[SmashAdams]

funny, the very last thing I did was increase the saturation and brightness of the highlights on the tree.
But I agree, I think it looks better with the highlights toned back a bit. hurts the eyes less..
thanks (:
Although, if you look at the reference there are some crazy highlights. your edit makes it look sort of overcast?
This goes back to my issue with drawing not as it is in the ref, but as I think it should look. 

[Yokai90]

I can see what you mean.
 Honestly I can also see the mistake aha thanks for pointing that out. I suppose for your highlights I was trying to match the color palate you used?

So since you said it looked kinda overcast I added a second highlight sorta color a bit brighter and not so dull this time-

I did it by moving the hue to a more yellowish color since a leaves hightlights is a sorta yellowish green highlight?

With small pixel art like this I find it that sometimes its more like you have to find colors to shade with sorta blend in with each other.

By crazy highlights also you mean where the light shines the brightest right?

[washk]

The image lacks a bit of contrast, the colors are a bit bland especially with a subject where you have very saturated and "nice" colors at the beginning in the original picture. Unless you want to represent the same image at dawn.

My edit, which is not very good as I struggle with colors too, show you at least the difference of contrast you can get


I think this tutorial as some good ideas to keep in mind :
http://opengameart.org/content/chapter-5-color-palettes

[SmashAdams]

@Yokai90, I think it looks a LOT better with that second highlight, despite learning that less colours is more when it comes to pixel art..it looks less flat in your edit, I think. 

@Washk, Yeah, I guess I've always avoided eye burning saturation even when a little saturation is necessary. But I see now that my original scene definitely lacked some good contrast. Thanks I'll also check out that link.