AuthorTopic: [WIP] help with colors and shading  (Read 2447 times)

Offline teodororaul

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[WIP] help with colors and shading

on: September 26, 2017, 10:12:42 pm
hello everyone, this is my very first post  :)

So, i'm making this gif for a friend and so far i'm happy with the design but i'm not really sure about the colors and, above all, the shading. Looks kinda good to me but i'm not sure if things are right. I'll animate a walk cycle and punches and kicks but i want to focus on colors and shading, are they good and right?



thanks!



UPDATE: i tweaked the hair and goggles color and it looks way better now!  :y:

« Last Edit: October 03, 2017, 02:39:28 am by teodororaul »

Offline Curly

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Re: [WIP] help with colors and shading

Reply #1 on: September 26, 2017, 10:48:39 pm
It needs some contrast between the glasses and the hair.

Offline astraldata

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Re: [WIP] help with colors and shading

Reply #2 on: September 27, 2017, 04:30:40 am
I second that.

A few more things -- the hair/beard has a highlight shade that is near-impossible to see unless you zoom waaay in on my machine. You definitely need more contrast there as well. Same with the goggles' shiny parts on the lenses too.

You probably want to also keep the shading consistent across the form, depending on the material. For example, are those blue-jeans or are they supposed to be silky/shiny/plastic pants? -- if they're blue-jeans, they probably shouldn't be as shiny as plastic.

I may be wrong, but it seems like you may confused as to how many shades to use in what areas. This is a common problem to people new to pixel art. The confusion about the number of shades to use seems to spark from terminology like "16 bit" and "8 bit" -- these terms really have no bearing on pixel art or the number of values in your shading. Yeah, you can mimic these hardware limitations, and in some cases (upon color reduction usually) this can indeed affect the number of the shades available to you, but pixel art in and of itself is completely independent of these self-imposed limitations. Even back in the NES days (true "8-bit" btw) attempted to break these shading boundaries whenever it was possible (or necessary) to do so, and they did it in clever ways -- but the difference between them and modern pixel artists is that they never did it to adhere to any sort of "style" -- instead, they did it to keep to giving the viewer a "sense" of whatever material it was they were trying to convey -- and this, I feel, is where you're stumbling a bit. You have no sense of "material" on this character. That is to say, the blue-jeans (assuming they're blue-jeans of course), don't give the sense of a diffuse/rough material with the roughness you'd expect -- instead, they're super-shiny (and, if you've ever studied lighting, that means they're super smooth), and despite them having ridges in them, that *alone* doesn't give any hint of whether they're rough or smooth or metallic or furry or whatever. You need to shade them as the type of material they're made of -- THAT is what determines the number of colors/shades/values you use -- nothing else, aside from intentionally breaking this rule for reasons of either hardware limitations or (*clear*) stylistic choice, should determine that.

I hope that helps "shed some light" on this topic, for you, or anyone else, reading. (sorry, couldn't resist the pun... ^__^ )

This design/pixelwork looks great otherwise. Kind of reminds me of the "Black Dynamite" character a bit lol. :D
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Offline Sersch

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Re: [WIP] help with colors and shading

Reply #3 on: September 27, 2017, 06:58:39 am
It needs some contrast between the glasses and the hair.
Didn't realize those were glasses, looked like curls to me on the first sight :D

Offline teodororaul

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Re: [WIP] help with colors and shading

Reply #4 on: September 28, 2017, 11:37:12 pm
It needs some contrast between the glasses and the hair.

uhm, you're right. i'll try to improve the colors, the goggles and hair are really blending in.
oh and thanks for your feedback!  :)

Offline teodororaul

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Re: [WIP] help with colors and shading

Reply #5 on: September 28, 2017, 11:51:27 pm
I second that.

A few more things -- the hair/beard has a highlight shade that is near-impossible to see unless you zoom waaay in on my machine. You definitely need more contrast there as well. Same with the goggles' shiny parts on the lenses too.

You probably want to also keep the shading consistent across the form, depending on the material. For example, are those blue-jeans or are they supposed to be silky/shiny/plastic pants? -- if they're blue-jeans, they probably shouldn't be as shiny as plastic.

I may be wrong, but it seems like you may confused as to how many shades to use in what areas. This is a common problem to people new to pixel art. The confusion about the number of shades to use seems to spark from terminology like "16 bit" and "8 bit" -- these terms really have no bearing on pixel art or the number of values in your shading. Yeah, you can mimic these hardware limitations, and in some cases (upon color reduction usually) this can indeed affect the number of the shades available to you, but pixel art in and of itself is completely independent of these self-imposed limitations. Even back in the NES days (true "8-bit" btw) attempted to break these shading boundaries whenever it was possible (or necessary) to do so, and they did it in clever ways -- but the difference between them and modern pixel artists is that they never did it to adhere to any sort of "style" -- instead, they did it to keep to giving the viewer a "sense" of whatever material it was they were trying to convey -- and this, I feel, is where you're stumbling a bit. You have no sense of "material" on this character. That is to say, the blue-jeans (assuming they're blue-jeans of course), don't give the sense of a diffuse/rough material with the roughness you'd expect -- instead, they're super-shiny (and, if you've ever studied lighting, that means they're super smooth), and despite them having ridges in them, that *alone* doesn't give any hint of whether they're rough or smooth or metallic or furry or whatever. You need to shade them as the type of material they're made of -- THAT is what determines the number of colors/shades/values you use -- nothing else, aside from intentionally breaking this rule for reasons of either hardware limitations or (*clear*) stylistic choice, should determine that.

I hope that helps "shed some light" on this topic, for you, or anyone else, reading. (sorry, couldn't resist the pun... ^__^ )

This design/pixelwork looks great otherwise. Kind of reminds me of the "Black Dynamite" character a bit lol. :D


wow thanks a lot for your feedback
I don't really know much about shading (or art theory at all hahaha), will definitely look up on this

i really am a bit confused about the style i want to do, i just see a lot of great pixel artists with different styles and sort of want to do everything hahahaha will try to stick with one style per piece (or at least until i get my solid style i guess  ::) ) and will work hard to improve my shading/coloring skills. thanks a lot for your tips!