Darth Vader Fan Art

[al19890604]

Hi everyone! I am a beginner of pixel art(several months experience only, I think I'm still a beginner, right?)
I try to create something everyday to improve my skills so I just post my creation here for any opinion.
I don't exactly know what I am currently lack of so I try to ask some common or stupid question.

Are the colours and shade good enough for my creation?
Thank you!!



PS. I am a bit of colourblind but not totally.

[Hunited]

I can´t really give an in-depth critique as I'm not that experienced myself, but you might want to shift your hues towards blue for darker shades and towards yellow for lighter ones, for a start. Also, try uploading your images at 100% zoom, as the forums have a zoom functions built in. Also, I can't really see if the shading works or anything if it's this big.

[al19890604]

I can´t really give an in-depth critique as I'm not that experienced myself, but you might want to shift your hues towards blue for darker shades and towards yellow for lighter ones, for a start. Also, try uploading your images at 100% zoom, as the forums have a zoom functions built in. Also, I can't really see if the shading works or anything if it's this big.

Thank you!! I'll re upload it again after recolouring it.

[al19890604]

Here it is, the refined version.

[astraldata]

The new version looks like Darth Vader might if he were standing in full sun on Tatooine at sunset.

Also, I'm a bit colorblind myself -- so I understand your pain.

You might want to keep ALL your hues closer to blue. Your original image wasn't horrible, but your whites were too hot/intense for your blacks and grays.

The thing about Vader is he's supposed to appear cold and brooding / robotic and distant. With the new colors, he looks like he should have little hearts floating above his head while offering you a flower. Look at the new image. Can you see that? Almost as if he's smiling at you under that robot mask -- all because of the warm colors!!

So yeah -- try some blues and blue-purples for your shades -- stay far away from red and yellow hues.

In general, Hunited is correct about the blues and yellows -- but Vader has a very specific mood/feel he is intended to convey, and it's not a generic outdoorsy or cartoony one -- it's cold robotic absence that you should feel when looking at Vader.

You don't have to wash the guy out with grays though -- Like I said bluer-purples (indigo? -- I'm a Crayola 8 person myself) would do just fine for this dude. The white highlight could be tinted with a blue-green or a solid blue, depending on which you like better.

Outside of the colors, work on the jaggy helmet outlines on the silhouette. The image details look great construction-wise, but these jaggies are killing it when you look at it at a single glance.

Also, consider placing some speculars on other areas. Right now they really don't seem like they make any sense. Specularity depends on camera angle and the source of light from where the viewer is looking. That means if the light is behind the viewer, you'd have reflections all over the left side of the head and rim of the bottom of the helmet or something, especially if it's slightly biased to pointing to the right side of Vader's head over the left of the shoulder of the cameraman.

Hope that helps a little more!

[Joe]

Hi, welcome to Pixelation.

Are the colours and shade good enough for my creation?

That will always be up to you. I like to ask myself if the lighting makes sense. And when considering a particular area, a good question is: what is this trying to portray?

So for example, those highlights on the bottom edge. That lip is on the underside of the helmet, in the back, and Vader wears a black suit which doesn't reflect much light—in other words, it's physically impossible for light to be present there, in that manner.



What a tricky subject... there are so many ways this helmet can be lit. Here is my advice, which can generalize to all pixel-specific problems. You have a limited number of elements with which to represent something; this demands sacrifices. The best solution in most cases is to simplify as much as possible, allowing for clarity, and only then add a level of detail which does not compete with the subject as a whole.

A related idea is the tradeoff between detail and noise, for example, highlights. If you have high contrast bits peppered across lower contrast areas, it confuses any visual priority. When creating a highlight or any single-pixel texture, you should consider if its benefits outweighs any noise it creates.

My first thought was that you make good clusters for being so new to this, most people are quite timid about that for a few years. Keep it up. Also, value is what really matters in correctly rendering subjects; so colorblindness can potentially be used to your advantage.

[al19890604]

The new version looks like Darth Vader might if he were standing in full sun on Tatooine at sunset.

Also, I'm a bit colorblind myself -- so I understand your pain.

You might want to keep ALL your hues closer to blue. Your original image wasn't horrible, but your whites were too hot/intense for your blacks and grays.

The thing about Vader is he's supposed to appear cold and brooding / robotic and distant. With the new colors, he looks like he should have little hearts floating above his head while offering you a flower. Look at the new image. Can you see that? Almost as if he's smiling at you under that robot mask -- all because of the warm colors!!

So yeah -- try some blues and blue-purples for your shades -- stay far away from red and yellow hues.

In general, Hunited is correct about the blues and yellows -- but Vader has a very specific mood/feel he is intended to convey, and it's not a generic outdoorsy or cartoony one -- it's cold robotic absence that you should feel when looking at Vader.

You don't have to wash the guy out with grays though -- Like I said bluer-purples (indigo? -- I'm a Crayola 8 person myself) would do just fine for this dude. The white highlight could be tinted with a blue-green or a solid blue, depending on which you like better.

Outside of the colors, work on the jaggy helmet outlines on the silhouette. The image details look great construction-wise, but these jaggies are killing it when you look at it at a single glance.

Also, consider placing some speculars on other areas. Right now they really don't seem like they make any sense. Specularity depends on camera angle and the source of light from where the viewer is looking. That means if the light is behind the viewer, you'd have reflections all over the left side of the head and rim of the bottom of the helmet or something, especially if it's slightly biased to pointing to the right side of Vader's head over the left of the shoulder of the cameraman.

Hope that helps a little more!

Thank you so much for your detailed critique!! It is very useful for me, especially the part about the supposed image and feeling of Vader!

[al19890604]

Hi, welcome to Pixelation.

Are the colours and shade good enough for my creation?

That will always be up to you. I like to ask myself if the lighting makes sense. And when considering a particular area, a good question is: what is this trying to portray?

So for example, those highlights on the bottom edge. That lip is on the underside of the helmet, in the back, and Vader wears a black suit which doesn't reflect much light—in other words, it's physically impossible for light to be present there, in that manner.



What a tricky subject... there are so many ways this helmet can be lit. Here is my advice, which can generalize to all pixel-specific problems. You have a limited number of elements with which to represent something; this demands sacrifices. The best solution in most cases is to simplify as much as possible, allowing for clarity, and only then add a level of detail which does not compete with the subject as a whole.

A related idea is the tradeoff between detail and noise, for example, highlights. If you have high contrast bits peppered across lower contrast areas, it confuses any visual priority. When creating a highlight or any single-pixel texture, you should consider if its benefits outweighs any noise it creates.

My first thought was that you make good clusters for being so new to this, most people are quite timid about that for a few years. Keep it up. Also, value is what really matters in correctly rendering subjects; so colorblindness can potentially be used to your advantage.

Thank you so much for your demonstration!! It looks great!! I will consider more on lighting of the object.
For the suggestion about value, do you mean I should focus more on the value of colours but not the hue and saturation when creating the palette and try to use less hue-shift?

[astraldata]

Value is the most important aspect of form -- hueshift, color, etc. are simply there to convey mood or tone in most cases, and so the hues you pick should reflect that, above all, while still keeping in consideration the legitimate material properties of the subject/surface you're trying to light.

Joe's edit simply showed what could have been done to help clarify your forms by eliminating noise and focusing on using value to define form in an artistic, but logical, way (i.e. in a way that makes sense and is easy to digest for the viewer -- which is your job as an artist!)

[Hunited]

Woah, this went somewhere really fast!
I wanted to point out that when hue-shifting you should keep your values intact, but it seems that almost all that can be said has been said here
It might be worth pointing out that Joe's edit uses blue tones, so that's a great example of what hues can do for you, like astral said.
Anyway, keep at it!