AuthorTopic: [FEEDBACK] Simple Cat Avatar  (Read 3003 times)

Offline Flem1000

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[FEEDBACK] Simple Cat Avatar

on: January 29, 2018, 05:21:01 pm
Hi! I started on doing Pixel-Art a few months ago, but it didn't really look like i was improving. So i came to this site which looks like an awesome community to ask for help.
So that is a cat avatar for a game im making. It is meant to be a simple avatar thing but i still think it lacks something. And the arms doesn't like clear at all. Can anyone help me? Thx!  ;D
« Last Edit: January 29, 2018, 05:32:45 pm by Flem1000 »

Offline eishiya

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Re: [FEEDBACK] Simple Cat Avatar

Reply #1 on: January 29, 2018, 05:55:27 pm
I didn't even see it at first. You should post images on their own lines so that they're not lost in the text.

It needs way more contrast, your darker orange (oranges? I can't even tell how many colours you're using) is barely visible. The neon green eyes are almost the same value (darkness/lightness) as the orange but a high saturation and very different hue, which causes them to "vibrate". You may want to use a darker/lighter green, and perhaps a lower saturation, as well.

Try to make your shadows larger than 1px thick. Such small areas tend to get lost and not read well. Don't be afraid to have more significant parts of the character in shadow. Remember: the object you're drawing is three-dimensional, and shadows are just parts of the object where light doesn't reach because those parts are facing away from the light (or because something is blocking the light). Don't limit yourself to thinking in 2D, as that just means you'll be guessing where the shadows go instead of knowing.

Is this a front view and we're just not seeing the back paws, or is this cat walking on two legs? I can't tell whether the two vertical dark orange bits on the chest are meant to be arms/legs or not.
« Last Edit: January 29, 2018, 05:58:43 pm by eishiya »

Offline Flem1000

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Re: [FEEDBACK] Simple Cat Avatar

Reply #2 on: January 29, 2018, 06:02:34 pm
It is indeed standing on two legs. The darker things on the chest is supposed to be arms, but it's not that clear :/
Thx for the feedback btw! Will definitely do something about the shadows!
And yes, it is the front view.

Offline Flem1000

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Re: [FEEDBACK] Simple Cat Avatar

Reply #3 on: January 29, 2018, 06:23:54 pm
So i made an edit

Is this better? I made the orange less saturated and the shadow bigger.
Does this look better?

Offline eishiya

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Re: [FEEDBACK] Simple Cat Avatar

Reply #4 on: January 29, 2018, 07:13:05 pm
The less saturated orange is better, but the neon green still vibrates because it's so saturated.

You don't seem to have improved the contrast in the shadows at all. The arms are practically invisible. Use some darker colours, especially for your darkest shadows! When picking colours, make sure that they're distinct even when you're zoomed all the way out. Have a 100% zoom preview of your work visible at all times (or zoom out regularly if your program doesn't have a way to do such a preview), it's easy to overestimate the effectiveness of your colours if you're always seeing them zoomed in.

I think once you fix the contrast issue, the arms should be much easier to see. If they still don't read well, consider outlining them instead of making them 1px thick, or placing them at the cat's sides so that they affect its silhouette.
« Last Edit: January 29, 2018, 07:15:37 pm by eishiya »

Offline MysteryMeat

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Re: [FEEDBACK] Simple Cat Avatar

Reply #5 on: January 29, 2018, 10:35:02 pm
As a colorblind bloke I've actually set some soft math-based goals for me to help with this kinda thing.

When you're picking your colors, to make sure they properly contrast try to shoot for having them at least 10 values away on the hue, saturation, or value slider so it's not too subtle a change. It's not FOOLPROOF but it's helped me a lot with roughing out color palettes.
PSA: use imgur
http://pixelation.org/index.php?topic=19838.0 also go suggest on my quest, cmon
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Offline Flem1000

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Re: [FEEDBACK] Simple Cat Avatar

Reply #6 on: January 31, 2018, 05:14:19 pm
Thanks for the tips!

I used hue shifting for the colors now, and i desaturated the eyes.

Offline eishiya

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Re: [FEEDBACK] Simple Cat Avatar

Reply #7 on: January 31, 2018, 06:36:21 pm
Much better! Although at 1x it's still not very clear (partly because the light orange blends in with the forum background a bit), but once zoomed in to 2x or more, the head shape and arms read pretty well!

Here are some minor tweaks that I think would help the head look more cat-like, and make the head and legs read a little better:

Offline Flem1000

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Re: [FEEDBACK] Simple Cat Avatar

Reply #8 on: January 31, 2018, 07:01:38 pm
Wow! That's so cool!
Thanks for the edit and all the feedback!  ;D