Practising selectives outlines

[Art-berto]

Hello! I'm beeing practising a little of selectives outlines, and I would like your opinions. Shlould I stake out muy palette colors?

[PixelFred5000]

Looks great! Maybe add a bit more contrast to the skin tones? From a distance it melts together a bit and it is hard to make out the elements you drew

[MysteryMeat]

Where's his ear

[Art-berto]

Where's his ear

It's supose near to the glasses, in the right side of the head, I used some shadows to create the form of the ear. It's hard to reconize it?

[eishiya]

Because it's all shadows, it reads more like a hole into his head than an ear. At this size, you don't have the luxury of detailing the interior of the ear. Keep it simple.

Also, seconding increasing the contrast of the colours. The clothing could use some too, not just the skin.

You have outlines on the clothing, but not the head. Is there a reason for this? The outlines are also so faint that I think you might as well not have them anywhere.

[Art-berto]

Because it's all shadows, it reads more like a hole into his head than an ear. At this size, you don't have the luxury of detailing the interior of the ear. Keep it simple.

Also, seconding increasing the contrast of the colours. The clothing could use some too, not just the skin.

You have outlines on the clothing, but not the head. Is there a reason for this? The outlines are also so faint that I think you might as well not have them anywhere.

So, in your opinion, this kind of outlines, should I use it better in biggers images?

[eishiya]

No, you could have outlines in small images too. The problem I pointed out is that your outlines are so faint (low-contrast) that they're pretty much invisible.

[Art-berto]

No, you could have outlines in small images too. The problem I pointed out is that your outlines are so faint (low-contrast) that they're pretty much invisible.

I see. So, I can make more contrast, or erase the outline.
Thanks for the advice!

[unklmnky69]

Those are not selective outlines. Here is how it should look:

[Art-berto]

Those are not selective outlines. Here is how it should look:

I tried a sel-out acording the light source, but I like too how look my character with this kind of sel-out.

[pistachio]

(Very) minor edit, demonstrating a way to show more the ear/nose. That's basically it, but HTH...



You still need to up the contrast too. I'll implement some of that stuff here, when I'm by a desktop pixel editor.

[eishiya]

Those are not selective outlines. Here is how it should look:

I tried a sel-out acording the light source, but I like too how look my character with this kind of sel-out.

Coloured outlines are not the same thing as selective outlines. Selective outline is more like external AA, it works when you know that the background colour will always be darker than the character, and looks like noise against lighter backgrounds.

[ptoing]

I just want to point out that that pixel of AA on the top left of the head (the curve) makes the head look pointy and changes the shape of what was originally intended. AA should never change the intended underlying shape (think of it as a theoretical shape that exists at a higher resolution), but only make the appearance smoother.

[yrizoud]

This is a very important remark. A similar effect can happen when you systematically AAing "into" a shape, you favor the outside, it digs into the shape and reduce its apparent surface by a fraction of pixel. The opposite effect happens when antialias outside of the shape.
This looks like a lot of things to take into account at the same time, but on the upside, it means the AA step is an opportunity to fix some defects of disgracious lines (or borders beween two colored shapes), and volumes which are slightly too thick or too thin.