Shh... pretend I'm not here.

[PoV (aka DrgnMaX)]

'cause I'm an attention whore that hasn't been around or pixeled in forver, I'm giving this oddity of nature it's own thread.



Greetings!

[Blick]

DrgnMaX!

Holy crap, I haven't seen you around in... year? I haven't got much crits for this. Basically up the contrast on the shadows, they're hard to see as of now. Especially on the shadow on the belly and under the eye. Highlights or some texture might bring more interest to this too. Why no selout or aa on the front edge of the back leg?

[PoV (aka DrgnMaX)]

Cool.  Yeah, it seems I missed a spot with the AA/Selout/whatever the heck I was doin'.  Upped the contrast between shadow too.

[Helm]

Selout died a bitter death a few years ago and we're still whiping off the stangnat remaining specks of foam here and there. I think you should lose it in this piece. Rely on lightsource-dependant coloured outlines and just bodies of color signifying contours instead. I implore you.

EDIT:



If you're using photoshop to pixel and layer tricks etc, it's creating redundant shades for you. Good for fast production, not good for your pixel art. I took out mainly redundants to get the palette down to 32 colors. I wouldn't be surprized if someone can do a 24 color version of this without major loss of information. Lots of aa and removal of selout, so on. There's small edits everywhere. I'm not extremely fond of the design, but I don't have to be. Glad to have you back, DragonMax, hope you stick around.

[PoV (aka DrgnMaX)]

Nice shines.  .  Whilst you were hacking away on that, I was hacking away on this.



Sure the design aint nothing special, and color limitations were the last thing on my mind.  And yeah, the pseudo outline is just a cheesy layer effect.  There was mug involved at one point, which explains the hand.  Made near the beak more patchy, as if it was subtly sewn on, and adjusted the edge contours more shadowy where there'd be shadow... not that I ever really understood Selout anways.

[pkmays]

I like how your old handle is in your new handle, and in parentheses. Heh.

But it should read

PoV (aka DrgnMaX (aka Dragon MAX))

Helm, despite your insistence on selout being dead, you seem to have employed some sort of bastard child almagation of selout, colored outlines, and anti-aliasing. It's blowing my mind.

[baccaman21]

... not that I ever really understood Selout anways.

DITTO!!!

[Indigo]

selout, simply put, is just AA to a darker background that is often times non-existant.  This piece is an excellent example...


look here, on the left we see his original piece, and on the right is the same exact piece except for the background has been blackened.  On the left, we call it "Sel-Out".  On the right we call it "AA".  Why?  I have no fetching idea!  They are both the exact same thing to me.  I dont think sel-out deserves its own term really (as we know it on the left). If a 'sel-out' piece is placed over a darker background, then it's immediately acceptable.  one thing I dont really understand is why somebody would want to AA to a non-existant background in the first place.  it beats me.

However, if i had *my* way, i truly think that the "lightsource-dependant coloured outlines and just bodies of color signifying contours" title is more deserving of the "selout" label.... especially because "lightsource-dependant coloured outlines and just bodies of color signifying contours" takes way too long to say for how often we use it.  In fact, for the longest time I thought they were both the same.  oh well.  be enlightened.  Definition: Sel-out:  AA used retardedly

[.TakaM]

mmmmm Ive noticed a bit of confusion, here at least on what selout is. I'm myself am not entirely sure but I have some kind of an idea
selout as we all know is selective outlining, and as an outline it should be constant, or at least more constant than aaing, because the simple math behind aaing doesn't really allow for a constant outline, selout is (at least to me) giving the impression of a soft outline (in most cases) so if the sprite is up against a range of different backgrounds it doesn't suffer from as much jaggedness as a sprite with a pure black outline, or no outline at all.

I still don't feel I know how to selout successfully- so I'd love to see some more light shed on the topic.


back to the.. chimera; a decent piece, I have to say I prefer the example indigo posted with the black BG to the original, just makes more sense, and I'm not really feeling the lack of a neck, although its a stylistic decision, I never really liked it in Rayman's design (especially when they admitted it was out of laziness) and here it just kinda breaks it up for me, hes got all his other limbs and then his heads just floating there.
still, even though I never knew you its good to see a vet come back, I look forward to seeing more

[Blick]

Selout is just aaing to a fairly neutral background so it'll look as good as it can on any given background. The rest is guessing when I do it.