Critique > Pixel Art

ninjavivi's corner

(1/4) > >>

NinjaVivi:
Hello, I'm new to pixel art and creating this thread as tracking log. This is not an art dump, I simply don't want to spam the forums with every little piece I do on a daily basis, because my pieces will be smaller in size.
All C&C's are welcome, but please take me easy as I'm (soon to be very obvious) just beginning with PA :) , I will take any help I can get, and be extremely grateful for it, hopefully you'll welcome me without any kicks or punches :) .

Currently I'm going through a number of tutorials, hoping to improve.

Here are my experiments for today :

I started with something very simple, black & white, just to get the correct setup in Photoshop and begin to dabble.

NinjaVivi:
Today I tried to do a character's face, and it came out terrible :

which is a bit strange, because I've been drawing faces since I was a young girl. I feel very lost. I'm thinking it's probably the fact that I looked at pixel art as an entirely different art than classical art.

NinjaVivi:
Day 3, I went into reading a number of tutorials, about Anti-Aliasing, about palette and shading, so I've tried each. I've tried to do anti-aliasing on a few simple lines, then created my own palette from monochromatic colors, then tried to do shading on three different shapes, and then tried to place a straight light on a cube.
I also used the palette from the old GameBoy.


I'm pretty sure most of this isn't that good. I think I could really use some guidance in improving.

NinjaVivi:
For Day 4, I tried a side-view character, using the clusters approach :

I didn't respect the action line in the start, so it came out all wrong. I'll keep on practicing.

Zanorin:
First of all welcome to Pixelation :) now sit back and relax, it's going to take a little time.
First I see you've already got some important things nailed: working with a low color count to avoid ugly blurry gradient effects, the lineart approach and the cluster approach, shading relatively to an imaginary lightsource...


--- Quote ---which is a bit strange, because I've been drawing faces since I was a young girl. I feel very lost. I'm thinking it's probably the fact that I looked at pixel art as an entirely different art than classical art.
--- End quote ---
Let's take a look at your portrait for a second. The proportions are alright, the shading follows a up-right corner lightsource, there are few colors with good contrast, so why is it "terrible" (it's not so terrible though, it's got potential)?
Here's an edit i made (it's not perfect but I'm no pro, it'll work  :lol: ):



As you see, I didn't change an enormous amount of stuff, yet it feels "more right".
I'll try explaining each change I made and why I did so:


* Your color palette was very linear: light orange, getting progressively darker into brown. To make your colors more appealing, try using hue-shifting: say your middle-color here is brown. Try progressing towards another color value as you go darker and as you go lighter (ex.: ). Here the darker shades go toward purple, whereas the lighter ones go toward a yellowish pink (and I lightened the skin tones bc she looked a bit Donald Trump-ish with all that bright orange :D). It's not simple in the beginning (took me a year to kind of understand that :') ), but experiment until you're comfortable with hue-shifting, it's well worth it. Also, keep this in mind for now: desaturate as you go lighter and saturate as you go darker.
* You're very dependent on lines: coming from traditional media, you think "Oh, I have to represent her nose/collar bone/eye/eyebrow/[thing]! Easy, I'll just draw it". While when drawing with a pen on paper it works wonderfully, in pixel art, not so much. Most of the time, in pixel art, don't represent a volume with lines, but instead by using light. A nose isn't a line, it's just more of a face; it stands out because it's in 3D, and light hits it differently from the rest of the face. so it's got a highlight, it casts a shadow. Lines don't make volume, light does. You have to learn to "think in 3D", thinking "how does my lightsource affect this element I'm trying to depict?". I don't know if it's clear enough, don't hesitate to tell me if it isn't.
* Some of your outlines are "jagged", they don't form a harmonious curve and the result is unappealing: See this video for a more in depth explanation!
* I added some AA (anti-aliasing) in various spots to soften the image. You did a good job with the AA tutorial, so you should be able to adapt the theory to a practical case pretty easily :)
About your last trial with the cluster approach, I'm really not an expert of the cluster thing so I'm not going to comment on that; I just want to say something about the palette you put on the left of your image. You put four linear ramps w/ 6 shades each, but only used few of those colors. My suggestion (I could be wrong tho) would be not to "build" your palette beforehand, but to build it "organically", adding a color when you need it. That way, you'll avoid unnecessary colors (by asking yourself "do I really need to add this color or could I use a very similar one that's already there?"), and you can make multiple "links" between the ramps. It's difficult to explain, but your palette shouldn't look like several disconnected independent ramps, it should look like interconnected and interdependent ramps: it will add visual coherence and appeal to your image, tying it together. For more information on this very important point (I insist, it's fundamental in understanding color, it took me way too long to get better because I was reluctant to learning this), go and read this whole PixelJoint topic, which helped me immensely. It's a lot to take in at once, but I promise it'll get easier as you progress!

That's about it, I hope I was of some help!

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page