1 Bit - don't know which to choose!

[luxrebori]

Hey! So i very recently jumped in the pixel universe creation and I'm loving it. Great to know there's also a supporting community. I'm here to know your experienced opinions!
Yesterday i went with 1 bit, and i have some examples of final renders and i'm troubled choosing...

Outline on the thinking bubble? Or keep it without outline? with or without star bits? I'm afraid i could oversaturate the image with too much information, but also i love those glitterings haha. FYI he's saying like "Heck, the shuffle's good". Thanks so much for your time.

[Chonky Pixel]

This is mainly going to be personal opinion isn't it? Well, it probably will be from me.

OK.

I love the style of this piece overall. But you asked some specific questions so:

The think bubble. Personally I prefer the "no outline". Mainly because you're working in a limited space, so if you need to make more of these and one needs a lot of text, you lose some precious pixels of space from every side of the bubble. You may be making things hard on yourself later.

The stars. I try to eliminate single pixels in my own work these days. As far as information goes, they don't convey much. Are they dust? Eyes? Ripples on water? Hard to say.

The stars also make the smaller think bubbles look a bit like they're part of the background rather than part of the character's thoughts. To me at least. As an aside, I might attempt to replace them with one single cloud-shaped object rather than two circles, to drive the point home. I don't know if you have space though.

I find the stars a bit distracting overall. The lack of any depth cues makes me think that the star over the fist is actually coming out of the fist, like some kind of superpower.

Like I said, opinions. That's all I got. Good work though!

[Mathias]

Sup. Not bad, overall.
It doesn't get any more pixel art-ish than 1-bit.
Found this guy's YT channel yet? - Brandon James Greer
There's a lot to learn from him.

Look like you have some accidental shades of grey in #2 and #3.

I'm with The Chonky One - try to minimize single isolated pixels unless part of a dither pattern or some other repeating texture that the single pixels belong to. Hard to do with 1-bit, though.

Rather then try to perfect your first attempts at pixel, table them away and do as many new images as you can. That's how you'll learn the most and improve the fastest.

[luxrebori]

I find the stars a bit distracting overall. The lack of any depth cues makes me think that the star over the fist is actually coming out of the fist, like some kind of superpower.

Like I said, opinions. That's all I got. Good work though!

Thanks so much for the feedback! It really is helpful. Yeah those glittery things, in my head represent "songs" as he's listening them or something like that. The powerup fist could also be a killer tune! haha but yeah, i understand that those dots could be anything and distract the view.

Just on a last question: if i delete the outline in the bubble (you're rght, it does take a lot of space in the compo), the smaller two thinking bubbles should ot have the outline either, and they would transform into blocks... not like little circles... if you know what i mean... how would you tackle that?

I appreciate the time and opinion!

[luxrebori]

-Sup. Not bad, overall.

-Found this guy's YT channel yet? - Brandon James Greer
There's a lot to learn from him.

-Look like you have some accidental shades of grey in #2 and #3.

thanks man! I totally checked and subscribed to his channel. great stuff, also followed mort mort and slynyrd. Beautiful stuff.
The grey scales are more like "glows" of those glitter/stars/song spirits, but i realize i broke the rule of just two colors! haha.
I'm definitely trying new things every day. sometimes is frustrating because i don't achieve what i want. I'll just keep producing them.
Do you guys have instagrams where you post pixel stuff? would be great to know.
Thanks again
I

[Chonky Pixel]

Quick tip: using the image button (the expanding Mona Lisa) makes it easier for users to handle your images. Just drop in a URL, you can use Imgur to create one. Right click your uploaded image in Imgur and select "copy image address". And you don't need to blow them up first - just click on them to expand when they're in the post.



I made a few edits, I hope you don't mind. They're just ideas, you may or may not like them. You gotta be true to your style.

1: I turned the think bubble dots into mini clouds. I think this is a common way of representing 'thinking' so it could come across as more "readable". And it avoids the issue you had with removing the outline and leaving squares.

(You can probably make a much cleaner/nicer main think bubble. I just removed the internal outline, so it's a bit hard-looking.)

2: I added the glint to his right eye (the eye on the left.) I thought it looked a little odd just on one eye.

3: I tried to clean up that fist. I made a fist myself and saw that my hand only sticks out a lot on one side - the side with the thumb. So I removed most of the excess from the little-finger side, got rid of a few pixels that I thought weren't needed and tried to give the thumb a bit of definition.

4: The shirt sleeves looked like they were really pinching his arms to me. Ouch! I tried to add in a bit of excess cloth on both arms.

Like I say, just ideas. I don't normally work in 1-bit, but I just finished Gato Roboto so the 1-bit style is kinda fresh in my head and your images called to me. Interesting challenge, I may set myself more tasks in 1-bit.

[luxrebori]

Woah that's great, you don't just gave feedback but actually made the feedback.  I agree with your points! Loved the cludy bubble instead of outline dots, so thanks! except the eye thing, it's the character's nose haha, my drawings always have that little nose coming from between the eyes. Anyhow, just want to post last version and a last styling question.

I love the result of taking a picture to the computer and having that LCD screen look, i think it makes it look more videogamistic lol. Maybe it's just awful, and i understant that maybe it doesn't "pop" to a viewers eye as the crisp export... but idk,  i just like it. what do you think?







 

[Chonky Pixel]

It's an interesting effect. It makes me think of a thermal print-out. I suppose it depends where you're going to use this artwork?

The nose is interesting. I can kinda see it now you tell me. Either I'm slow on the uptake or it's not obvious that it's a nose. Maybe get some opinions from a few people about how easy it is to read? (Don't tell them it's a nose first! ) My concern is that it looks like an eye glint, which is such a trope in pixel art that I find it hard to un-see it. But that's just me.