Night sky

[Dragen]

Well, I've decide to become more active here, and hone my spriting skills as I now have more time because I left a different forum I was on.  I will just post a sprite art picture I did for an art class last year, it's the biggest thing I've done so far.  Not changing it, but I would like to know what you think is bad about it.  I don't like what I did to the moon.

[MrMister]

Well, it looks like you used the spray can tool.
A lot.

[Dragen]

Yeah, for the gradient in the sky I am fine with it, but the moon it really butchered it.

[miscdude]

things that use more than the pencil tool are not true pixel art. id say start over smaller and use just the pencil.

[sharprm]

I guess your not changing it but id say that i think the tree is really cartoony looking. If thats what you wanted fine, but if the siloutes are supposed to be realistic, the tree could've been done better.

[Helm]

Stars are in constellations, not uniform patterened grids. Check a single reference photo of the night sky for more on this. Don't draw without referencing life. Don't copy life, but have an idea of life in mind before you start something.

edit: oh wow, just noticed. Also, tree. Photo reference of tree branches in order.

[Faktablad]

On your tree, none of the branches overlap at all!  It's as if it's completely 2-dimensional.  You should definitely study how real trees work: how branches go out in all three dimensions, how long it takes for a large trunk to branch out into small twigs, and in what way boughs branch off of each other.

Here's a reference photo of your average tree

A lot of tree physiology depends on the species of tree, of course, but in general, the height of the trunk is less than half of the tree's total height.  Also a lot of people don't realize how small tree trunks usually are compared with the overall spread of the leaves and branches, such as in this photo.

[Helm]

Also, lose that huge sig please.

[Anything!]

Dithering

Onoez, you used the spray can! That's alright, some of us make that mistake at least once in our lives. Now, I picked a section of your work and dithered [semi]correctly, as you can see from here. Sure, it seems difficult, but it isn't really, after you get the hang of it.

Here's an example of dithering between two colours- in which I cheated and used a monochrome bitmap, but hey, this is just for example.



There's just so much you can do with only two colours, huh? ;3

I'll be honest, it'll seem mundane. You will want to take frequent breaks. But it does make the piece look more uniform; The spraycan does dither, but it's like... speckle dither. You don't have complete control of each pixel, and that's what pixel art is all about.

Here, I removed the section I dithered [semi]correctly for visual sake. o:



Looks a bit better, doesn't it?

Colours

I can't really see the two top colours separately, from first glance. That's not what you want, ever. >D You want to use as few colours as possible, and because of that, each colour should at least seem like different colours right from first glance. Since I did this quickly, I'm afraid I still didn't do the job correctly, but the colours do look a bit better.



Stars

As Helm mentioned, 'stars are in constallations, not uniform patterened grids'. That doesn't mean that where you placed the stars are wrong, exactly, but the way they're placed does make it look like a grid. To mask that, you draw smaller, bigger stars around it. Again, quick job, but does make it look better.



Remember, stars have different sizes and intensities.

To get this done, I had perhaps... one colour more than you? I dunno,

Now compare the section I did to the whole picture.

Jus' trying to help. Take from this what you want. I do suggest, even though you said you won't edit, to redo this piece in a smaller scale. ;3

Edit: Tried the colours again, added more stars to make me look less lazy.

[Sherman Gill]

things that use more than the pencil tool are not true pixel art. id say start over smaller and use just the pencil.

What about the line tool? Or the square tool? Or perhaps the fill bucket?
I think you're over simplifying things.