Skull cross

[Ricco, the Pirate]

Hi ya there pixelators  Been a while since i last posted here, but i've been lurking around and felt inspired to post once again

I made this "symbol" thing here, would like some crits, im thinking about resizing it 2x so it looks better..



I was trying to give the skull a mettalic surface, like the guns

[Sharm]

Pretty cool, but your light source is confused, and it's making the piece look like separate pieces just put together.  It's also not totally clear what those black bits are on the side.  I like the skull itself, thought you didn't pull off metallic.  If you want that you're going to need more contrast.

[baccaman21]

it's an interesting design... but I have to say I'm finding it quite difficult to read.

At first I thought the gun handles were in fact some kind of flying helmet on the skull (the goggles don't help with that perception).

You need to differentiate a bit more between the colors your using on the skull itself and the colors you're using on the revolvers, either that or you require some harder shadows that lift them apart...

I know you probably want to keep this to 64x64 but I'd rotate the guns so the handles stick out too? S'up to you though...

I had fiddle...




Aside from the obvious, I fiddled with the goggles, the eyes (made them red [I like red] and increased the depth by increasing the shading around the orbits of the eyes and the brow of the nose), the nose [added some detail into the internal bone structure], the teeth (you had amiddle tooth going on... so I removed it in favour of 2 nice big old buck teeth.), and the pallette, I've added some shading (rough like) where the skull cheeks meet the revolvers - and that's about it...

it's extremely rough - but just to give you an idea of how make your's a little more readable.



I hope that helps...

[big brother]

The edit reads better, but there are still issues where the skull overlaps the revolvers. There's a tiny pocket of negative space between the cheekbone outline and the top of the left gun, etc. Ideally, you'd want the overlapping edge to contrast the existing one, instead of the shapes almost fitting together.

[baccaman21]

good point...well made BB...

I know there's somethign not quite right with it still, and now I'm looking at it with fresh eyes I think I know what it is - which is kind of what you're saying.

If I'm right in thinking... it's supposed to be a play on the jolly roger... skull and crossbones - yes?

If so... wouldn't make sense to completely detach the pistols from the skull and increase the gap between the skull from (in this case) the crossed pistols? And thus help the readability more?

Maybe not... but it's worth a try?

[Sharm]

If it is supposed to be a play on skull and crossbones, reducing the angle of the pistols would help too.

[The B.O.B.]

   Broody Plicks! Looks like everyone got to this one before I could. Aside from the previously aforementioned, the anatomy of the gun seems off for some reason. I'm no gun expert, but shouldn't the gun be a bit bigger towards the end, where the bullets are loaded into the chamber(towards Baccaman)? Also, I wasn't sure if Ricco was trying for a realistic, or stylistic skull. Either way, I find stylistic skulls kind of tacky, when they are made to look more "evil." I mean, doesn't a skull without shining red eyes look creepy on it's own? Oh wellz. The skull's cheek bones were doing some weird thing were they were attaching at the nose through some made up ridge(can't explain it). Either way, I'm guessing style was the strong end of this piece, and not realism, so I tried to make edits toward the coloration, rather than the actual true form of these real life objects. And yes, the guns and skull need some clarification from one another, as they seem to blend in your piece. That would be the reason why I gave the skull a more yellowish hue to it, rather than the metallic surface you were initially going for. It's fine, just more contrast, and separation between the two would help readability issues for other people.
   Any who, hope to see this updated!

[griffy6]

I think baccaman's edit is the best. I had no idea what the original even was until I put it at 2x. At 1x, the gun handles look like hair, the goggles look like eyes, the eyes look like a mouth, the eye pupils look like teeth, the nose looks like a goatee, the upper jaw looks like a weird alien chin...you get my point.