[WIP] EGA avatar

[tbone]

Hello everybody!

I've been lurking for a bit and I've decided it's time to jump into the pool.

I've studied fine art for some time, but this is my first serious pixel piece (not counting some time I spent with Mario Paint when I was about ten) and comments and critiques are especially welcome!
Don't hold back!

edit: updated to show progress.

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Here's the reference picture.

And have a Happy New Year!

[Sherman Gill]

If you're not gonna make your own palette,  I would recommend you use one that's got more... useful colors, atleast until you get the hang of pixel art.

[eck]

the ega colors you chose are... blah.  pick out some interesting colors from a ramp that isnt straight red, and have a bit of fun with it 

<- my avatar is ega if you need some color ideas.  edit coming soon, because i have an odd urge to do some ega work, so yeah.

[eck]

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also, idk what the EGA restrictions are, but you might want to check em out


edit: double post 

[tbone]

Sherman: I'm definitely going to use a more robust palette for later stuff, I just thought EGA would be an interesting place to start. I wouldn't want to paint my walls these colors, but it's fun to see what I can get out of them.

eck: Good point. I'm fiddling with the colors right now. Thanks for the edit!
 
The EGA palette restrictions seem to be any 16 colors out of a preset palette of 64 - according to Wikipedia of course. No other restrictions were mentioned.
I'm using the default, eye-burning set of 16 colors.

[happymonster]

At the moment your avatar looks up, while your photo looks slightly down. I would push the blue of your irises down to the bottom of the eye (no white below it), and then add a black pupil to show the direction you are looking in.

[tbone]

Made some adjustments. The eyes are no longer looking up, and I got rid of some shading that didn't seem to be helping the picture.

[tbone]

This one is more in line with eck's edit. I'm trying to use a wider range of colors from the palette - no sense in letting the other colors go to waste. It seems I might as well pick out four of my own colors if I'm going to do that.

[tbone]

And an update.

[eck]

To much dither.

[Sherman Gill]

I disagree with Eck!
Much improvement, in my opinion.

[Cow]

I like the new colors, though some of the details and definition seem to have been lost in translation. The mouth/eye/ear areas mostly. Also, the hair looks like a separate entity entirely now, I think some color shared colors between the head/hair could bridge the gap a bit and give it some more flow.

I quite like the original one actually as well, nice and a bit more subdued and subtle. Anyway, keep up the good work.

[tocky]

no, eck is right about too much dither. or at least, you're dithering in places where you shouldn't.

a summary:
- i think you should drop the blue skintone.
- hair needs a darker shade
- eyes need a darker shade

I also think you might do better with a reference with different lighting. The problem with indoor/flash photography sort of stuff is that the light source is the camera, and you don't get shadows like you would if it was lit from elsewhere - so it doesn't define the planes of faces, or whatever the subject is, terribly well. Whereas in strong light you might get something like:

(which doesn't really look like you, but whatever. what i'm saying is that with different lighting you'd get better definition in the facial features.)

[tbone]

Just a quick update. I've tried to address the crits - your edit was a big help, tocky.
Hopefully I've managed to reign in the dithering. Feels like I might be getting close to the final product.