[WIP] Skelton in Armor

[TheMadIceCreamMachine]

Edit: Made image follow proper scaling with no zoom



Hello, this would be my first time posting here so I think my formatting is correct. Apologies if it is not. Will make changes are needed.

I have been stuck on this current piece for some time namely on the subject, the skeleton, and their armor.

I was wondering if anyone here had any advice on how to pixel out armor with respect to the light source coming from the front-left side of the skeleton. It has proved tricky and I would much appreciate some guidance on a method to approach this as trial and error have yet to bear fruit. I seem to be stuck on visualizing how light would exactly playoff such a reflective material which is affecting my efforts to bring it to the image.

Of note, the work is currently limited to the 9 colors seen in the work.

[eishiya]

Have you looked at any photo reference? The lighting you're looking for doesn't seem too different from what you might find in museums and films, so you should be able to find plenty. When in doubt, always start by looking at the real thing, and stylise from there.

Reference would also help communicate to others what sort of armour you're going for, it would help others make suggestions and edit.

Also, your formatting's fine, but it would help people make edits more easily if you posted your image at 1x zoom. The forum has a zoom feature (click an image to zoom, click while holding any modifier key to unzoom), so pre-zooming is usually unnecessary.

[TheMadIceCreamMachine]

Here would be the image at the proper zoom level. My apologies and thank you for the clarity!

https://i.imgur.com/6Axk6kc.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/CEJzCtX.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/thotc2Z.jpg

Here are some reference links, if there is a spoiler code that would be helpful otherwise didn't want images consuming the whole post page. I hope these are helpful in conveying the angle I am going for, though the specific style is variable to change depending on what can be conveyed in pixel art. I imagine more detail would assist in avoiding flat spots of shading?

[eliddell]

The breastplate should start developing some shadow on the side farthest from the viewer, I think, and maybe underneath the near arm at the very bottom of the image.  Strongest highlight near the middle of the near side of the breastplate?  There should be some highlight on the far pauldron and arm, too—I don't think the skull and body would shade it completely from the forward-left.

The skull looks off-model to me (eyesockets and nosehole not properly aligned with the outside shape?), and it's bothering me to the point that it's difficult for me to keep my attention on the armour.

(All that being said, @eishiya is a better artist and critic than I will ever be, so if they contradict me, listen to them instead.)

[TheMadIceCreamMachine]

After...

Before...


Taking the advice I have managed to work the armor to its current iteration but it feels irreparably incorrect. Advice on how to shade it correctly would be greatly appreciated as I am not used to working on larger character portraits like this. Added the color palette into the physical image for easier manipulation for anyone looking into it. Many thanks.

[eliddell]

It's better, but there are still a couple of things lacking.  One is a sense of what the light source should be doing to the forms and shadows—in fact, you seem to be developing some pillow shading in here, on the breastplate panels.  Aiyeuch.

The other thing is, this looks more like plastic or bone than metal right now.  Highlights on metal tend to be really strong and bright, as you'll see if you check the reference pictures you linked—even the least-brightly-lit one, in the museum picture with people in the background, has some bright white highlights.  (Alternatively, since this armour is being worn by a skeleton, you could go the other way and make it distressed, tarnished, and rusty, but right now it looks pretty clean.)

Here's a really crappy undetailed paintover of the armour only to illustrate a bit (keep in mind that I'm not the most brilliant artist either, and I didn't spend a lot of time on this):



I'm assuming the light is coming from forward-above-(our)-left.