PD Tactics Collab Character

[SeinRuhe]

First of all sorry, seems like MuMu from my previous post may have to wait a bit more before seeing herself finished.

I want to enter the milestone collab of @Pixel_Dailies on Twitter, the idea is to toss a coin and roll a dice to get the attributes for your character. Here's the post explaining the collaboration a bit more in case anyone is interested https://twitter.com/Pixel_Dailies/status/1388463213923258374?s=20 *Cough Cels**Cough Fskn*

So far my character looks like this:



Basically everything is settled but I want to push this a bit further, the axe is what's giving me more trouble, I do want the axe to be oversized to better emphasize her size but the design and position is not written in stone. I would also like to make her dress a bit more fancy without being distracting.

Any ideas my fellow Pixelationerds?

[eliddell]

Maybe rather than making the dress itself more fancy, add a sash with really long trailing ends?  There are lots of things you could do with that.  Or ribbons on her legs, for that matter.

As for the axe . . .  If she's hovering, which seems to be the case here, holding an axe that size with its head in that position should make her lose her balance.  She'd have to be in the process of swinging it for the pose to make sense.  Hmmm.  Get it more centered?  Or across her shoulders?  Or extend the handle into something polearm-like so she can at least grip it with both hands?  (I suppose you could also claim the head is made of super-light magic-infused unobtainium . . .)

[SeinRuhe]

Thanks Eliddell, the axe on the first take was poorly drawn. Based on your feedback I did a second take, pulled her shoulder to convey a bit more weight on the axe and also laid the axe on the floor so she wont pull a muscle trying to lift it lol.

Having her wield the axe with 2 hands is not viable in this case, since the character will never be animated I don't want to obstruct her body at all, although I did increased the length of the handle a lot to give the feeling that in combat the axe should be used with two hands.

I do still have to fiddle a bit more with her clothes, still not convinced with them.

[cels]

Sorry, this is simply beyond my skill level to critique. You've done an amazing job packing so much detail into it and retaining readability. The wings are amazing, the legs and pose are fantastic. I have no solutions for you. In terms of style, I don't know if I'd personally pack so much detail in there. Without the enlarged portrait, the forehead gem reads like a tiara because there's no space. But if you reduce its size, it simply becomes noise. For me, the clothes are a bit noisy in having so many single pixels but I see what you're going for. I mean, I prefer fairies with semi-transparent clothing and exposed stomachs rather than a Tinker Bell outfit.

Nothing stands out to me as wrong, they're just design choices. The only thing I dare say I might try to change is the axe. Which is brilliantly pixelled but does look a bit plain and functional. It would fit just as well in the hands of a barbarian or an orc. Perhaps it would be suitable to tweak it a little so it seems like the kind of weapon a tiny fairy wearing jewelry and underwear would bring to a fight. Maybe it's difficult to do at this scale.

Personally, I have so many personal projects going on and so much inspiration that I don't feel like I can spend time on dailies and weekly challenges at the moment. I've also signed up for NMA, which will be taking up much of my time. Gesture, movement, line of action, I'm all about it. 

[fskn]

This is so pretty and cute it terrifies me of messing with it. It's beautiful, Sein.

I was thinking the axe didn't need to appear heavy because that's a magical creature and she could be super strong, but modifying that really added to the piece. But it ended up also covering more of her outfit, so... Maybe you need to compensate for that?
Have you thought of a longer/ish dress? Something that might read as semi-translucent? Maybe with pastel colors..?
Maybe adding "magic sparkles" around her..?

Dunno, just throwing ideas.

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Something kind of like...

Just imagine if that was well drawn.

But I mean, something flowy, dance of the seven veils -like.
It can be hard to convey transparency, though.

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Probably longer if you have the room for it.
Maybe something with an aura or trail, something to give it more of a magical feel.

[SeinRuhe]

@Cels I'll try to reduce some noise, I'm working with this CTR filter in mind so it doesn't look as noisy as in a HD display but still, If somehow I can achieve a good looking outcome for both that's the ultimate win. https://mattiasgustavsson.itch.io/crtview

Oh well, if the axe strikes as something an orc or barbarian would wield it means it's spot on for my pun, fairies don't wield battle axes. On the collab characters will be on a map where they have the right to have some NPC text that pops when the player gets near, her line is a pun: "A battle axe!? I could swear the garrison commander rolled a dice when deciding weapons for each of us!"

Lastly, neat to see you started with NMA, if you happen to see an interesting course let me know (BTW, currently taking Complete Russian Academic Drawing Approach, Color Theory Bootcamp and Dynamic Gesture Drawing)

@Fskn Love the edit, I would really like to give the dress a semi-translucent effect but to be honest don't know how, palette is quite restricted although they allow adding some extra colors (5, currently 2/5), seems a good idea to use them for this. I think pastels are out of the table due the restricted palette:



(Just click on it a hundred times till it's visible xD)

I think I'm going to do a couple pixel adjustments here and there and that's all. Your dress design is spot on so I'm going to steal it! If you have a Twitter handle let me know so I can tag you crediting for the help!

EDIT: The smile is growing on me, don't know which one will make it to the final version

[fskn]

Aw, thank you. Honestly I think you could do a much better job than what I did there, though.

IF you want to keep working on it, I was thinking (and doing some research, trying to find refs but failed miserably) of a bit of a Charles Vess style fairy... Though that could clash with your style there. Yours is rounder and cuter, Vess does longer, leaner and flowyer (that even a word?) fairies.

No need to tag me, it's fine. Glad to be of help, especially after you helped me so much already with my stuff too.
But if you wanna follow me there, I'm @f5kn.

EDIT: The smile is growing on me, don't know which one will make it to the final version

Haha, that's basically how I felt when I did it. "Mmm... kind of like it, but I don't know... yeah... maybe... hmm..."

I tried making her cheek a little rounder too.

[SeinRuhe]

Well, this is the result:



I did some tweaks here and there, and although I like more the dress silhouette that Fskn did I may have trouble with it when doing the back view so I had to change it a little. Most likely I would end up doing one last revision after finishing the back view to make sure everything looks right! The smile is also an improvement without doubt so it's staying.

Oh yeah, my fairy is quite anime-ish, I tried to give her a bit of Ranma/Alita OVAs (Not the movie, although that movie left a weird fetish for girls with big eyes on me lol) feeling since it's the style I like the most for this kind of stuff.

And first time hearing of Charles Vess, I do dig a lot the atmosphere of his pieces, composition and color, I'll study him to see what I can steal (Some of his pieces remind me of Mucha's work although they are from fairly different periods, and god knows I love Mucha)

[cels]

Came out great! Definitely more dramatic and I can imagine an animation where the flapping of her wings and her idle bounce makes the skirt flow.

I only knew Charles Vess from his Earthsea illustrations, which are.... not my favourite. But now that I googled him, I see that he actually has some art I find amazing. It's like a western take on Mucha or Bilibin. How wonderful! Sorry I couldn't help with this one but at least I rediscovered Charles Vess. That's something. 

[SeinRuhe]

Well, next stop on this train and I need a critique on the backview now. To be honest this is kicking my ass in ways I wasn't aware a pixel art piece could.

So my idea is one last round of critiques and send it before I get even more obsessed with it.

[fskn]

I thought the flesh tone was getting mixed up with the belt so I added a pixel there, which covered her cute perky little butt, but (butt?) also shaded her shin and angled her foot a bit more.

But (butt?) that's it.

Well, I tried adding a bit more definition to the skirt too... Not sure if I was successful there.

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EDIT:
Wait, maybe her left foot could use some shading too.


fairy_final_rev5_final_FINAL_thistimeimeanit.png

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EDIT2: The other day I did some changes to her mouth too... See if you like it:


fairy_final_rev5_final_FINAL_thistimeimeanit2.png

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*sigh* Alright... Just... Just one more.
But this time it's a suggestion for the text. Not that much of a change, though, just something I thought could sound nice.
We'd lose the word "garrison" though.



Although it you're using an ascender for the bs and ds, then you could probably have capital letters too..?

[SeinRuhe]

@Fskn thank you so, so, so much, you nailed the back view. Sometimes you have to leave the perky little butt to the imagination :/ but well, sacrifices are needed in order to grow!

Text edit is on point too, time to send this to PD!

[fskn]

Awesome. Glad you liked it.