My first pixel art - WIP

[scarecrow]

Hi I'm new to this site and pixel art in general, and would like some critiquing on my first attempt at pixel art.  I decided to start with something small, which in this case is my forum avatar.



 It's the emblem for a martial art style I practice (hung gar kung fu).  I just eye balled it from this photo (http://www.wle.com/media/U017-B.jpg) and tried to do some shading keeping in mind some of the tutorials I've read on the subject.

Thanks in advance!

edit: I apologize if this is something too simple to post here.  I realize it's not quite as complex as most of the artwork here.  Gotta start somewhere though I guess.

[Atnas]

Welcome to pixelation!

It isn't too simple, but it may be slightly frustrating for your first pixel art because of its complexity.

On that note, the proportions are off. In your reference the top and bottom are equivalent in area and are divided horizontally.

Assuming you are trying to emulate the actual badge and not just the emblem itself, you want to treat every part as three dimensional. This means that the red border should not be treated as a flat plane, and should be shaded according to its actual shape.

Look carefully at the reference and you'll see that the light source from the top right doesn't light up the top right ridge. It lights up the bottom left because the visible plane faces the light source, whereas the top right's visible plane faces away. (if you look closely you can see some lighting on the rim, though.)

Also take note that the flat area the emblem is on is that, flat, and so the gradient you applied is unnecessary.

I think doing stuff like rocks might be better as your first subject. More important than pretty designs are the underlying forms of everything. If you do some studies of three dimensional shapes and then come back to this, it will look so much better!

wo, sorry for the long response with no example. ._.;

[scarecrow]

Welcome to pixelation!

It isn't too simple, but it may be slightly frustrating for your first pixel art because of its complexity.

On that note, the proportions are off. In your reference the top and bottom are equivalent in area and are divided horizontally.

Assuming you are trying to emulate the actual badge and not just the emblem itself, you want to treat every part as three dimensional. This means that the red border should not be treated as a flat plane, and should be shaded according to its actual shape.

Look carefully at the reference and you'll see that the light source from the top right doesn't light up the top right ridge. It lights up the bottom left because the visible plane faces the light source, whereas the top right's visible plane faces away. (if you look closely you can see some lighting on the rim, though.)

Also take note that the flat area the emblem is on is that, flat, and so the gradient you applied is unnecessary.

I think doing stuff like rocks might be better as your first subject. More important than pretty designs are the underlying forms of everything. If you do some studies of three dimensional shapes and then come back to this, it will look so much better!

wo, sorry for the long response with no example. ._.;

I really appreciate your input.  When I was making this I was following the reference for the design of the emblem but not the lighting.  I understand exactly what you mean though about where the light hits and the unnecessary gradient.  And you're right, I think this may be a little over my head for my first project.  There's a lot more going on with this design than I realized.   I'm going to do exactly as you suggest and start with some basic 3d shapes and come back to this later. 

Thanks again!  I'll be sure to post again when I feel I've made some progress

[scarecrow]

Ok, so I attempted a rock.  I'm happy with the middle section where the three main bulges meet, but I'm just not sure about the rest of it.  Something is off.  I'd also like to more naturally draw the edges, instead of such a pronounced line around the whole thing, but I can't seem to make that work either.  Maybe I need to use more than 4 colors?  Am I not giving myself enough space to work with by making these things so small?

Also, I'd rather make the parts less rounded and more rigid.  I haven't had any luck pulling that effect off.



 Please help! Thanks in advance

[Madre]

first you need to define your light source
the lightest color

2nd
need 1 more color at lease (midle color)

[Atnas]

I love your attitude, scarecrow. 

Here are some general pointers.

Work on a neutral background. This means low saturation medium luminosity colors. It helps your eye evaluate the colors better than if the background was an overwhelming white or black. The grayish background of the forum is a nice color, so transparent backgrounds will definitely be okay, but you can pick green or red or blue hues as you work, whatever you like.

For practicing forms, don't worry about outline. Outline is stylistic and symbolic of border, meant to increase readability and separate graphical elements. Think in 3D and practice like a painter!

Next is the actual shading. There's something called pillow shading that crops up in a lot of beginner work because people don't work with actual cast shadow, only form bending shadow. Given, that usually looks horrible in pixel art because most people treat it as a thick gradient with incompatible colors. It winds up looking something like this:



Then there's banding. Simply put, it's just bands of sequential tones, much like pillow shading except it's more commonly seen on small areas like outlines. You can see it in action at the very top of your rock on the outline. It doesn't help anything but to clutter the image with unnecessary buffers. (but I don't think you need to worry about that at all right now, just keep that in mind for future reference)

You can get away with two or three colors. Dark, medium, and light. Also keep in mind that a lot of things don't have highlights. Here's a rectangular prism in a method that I've seen help people the most. See how it's clear where the light is and isn't hitting?


Practice the most basic shapes, thinking of them as a collection of planes. Then when you need to, you can use your library of shapes as a reference to build other objects out of, like legos. Eventually you reach a point where you can think and draw fluently in 3d, which is a major asset to artists. I don't want to totally discredit lines, they can be used as a sort of wireframe in building these form studies.

I also suggest you check out what Arne has to say on lighting. http://www.itchstudios.com/psg/art_tut.htm#light_stuff

So pick a light source and give the rock another go!