[WIP] Tear Ship

[Flayed Cat]

I'm working on a teardrop ship. It's my biggest piece so far but I have problem with the shading.

I would appreciate some critics and tips and tricks on how to improve it.

[Terley]

Do you not think it's a bit too big? 

'Pixel art' would be lost on a piece this size imo.

[crab2selout.png]

Your best bet when unsure of how to shade something is to think about the basic shapes and seek out references. Your ship is a tear drop, basically a sphere with a cone on top. Or you could think of it as an egg with more of a point towards the top.

There's no shame in looking up references when you get stuck

http://images.google.ca/images?client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&channel=s&hl=en&q=sphere&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wi
http://images.google.ca/images?client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&channel=s&hl=en&q=cone&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wi
http://images.google.ca/images?um=1&hl=en&client=firefox-a&channel=s&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&q=egg&btnG=Search+Images

Terley's got a point about the size, too. AAing could get really annoying.

[Flayed Cat]

Ah I see what you people mean. Thus I have reworked it and it's now smaller.

[Shrike]

I want to point out another reason this size is bad, because I'm like that.  (New size is fine, but the old one I'm talking about)

This kind of size is, indeed, quite hard, and managing it would be a bitch, but also it's hard/not good because there's nothing going on in the grey area.

In the smaller version, I'd make the ramps less straight, as in maybe tint the grey blue, and add some greebles.    Greebles are good.  Maybe some defensive stuff (Guns) or some battle damage, or rust, or plates that stick out, indicating imperfection, which is almost always way more interesting, as aging something gives it more personality IMHO.  Keep at it!  Remember, the greats started out like you.

EDIT:
Btw, even smaller would be good.
Toodles!
Shrike

[Tobe]

I think a big part of the beauty in pixel art is how you express so many details with so little things. With the original size, that very fun is lost, and everything has be drawn very clearly to express and kinda defeat the purpose of pixeling. I realize that giant piece of pixel artwork are often used to draw extremely detail stuff and not so much of 1 single object.

Anyway, I'm a new myself, so I might be wrong. But that's my understanding so far. Cheers ; )

Example of pixel art that uses big canvas size- http://timepass.onlyfanpics.com//w/wonderfulanimations/part-003.gif.

[Terley]

It's more the fact that the space ship hasn't got a need for such a large canvas, there's not as much detail required from this object. I suggest it be smaller so pixels can make actually make a difference in this. A large canvas like that example is needed because there's so much going on, a small version of this wouldn't be able to convey the details as well as it should be.