AuthorTopic: Catch As Cat Can Mockup.16  (Read 46503 times)

Offline Shrike

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Re: Catch As Cat Can Mockup.6

Reply #30 on: March 11, 2009, 02:45:45 pm
But you have, in my opinion, too few colors.  For a polished look, at my skill level, I needed a few more.
I hate to disagree, but this is absolutely not true. If you can't polish something with four colors, you're not going to be able to polish it with ten. It might look harsh with just four, but that's not the main point of polish. The way I see it, when you polish something, you just go through your piece and remove any unneeded details or stray pixels to keep the piece clean and readable. Color control is an invaluable skill to learn as a pixel artist (or at least, so I've read), and I think that wouldn't be such a good idea to add extra colors to his piece.

Big, important thing I forgot.  drop the outlines.  IMHO, it's cluttering it up and hindering your drawing space and drawing the eye too much.  So yeah, that's my opinion.
I can't help but notice how ironic this statement is; you say the outlines clutter up his piece, but you fail to mention that the stripes you added, while they do add a nice touch, end up cluttering the sprite much more than an outline does, and IMHO push the sprite towards the background. It is good to break away from outlines to improve your ability to make priorities stand out, but when you're making the main character for a game, an outline might be the only thing that can stop your character from blending into the background; there are many ways to get something to stand out, like contrasting hues, simplicity against detail, and stuff like that, but when you've got a lot of things and colors going on in the background, even these can't keep your sprite away from the background.

As for your update, it's looking a million times better. There are still a few anatomical parts that are off, but shrike caught most of them. One thing nobody has mentioned yet, though, is that your cat's ears don't look connected to its head; one way to fix this would to just get rid of the outline separating the bottoms of its ears and head. The lightest shade needs to be even lighter than it is right now to really make a difference on your sprite, and I don't think that the shading on its head works; a cat's head is a little bit like a ball, and the only time the highlight should hug the edge of a surface is when the light source is behind the object, and, as the rest of your piece suggests, this isn't the case. Pretend the ears cast a little bit if a shadow onto the head, and try to shade the top of its head so that it looks more like a ball.

Another thing I notice with the shading right now is that it's too uniform for something as complex as a cat. Your highlight seems to hug the entire edge of your cat which is not good. Let's take Laser Kitty's back leg for instance; it sticks out past Laser's body, and so the highlight would extend down his leg a little bit. Since Laser's body would be slightly obscured by his(?) leg, the part right by the highlight on his leg would be darker than the surrounding area. This is only one place where the light gets jumbled up, and I'll let you figure out how to do the rest of the shading on him.
If you need more guidance, check these out;
http://www.itchy-animation.co.uk/light.htm
http://www.itchstudios.com/psg/art_tut.htm

Wow, thanks!  I appreciate the critique, and I hope I didn't mislead xhunterko too much.  I guess I made a pretty bad edit.  Sorry about that, and thanks Kclic for catching me.  I always manage to screw up and edit for someone.
One thing bugs me about what you said though. 
Quote
I can't help but notice how ironic this statement is; you say the outlines clutter up his piece, but you fail to mention that the stripes you added, while they do add a nice touch, end up cluttering the sprite much more than an outline does, and IMHO push the sprite towards the background. It is good to break away from outlines to improve your ability to make priorities stand out, but when you're making the main character for a game, an outline might be the only thing that can stop your character from blending into the background; there are many ways to get something to stand out, like contrasting hues, simplicity against detail, and stuff like that, but when you've got a lot of things and colors going on in the background, even these can't keep your sprite away from the background.
I disagree, if one is skilled enough you can still make the character pop.  An outline, I think, although maybe stylistically appealing, is never necessary. In this case, if you want an outline at least make it black or white so it does it's job better; otherwise, in this case, I think having the outline a little bit darker than the body does not work and doesn't give you the most 'bang for your buck'.  I guess what I'm trying to say is that, the way he was using outlines was not the most effective, and to build skill getting rid of them might be better.  He could have done them better, I could have, actually, but I was doing the edit rather thoughtlessly, so I opted to get rid of them rather than trying to improve them.  You are a far more talented pixel artist than me, so what I'm saying isn't totally a tried theory.  And don't think I don't appreciate your critique.  I'm very happy I got it. 
But if this turns into a back and forth let's move it to a different forum.  Are you looking for that, or are you interested?

Sorry for taking so long.  And sorry for the OT as well.

xhunterko:
Don't be rude.  His edit is amazing and you could learn a lot from all of us, him especially.  He's a very talented and experienced artist.  And what Helm said is true (of course, it's Helm), we are all taking a lot of time out of our lives so you might get better, which you have.  I hate to see all of this good critique go to waste, and I would not like to feel like my time, which much of has been spent helping you, is not being used to better someone's skill.  Please do not be inconsiderate.  This forum is here for your benefit, don't abuse it.

Shrike
« Last Edit: March 11, 2009, 02:50:43 pm by Shrike »

Offline Helm

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Re: Catch As Cat Can Mockup.8

Reply #31 on: March 11, 2009, 03:14:06 pm
Quote
And what Helm said is true (of course, it's Helm)

Please, spare me the ass-patting. I hope when I'm wrong Pixelation users will correct me and such deifying attitudes do not help establish this sort of relationship. I am here to learn like anyone else.

Offline xhunterko

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Re: Catch As Cat Can Mockup.8

Reply #32 on: March 11, 2009, 11:10:26 pm
Oh-kaaay.

Can we put away the torches and picks for a moment while I try to explain myself a little better and rationally?

*waits...okay*

First off, I apologize to Terley. I did not mean to cause misunderstanding and confusion on his/ other people's parts. I was going to say something about the edit looking like a textured embossed version. Also that it was a style that I didn't much like or think would be effective for a game or something. Which would sound like me criticisizing his teaching methods and would sound ungrateful for him helping. I thought it best to not say anything since I get myself in more trouble then if I do. After looking at it again though. I found it to be very useful and was going to say something about it. Then I noticed Terley's post after I updated and had in mind to post a reply after I got off work today.  What I didn't realize was how out of context what I said was taken and that I should've been more clear regarding Terley's edit. I had no idea it would be run away with like a wild-fire.

Secondly, I apologize to anyone else offended or mislead by my comment. I had no intention to personally attack or judge Terley in any way. I was merely going to say I didn't like the way he did things but thought better of it. Thinking, again, that it sounded calouse or ungrateful. I would also like to agree with Helm's above statement. Since none of us have no idea when we're sounding like that. I would also like to thank him for trying to keep this thread under control. I'll let the admins decide on what to do with this post. If they think I missed saying anything or anything more needs to be said, then please let me know. In any case, I don't think that I'll be posting here again for a good while. At least until things calm down.

*wording in the above offensive post has been changed*

Best regards,
Xhunterko

Offline Terley

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Re: Catch As Cat Can Mockup.8

Reply #33 on: March 11, 2009, 11:41:41 pm
Whats with all the hubbub? Fine you don't like my edit I'll remove it  ;), you need to understand that everyone works differently even if you don't like my style im sure you could still take some of what I said and advised into consideration. Criticism is simply termed as opinions on something expressed for open discussion, what you do with it is up to you.

Christ, stop chatting and get pixellin will ya :D there's plenty still to be worked on.
I've not got anything interesting to type here..

Offline Mathias

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Re: Catch As Cat Can Mockup.8

Reply #34 on: March 12, 2009, 12:08:39 am
At least he's progressing. I await more progression from you, xhunterko. Like Terley says, chill and just pixel.
« Last Edit: March 12, 2009, 01:23:48 am by Mathias »

Offline Helm

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Re: Catch As Cat Can Mockup.8

Reply #35 on: March 12, 2009, 07:42:46 am
Quote
In any case, I don't think that I'll be posting here again for a good while. At least until things calm down.

Yes there's no need for any subsequent drama, nor for you to get outa Dodge. Keep pixelling.

Offline xhunterko

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Re: Catch As Cat Can Mockup.9

Reply #36 on: March 13, 2009, 09:30:10 pm
...Phew.

Tried to work on this real quick before I had to work.



I wanted to do some sort of blue shading but wasn't sure it'd look right.

Um, gotta run.

Your thoughts, please?

Offline Pizza Tom

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Re: Catch As Cat Can Mockup.9

Reply #37 on: March 13, 2009, 10:31:11 pm
The cave BG is a little too busy, kinda hard to tell where the cat ends and walls begin too.
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Offline Emtch

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Re: Catch As Cat Can Mockup.9

Reply #38 on: March 14, 2009, 08:30:40 am
The background, wall rocks need to be darker and less saturated, or you can barely see the cat.

Try to swap the colors of the floor rock tile with the background rock tile. It will look much better.

Offline NaCl

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Re: Catch As Cat Can Mockup.9

Reply #39 on: March 14, 2009, 08:39:53 am
Ko, this is an intervention. Take a deep breath, then grab the saturation slider and go ahead and move it down. I know this can be scary, but god be damned! Do it.