Steam Punk Pieces

[TheInquisitor]

Hey folks, I'm new here and I'm looking to learn from the best. The best are here and so I'm here. Hello all. 

I've been doing a bit of pixelling reasonably recently and here's what I've come up with:







These ones above are finished pieces. I've been into steampunk lately so I fancied doing some weird and wonderful creations for them. For the middle gang member, I was originally wanting to make it so that it looked like he was swinging the chain like a lassoo in a casual but ultimately threatening manner. I cannot think how to approach pixelling a spinning motion though without actually animating it. With the very few ideas I had, I found it too hard to make it clear over his white shirt. Does anyone have any sharp advice for me on that?




This one is obviously a work in progress. I wanted to go bigger and grander than my usual pieces, but getting the shading looking great, but still consistent is starting to cause me agro. I feel I need more shaded detail on this piece because it's so much larger.

Generally I think there are two big problems with my work. Firstly I don't really use a mixture of colours enough so a lot of my stuff looks pretty lifeless. On the most popular and successful pixel pieces, they always blend in greens, blues and whatever else together to make brilliant results. This is something I rarely try, but something I'd definitely like to get my head around. The other big problem of mine is that I'm badly stuck in a comfort zone that I'm struggling to break out of. My sprites are always in the same poses, with the same expressions and always the same proportions/styles. There is no invention or creativity in my work, which is something else I'm trying to break out into.

Comments and critique are very much appreciated, fella's.

Inq

 

[Doppleganger]

Yo! Welcome to pixelation.

Your first two pieces are pretty good imo, although the front wheel of the motorcycle could benefit from a more circular shape.

As for the gang members, and their rigid poses. The best way to alleviate those problems is to practice anatomy any chance you get, and base poses off reference images until you get the skills necessary to create your own poses. To be honest, dynamic poses are something that I still struggle with. But, I've been practicing sketching a lot of different poses lately, and I can start to see it all coming together. The first of the gang members looks especially problematic with its noodly arms, and relatively undefined legs. I owe you an edit with the chain guy, so maybe I'll take on that first member too. The third member (although lacking his right shoulder) seems to be pretty well defined in comparison.



When I started doing some suggestive edits on the zeppelin, I got a bit carried away. If I had more time, I think I may have colored it all. It's a pretty impressive/inspiring piece, so take that as a compliment. The first thing I did was to redefine the shape of the turbine on the left. While it looks good in the line art, when shading it becomes apparent that there is not much rhyme or reason to it. AFAIK anyways. After that I just started shading it with colors from your piece, introducing my own and replacing yours as I deemed it necessary. In the end, I got the palette down to 11 colors, and then threw in 3 more (the red to oranges) to ensure that I had every color needed to replicate the colors you had already layed down. I ended up using a fair amount of grays, and it's probably good for you to know that grays can operate like a wild color if you can modify your colored ramps to accept them. Which isn't too much harder than cutting down on the saturation a bit. I realize now that my edit doesn't match the style you've already established, but it's worth noting that it could easily adopt to that style with the inclusion of maybe 1 or 2 colors. At that point, you'd still have a 16 color palette-- 2 less than what the original line art was at. You seem to have a pretty good grasp of shading, and lightsources, so I'm not going to expand on those areas very much. I'll just say that contrast is very important, and don't shade something unless it is doing something to help define the shape of whatever you're shading.

I AA'd your zeppelin to the bg in some spots. I just did it cuz it's fun, and it was the easiest way to get your variable thickness lines looking smooth.

Also, pixelation has a built-in zoom function, so there's no need to display things at 2x or whatever. 

[TheInquisitor]

Thanks for the reply, Doppleganger. I assume you've been working on that since I contacted you on GW.

Yeah, I have to admit that I'm quite inexperienced and disinterested when it comes to practicing anatomy again and again and again. I have more of a foolhardy trial and error approach, which is admittedly a lot slower than if I had it all ready in my head. And yeah, mate, you do owe me and edit on that chain.  Part of my problem though is that I always cater my pixel work to RPG Maker, so it's all of the traditional stuff facing the same directions or being functional tiles and things. Because the sprites of the gang are quite smaller, the thinner blokes do have spindley arms. Considering how small they are, I kind of thought I did all right on them. I do have a habit of making hands as balls though.

By all means, carry on shading the zepplin as you feel fit. I think it'd be great to see your view on it, but don't show it around until I finish my own version, otherwise I'll probably get too tempted just to copy yours. And thanks, I'm pleased with how the design went. I like the way you've mixed in a bronze colour with the beige of the zepplin's balloon texture, but it's your use of dull greens that I find best. They mix in so finely. As a criticism of your version, I misinterpreted the metal plating around the biggest cog on the arm. You've got the shape inverted to how it should be. I noticed that you added some anti-aliasing. I won't be doing that myself though because as you expect it's for RPG Maker and it doesn't support it.

And, unless this is specific to my screen, doesn't pixelation's zoom feature blur the images as it zooms?

Thanks, Doppleganger!

[Doppleganger]

Here's the chain edit. I actually didn't have a very good idea of how I was going to accomplish the effect, so it was probably good that I tried it. In the end I settled that representing the circular motion with motion trails (far thicker near the location of the chain) was the best way to go about it. It's a pretty simple effect, but it took a few tries to get the portrayal of it to an acceptable level.

The second edit is pretty ridiculous, but if you were to take anything out of it, mabye it would be how a better understanding of anatomy can lead to a more dynamic pose. I changed one of the oranges to a blue on the hat for ease of editing and subconsciously it must have reminded me of that sarah palin pic where she's in a swimsuit holding a shotgun. So that's where the ridiculousness came from. I didn't realize it until I added the shotgun, though. Anyways, I'm sure there are some flaws in my anatomy so don't take anything I did there as absolute law.

As for the misinterpretation on the zeppelin edit, I was pretty sure that I was doing it wrong, but I thought it would make for a neat effect anyways. As for the zoom feature, the old version of firefox does not blur the zooming, firefox 3 does, however. The reason I mention it, is because if somebody would want to do an edit on one of your pieces, it would be much better for them if it were in its original resolution. I had to halve the size of the gang members in photoshop, actually.

[TheInquisitor]

That chain swinging effect works perfectly! That's exactly what I was picturing, but just couldn't achieve that effect. I'll keep that one in the back of my mind for future pieces. A slick job there, Doppleganger. As for Sarah Palin, that's a hell of an edit you made. It's obviously a bigger size than mine to get in the extra detail and allow for more unique posing.  I like the way the hat you've done is a lot looser than mine as well with the outline too. Again another another load of stiffness on my part, something I'm going to have to deal with.

Thanks for the help again, Dop. Both edits look great!