Jello

[Fidsah]

In a thread over yonder, Jakten posted a pic of Jell-O as a reference for a jelly creature. I happened to like the pic, so decided to whip up a 32x32 tile of it.

Original:

Product:


The palette went a little heavier than I realized, mostly because I didn't pay enough attention and used too similar colors without confirming I was already using it. What got me the most was the reflection. 

C+C encouraged.

[QuaziGNRLnose]

fix the pallete, convert it to a gif and look at the pallete index.

[Fidsah]

Fixed the palette, and touched up a few places during the process.

[QuaziGNRLnose]

i dont know if its your AA, but it seems noisy, kind of like a jpg, and why are you pixeling something so tiny? make it a bit bigger, 64*64 maybe?

[Fidsah]

I'm doing small because smaller is harder for me. If the AA seems off, then it's something I'll have to see if I can do better.

As a bit of a heads up, I'm a coder dabbling in the other side of the fence for a change, so trying to carry over minute differences and detail in a limited amount of space is one of my biggest deficiencies. Working in small tile sizes with vastly limited space has been pushing me pretty good so far.

However, I do like your idea of doing it again in 64x64. That would give me a bit more room to work with to see if I can overcome some of the limitations of such a small tile size.

Thanks!

[Atnas]

I don't think I've ever heard anyone tell someone they were pixelling too small before.

I made an edit for you.



You constrained yourself to an isometric box. This isn't always good. It's best to be dynamic! because things end up looking lifeless and boring when they're following a grid of some sort. In addition to following the contour of the reference more accurately, I made the highlight stronger. I noticed you're using a lot of diagonals for the interior highlights. It's tempting because 45 degree angles always look nice and clean, but it isn't all that accurate to the reference and can look weird because that's not how light should go. Your palette seemed pretty static, it tended to stay near zero in terms of hue, but it works pretty nice and I made only small changes. :3 Pay attention to useless colors, it's extra work for you and muddies up the piece.

I didn't carry out my critique/edit as best as I think I could've if I had more time, but I think I covered everything well enough for you to be on your merry way pixelling! Just work closely to your reference, notice subtleties (such as the foremost and backmost verticies, in the picture they're offset!) and you will be fine.

I just previewed my post and you've replied, awesome pixel work for a coder! I don't think 64x64 would be easier, at least in my opinion and experience.

[Fidsah]

Thanks for the reply and edit. One of the reasons I kept it as isometric as I did was because I was having problems keeping the bottom corners looking sharp. After seeing how you did it, I can see that I wasn't applying AA to the degree I could have. I also like the much more aggressive highlighting, which captures the portions that I could not seem to get right.  I'm going to eyeball this for a small while, and try to take in some of the other variances I'm not quite grasping at the moment. Much thanks.

[Fidsah]

Adjusted the palette a bit, changed some of the angles to be more inline with the shape of the jello, went with the more aggressive highlighting, and a few other minute details.

[hotnikkelz]

Hmm i think you could've drifted away from the reference a bit. Jellos come in different colours after all
You could also be creative with the colour of the shadow with the size of this pic. It doesn't HAVE to be dark red even if the jello is red.

[Dr D]

Well I'm not exactly sure, but I think the shadows shouldn't be too different in hues, as the shadows are primarily on the other side of the jello, and we can only see them because of the jello's transparency. Since we're looking through the color of the jello, we'd see that color in the shadow. I'm not sure if I explained it right..