Avatars!

[Pizza Tom]

..But not the Jad kind. XD

Trying to make a simple headshot avatar for a friend of mine, and hopefully three more when it's done.



Here's the reference:


I was trying to go with a monochrome palette. It was just good luck that I found a pic already like that, I guess. XD

Anyway, the issues I'm having:
-The face looks too man-like
-No idea where to go with the hair
-worst problem is probably the nose area, dunno how to fix it

Oh, and it's four colors. I'm considering adding pure black and/or white, though. Not sure if such a restricted palette is a good idea for such a novice. Thoughts?

[Joel]

Eyes are too large, cheeks are also a little too puffy.. these two things alone will probably create much more likeness of the reference. Great start however Hair-wise you will probably want to give it overall lights and shadows and then selectively lighten prominent strands/groups of hair that catch more light, which you've already begun. It might also help too look at relative proportion, at this point you can see that from the angle we are seeing, the distance between the top of her head to just above the eyes is about the same as the distance between the top of her eyes to her chin, if you raise the sunglasses a few pixels it should look more correct.

Probably more I could comment on, but that's all I have time for now Good luck!

[NaCl]

Hey Regulus, nice piece. You used only 4 colors impressively. I pecked at it a little, take from it what you will:



I feel the main issues are her left eye, and the nose. I think you made the shine on the nose too wide, and it makes it look like she has a very wide nose, and makes it look like it is angled differently then the rest of the face.

[Pizza Tom]

Thanks, Joel! Tried to follow your advice here..


Old --> New

I'm excited, it's actually starting to look like her! Long way to go, though.

@NaCl: You posted right before I did!  I'll see what I can work with from your edit tomorrow.

Things to definitely do:
-Resize nose highlight
-Shrink sunglasses, I think?

[Joel]

Those subtle changes made a huge difference. You are well on your way with this piece

[Dr D]

Just a small crit.
Although essentially the pixels, in the eyes, between your piece and the references are very similar, the way she's looking are totally different. In your pixel version, she is looking off to the top-left, in the reference she is looking straight at the viewer/camera. I think it would do you well to show a bit of the white of the eye to the left of the pupils to clarify this.

[EvilEye]

Don't take this the wrong way, but your friend has a boy-ish look to her face. Unless you deviate from the photo, the portrait will look a bit man-like no matter what, especially at a low resolution with few colors.

A few problems:

The nose you drew is hooked, hers is turned up.

The eyes are a bit too small ( though in my edit they are too big  )

The shape of the jaw and the cheeks are not rounded enough ( thus the masculine look )


Here's an edit:

[Joshua]

Quick edit. Basically, the idea is to try and line up the features according to each other. For instance, the pupil generally lines up with the corners of the mouth. The inner part of the eye generally lines up with the corner of the nostril. Once you have found these correlations within your reference then it becomes a lot easier to draw a likeness.

[Pizza Tom]

Whoa, that's a lot more help than I thought I'd get! Hope I can live up to your expectations.. xD



Old --> Current

Not sure if I covered everything that was addressed, but it's definitely better. Thanks! 

I dunno if I should keep the dithering on the cheek, figured I'd get some second opinions first.

Also, anyone think I should add an extra color? Joshua's edit in particular was awesome, but he used 6 colors whereas I used 4. xP If a color or two can make that much of a difference, I'd certainly do it, but I don't want to add more if I can manage with 4. Thoughts?

[Joel]

I think it looks quite good at it's size and amount of colours, but might benefit with another highlight like Joshua demonstrated. So you could get away with one extra colour for sure, and then see if it would benefit adding another one. Joshua really captured the eyes well which I think is important because it gives her face a feminine look, even though as EvilEye said her face isn't extremely feminine. But it's these subtleties that communicate to viewers that it is a female. (But to be fair, makeup is often what gives the strong female looks for a lot of girls.)

[Dr D]

In joshua's edit the cheeks accentuate the eyes. The eyes themselves aren't changed much. (Slightly, but the cheeks really help them) Things accentuating each other, something else you should keep in mind. 

[Pizza Tom]

Added another color and tried some more dithering. At this point, I'd be ready to call the face done, unless anyone can spot any problems I missed. 

...As you can see from the right side, I really don't know what I'm doing with the hair. xP I couldn't find any tutorials or examples that weren't in a cartoony/anime style. Help? XD

[EvilEye]

The shadow under the nose is going the wrong way, should be going to the right, its going to the left.

Only other crit I would have is it doesn't quite look like the girl in the picture, but thats pretty hard to do with such a small resolution.

Good improvement though 

[Helm]

You're not finished.

Here's an edit and a few explanations below:



You're not using the value range optimally, I think. Pixel art is about the controlled placement of every pixel. Especially in small resolutions such as this, bad pixel placements and being sloppy really shows. I suggest giving love to every little detail. My edit isn't even 50% as carefully done as it would be if it were my own piece.

Dithering is also a really complicated thing to consider in such small spaces where a single pixel takes up so much space. I'd say the smaller the piece of art the less useful dithering is. I tried to use dithering well here but if it were my piece I'd do without dithering aallllmost completely (some fades are necessary).

Try to think about pixel art as pixel art more. Try to think what you can do to maximise the capability of your pixels in small groups (forget about single pixel noise, try to think of them as in groups of two or more of the same color. Check out how I didn't use any single pixels almost anywhere). This is an important point for the pixel art beginner. Think of shapes of pixels and how to make them band as little as possible while also accentuating the forms you want to convey. It's a juggling act between precision-to-form, aa and avoiding banding, essentially.