My first drawing XD

[AllesiaTheHedge]

So yeah my first drawing i realised ever in pixels XD and  i would like to know what kind of mistakes i did so i could improve someday.

And i have some questions like: what size of file i would use?
-when i try to change the size of it, it sometimes gets blurry when zooming in or out which makes it annoying. And i would like to know what kind of file i should save so it could have a better quality?

Thanks and i would apreaciate it a lot if you help me =) and PS its also my first time of joinning PixelArt XD

so if your still wondering it's a character created by me and it has still no name, actually its just one random all perfect for practice in pixels XD so it's paochatian^^

[CharlesGabriel]

I like this, looks impressive... there were some small things however. I'm no expert, but I find the whole straight black around the eyes a little bit weird... maybe shading that part a little or something, looks kinda meh considering the rest of the picture is really well done... also I noted that you went 2 pixels in lines on the top part of the face, check that out too.


About the file extension... .gif is fine, although I prefer .png. To resize a picture, there are many ways to do it... just go based by 1x, 2x, 3x etc... that's the way to make it look perfect. In a program that resizes/expands images, if the current image is 200x200, just set it up to 400x400 so that way it becomes 2x in size, and doesn't look blurry... of course, just mark it as resize, not resample.

Now, for my sprites, I do a more primitive action lol. I just expand the area of the image, and zoom it in ms. paint to 2x, I take an PRINT SCREEN action which you can do by hitting the PRINT SCREEN button on your keyboard, and then paste it in the same image... after this you just highlight the 2x sprite and CTRL + C (copy it) then CTRL + Z twice, to undo both highlighting and pasting the entire screen capture, and end it by CTRL + V (paste). Now you have an easy fast way of copying it right away, just put it next to it or something.

On this site, users can zoom the sprite by just clicking on it, I don't know how to restore the zooming to 1x though, maybe someone from the staff can help answer this question.

[Opacus]

Gif is better, really. Png's are much larger and the colours fade as you resave it.
This is pretty good for a first try that's for sure. The biggest problem here though is anatomy.
I did a quick overpaint of your drawing. Take a look at this:

I can see you went for an anime-ish aproach here. You should probably focus on the real thing till you can get that right.
You should look more at the proportions of a wolf. Look up some pictures of wolves in similair poses and analyse them.
(My overpaint is not entirely correct either. Don't use it as direct reference or anything .
It's head is too big, for example.)
Maybe these can help you along the way:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tammyjq41/2333471483/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/21651868@N07/2441964510/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/howardpennphoto/556438068/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rlw/2536447639/

[Emtch]

The bend of the front legs are too high, and I don't think the legs should bend very much in an idle stance.
The neck is very weird, why does it go up that much.
The eye doesn't look canine.

Still good job though.

[Terley]

sorry, I totally disagree Opacus, AllesiaTheHedge seems to have a good grip with what she's doing from what I can see, of course apply what you can observe and learn from real life into your work but I really wouldn't advise to scrap the creativity and run down the path of bore. It's a character, therefore it's quite important to have some relatable features in there, I love how quaintly you've drawn this allesia really looks well rendered, nice posture, maybe the back hind leg could be revised a bit though.

Is this a female character can I ask? because thats definately something you could work on with this, not with overexagering female characteristics to it thats a bit ott but how it's shaped could be a tad more defined to what the character is.

On a pixel level you've definately come to the right place because you're colour choices are quite questionable in places, though it does have that nice quality I think it'd definately be benificial to work on your pallete (possibly put a small colour mixer to the side to help). What I primarily mean is to cut it down on unwanted colours and try work with a set amount, what some people try to do is give them a limit, If I were working on this I'd most likely try to stick to about 16, atm my photoshop reads about 233   is it because the filetype? well that aside I can definately see a lot of places where this definately applies neway.

Well thats my thoughts to begin with, I think it's important you settle on a right palette before anything right now.  

goodluck, keep us updated with any progress  

[Opacus]

sorry, I totally disagree Opacus, AllesiaTheHedge seems to have a good grip with what she's doing from what I can see, of course apply what you can observe and learn from real life into your work but I really wouldn't advise to scrap the creativity and run down the path of bore. It's a character, therefore it's quite important to have some relatable features in there, I love how quaintly you've drawn this allesia really looks well rendered, nice posture, maybe the back hind leg could be revised a bit though.

Is this a female character can I ask? because thats definately something you could work on with this, not with overexagering female characteristics to it thats a bit ott but how it's shaped could be a tad more defined to what the character is.

On a pixel level you've definately come to the right place because you're colour choices are quite questionable in places, though it does have that nice quality I think it'd definately be benificial to work on your pallete (possibly put a small colour mixer to the side to help). What I primarily mean is to cut it down on unwanted colours and try work with a set amount, what some people try to do is give them a limit, If I were working on this I'd most likely try to stick to about 16, atm my photoshop reads about 233   is it because the filetype? well that aside I can definately see a lot of places where this definately applies neway.

Well thats my thoughts to begin with, I think it's important you settle on a right palette before anything right now.  

goodluck, keep us updated with any progress  

And I'm afraid I have to totally disagree with you here, haha.
I don't at all think she has a very good grip of the anatomy or posture. I think it looks rather strange.
The hind legs and paws are huge, the tail looks a bit strange, the waist is far too thing and it looks really akward in proportion to the hind legs.
I'm just saying there's a difference between changing proportions and deforming. And right now it looks deformed and a bit abnormal to me.

[allaze-eroler]

And I'm afraid I have to totally disagree with you here, haha.
I don't at all think she has a very good grip of the anatomy or posture. I think it looks rather strange.
The hind legs and paws are huge, the tail looks a bit strange, the waist is far too thing and it looks really akward in proportion to the hind legs.
I'm just saying there's a difference between changing proportions and deforming. And right now it looks deformed and a bit abnormal to me.

just to point it :

So yeah my first drawing i realised ever in pixels XD and  i would like to know what kind of mistakes i did so i could improve someday.

And i have some questions like: what size of file i would use?
-when i try to change the size of it, it sometimes gets blurry when zooming in or out which makes it annoying. And i would like to know what kind of file i should save so it could have a better quality?

Thanks and i would apreaciate it a lot if you help me =) and PS its also my first time of joinning PixelArt XD

so if your still wondering it's a character created by me and it has still no name, actually its just one random all perfect for practice in pixels XD so it's paochatian^^

so, terley was right about it : it's completly different from wolf or any other specie and beside, allesia have her gallery at it : http://allesiathehedge.deviantart.com/ you will noticed that it's her own art style and she study in art school.

for about the pose, i don't see any problem because my dog can have this pose. in fact, it's an afraid pose form.

i hope that allesia will not get harsh by these comments since it's my buddy... ^^;

[Opacus]

The thing is that regardless of wether it's a pose that can be taken by a dog, or that it's different from a regular wolf: It still looks strange to me!
When I look at the same character on her DeviantArt, it looks better. She nearly seems monkey like. Very athletic, a thin body and long legs and a rather large head.
http://allesiathehedge.deviantart.com/art/Chance-of-running-67549992
It looks right there. But in this pixel version something's just not natural about it. The back legs really are smaller in the versions on here deviantart, and they look better.
Let me demonstrate it in this way then:

I tried to stay more true to the character here, while still trying to make it look more flowing an more natural.

[TrevoriuS]

I may need someone to back me up here but I don't think alot of attention was paid to anatomy at all in this original

I can't say I'm a nexpert, but I do think you've got the relations between joints all wrong, where the elbow sticks out seems to be off according to where it folds etcetera. Also Opacus is now adding a fox like had, that's in no way necessary but with the current head I would make a more fluent neck and lower it a bit to create a more natural attachment and gesture. I've just sketched how I think this should be structured according to anatomical principled. You're making a dog or wolf liek creature and althoug you have full artistic freedom it becomes unconvincing when not following known anatomy. When you structurize your drawings it's also more logical when you for example want to end up animating this fellow.

[Terley]

Yeshh.. I agree.

Don't know if I was a bit too against you Opacus in that post, sorry dude. Just meant to advise not to totally swipe creativity under the rug, afterall art is an expression of ones self and she should be free to add some character into this, being more along the lines of Anthropomorphism and all. Yes definately apply what can be learnt from existing creatures today, foxes, wolves, dogs in general. Observation is you're best friend here, I think Trev has made some great points with the anatomy that should be adressed but I wouldn't feel push to scrapping what you're good at and go down the line of just illustrating a dog of sorts. Keep your character in there but use what people advise to push your work further.

[AllesiaTheHedge]

The thing is that regardless of wether it's a pose that can be taken by a dog, or that it's different from a regular wolf: It still looks strange to me!
When I look at the same character on her DeviantArt, it looks better. She nearly seems monkey like. Very athletic, a thin body and long legs and a rather large head.
http://allesiathehedge.deviantart.com/art/Chance-of-running-67549992
It looks right there. But in this pixel version something's just not natural about it. The back legs really are smaller in the versions on here deviantart, and they look better.
Let me demonstrate it in this way then:

I tried to stay more true to the character here, while still trying to make it look more flowing an more natural.

Well I do agree with Terley and TrevoriuS. And what you sent me the link belong to my dA site is indeed an old piccy updated 2 years ago if you're carefull to see when exactly. So yeah now i've improved more.

And, Opacus, i'm totally sorry that you missed reading what i was talking about, actually i just had invented that species, called rather "paochatian" and it might look like a wolf, but and some appearances of cat.and i do know of course drawing wolves.it doesn't matter if i did some mistakes of anatomy. it's just a practice of pixeling^^

Next time you should be carefull when doing it right and with who you would agree! 

[AllesiaTheHedge]

Thanks for every advise and i do really apreaciate it a lot. That's true of what Allaze said that my character looks quitely different from a cat and a wolf, because it was suppossed to be a new species i wanted to create and such a story too. So thanks for explaining them, Allaze.

If you want to know more there's my blog: http://paochatians.blogspot.com/

As you see what i was doing right. It was nearly a practice, though i wasn't referring at the anatomy i just wanted to try pixeling it then posting it for getting critiques, for sure.=) I also know about anatomy but I have to thank TrevoriuS for the tip

Like i said i'm just a new to here XD i hope i will post more if i will have time. Till now i've been great busy with school, plus exams X_X.

I hope here i will find some great tutorials 

[TrevoriuS]

Critiques may be harsh as everyone here are all nitpicky perfectionists from time to time, but don't be drawn back, all we do is give assumptions of what we think is right; which is an everly changing opinion

[Opacus]

The thing is that regardless of wether it's a pose that can be taken by a dog, or that it's different from a regular wolf: It still looks strange to me!
When I look at the same character on her DeviantArt, it looks better. She nearly seems monkey like. Very athletic, a thin body and long legs and a rather large head.
http://allesiathehedge.deviantart.com/art/Chance-of-running-67549992
It looks right there. But in this pixel version something's just not natural about it. The back legs really are smaller in the versions on here deviantart, and they look better.
Let me demonstrate it in this way then:

I tried to stay more true to the character here, while still trying to make it look more flowing an more natural.

Well I do agree with Terley and TrevoriuS. And what you sent me the link belong to my dA site is indeed an old piccy updated 2 years ago if you're carefull to see when exactly. So yeah now i've improved more.

And, Opacus, i'm totally sorry that you missed reading what i was talking about, actually i just had invented that species, called rather "paochatian" and it might look like a wolf, but and some appearances of cat.and i do know of course drawing wolves.it doesn't matter if i did some mistakes of anatomy. it's just a practice of pixeling^^

Next time you should be carefull when doing it right and with who you would agree! 

I'm always carefull with who I agree with. And I stick by my point.
I'm fine with the fact that you invented the species yourself. That's why I made that second draw over. Which isn't modeled after a wolf.

The fact of the matter is: The drawing disregards anatomy. So it still looks wrong.
Even when you create a new type of animal yourself wouldn't it be logical to still have it abide by the general anatomy of a four legged mamal?
As it currently stands the creature would in reality probably not be able to walk at all. Maybe it wouldn't even be able to live!

My edit simply makes some minor changes in your creature just to make it look more real, anatomy wise.

And you say you didn't refer to anatomy, and that you do know anatomy but for some reason didn't apply it and you just wanted critique on it.
But if you post a pixel art with incorrect anatomy you're bound to be criticized on it! That's really what critique is about isn't it?
If you know what errors your art has, mention them. So people don't point something out you already know.

And please don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to offend or insult you. I just want to help out!

Oh and Terley: Don't worry about it man

[TrevoriuS]

Opacus makes a very valid point here:
Never leave mistakes in, and never make something look like a mistake whil you're really still working on it. When working for a client and sending in a very jagged animation while you actually should add more keyframe blending to make that look nice, makes the client critique stuff you already know of. You don't want that as it wastes time for both sides. I'm talking purely commercial but it also applies to you getting critique from friends and fora, don't waste time with obvious mistakes; unless you want to trick your viewers in you improving alot and sitll having an excuse to do not go into minor details