Vic. He ain't a fan of the Moai.

[Jakten]

For the pixel joint challenge. Its not finished yet but I think alls I've really go to do is some polishing and some fixing on the lighting.
Old --> New --> Newer

Anything I can improve on?

[Mathias]

That aircraft in the sky? Is it supposed to be assaulting the statue? I ask due to yer thread name. This image seems to try to tell a story, but I can't tell what it is. The nondescript bg feels like a cop-out. Maybe some little moai silhouettes on the horizon. The straight on frontal perspective of the statue is a little drab. Go for crazier lighting to spice 'er up.

[Overkill]

Hehe, I like the Gradius reference.

But I think your piece needs a bit more work before you can call it finished. Here a few things I've noticed.

For one, the Moai needs volume. The weird light-edges-at-top thing needs a reworking. It looks like selective outlining gone wrong. If you're going to blend into a dark scenary, you need to anti-alias with darker buffer shades, not bright edges.

The shadow color is too washed out to really work, make the thing a richer purple or possibly go with a dark reddish-brown. Actually, the real problem is that bright orange. If you make it less saturated, the thing starts to look a  lot better.

If you look at most Moai heads you can't really see the eyes, because they're obscured by shadows http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a2/Moai_Rano_raraku.jpg

Next the background, is that grasss, or rocks surrounding your Moai? I recommend adding a lighter and darker shade to better define volumes. Also, space background details. Gradius always had a heavily starry sky with planets flowing by.

Next, you need to make the Moai stand out from the background, while not clashing with it. So make him pop out from the other foreground elements

I wouldn't have realized that was the Vic Viper at all if it weren't for the title of the thread, because the view is too obscured. It's a nice silhouette but it needs something to make it more readable as a ship. If you look at the actual Graduius game sprites, the ship is still readable from underneath, because it has some volume to it. Yours looks like a flat red spiky cloud right now.
I'd probably say switching to a diving down view of the Vic Viper if you want it to be noticed.

Oh, oh, and where's the ship's blue flame trail?

EDIT: Realized a mistake for this piece. A darker purple shadow makes things worse.

EDIT 2: Made an edit to the palette and the Moai head:


EDIT 3: Doh, I didn't realize the palette was limited for this contest. FIXED.

[Jad]

You are shading individual pixels, and thereby enhancing the pixels' sharp edges, thus creating a stair-case-like cut-effect every time a pixel row ends. Or, what it looks like you're doing - you're shading to black with a colour brighter than both the colour area AND the background (I realize this is not AA, but you put the pixels in the same places as the AA pixels would appear)

In the end the highlight pixels are just going to be disjointed dots that make the outline look more jaggy than a clean edge (!) when zoomed out, and when zoomed in they just enhance the squareness of the pixels.

Shade in clusters (hello helm terminology). The bright pixels are part of a bright cluster. Where does this cluster appear? Draw the whole cluster - no disjointed pixels, no noise where there should be unity, just big blobs of pixels.

[Jakten]

I probably should have posted the Palette haha sorry.



Anyways I think I addressed most of the issues. I tried to add a bit of a better lighting on it to add volume. I think the straight on lighting was killing it. I figured I should add an exploding Moai in the back ground so you can get a sense of the danger the main moai is in. Also I think I'm going to add some of the 'O' lasers that they shoot. I'm not sure how keen I am on the lighting I put on the ground yet but atleast it gives it some more definition. I'm also having trouble making it appear that the Moai noticed he was about to get smoked by a laser.

[Overkill]

Ooh nice update. The lighting is definitely improved on this update.

I agree with you, it could use some of those red O rings.

As far as making a better I made a rough edit, but it looks more like the Moai's concerned than fearing for his life. In particular though, you need to do some clever shadow manipulation to give the illusion of eyebrows being raised


Perhaps add another laser that's a little closer range than the current one because the Vic Viper does repeatedly fire bullet streams normally.

I like the rocks, though they might need another buffer shade in there. I almost feel like you could use even more stars, but maybe do that after you're finished with the rest of the scene

[Jakten]

I added a buffer, Used the dark redish colour.  I can't tell if it is too vibrant to be there though or not.
Also Punky suggested that I should maybe have a laser just nicking him. Does it read well enough?

[huZba]

I think the first version had more tension in the air. The moai comes to realize the vic viper might have noticed him, he might die, but it's possible that he's still unnoticed. Lots of tension.
Now he's a second from dying for certain. It's a moment of release.

Also i think it was for the benefit of the piece that the viper isn't instantly recognizable, but you know what it is if when you look for a sec. This way you'll join in the thoughts of the moai. (in the first version that is)

Lighting the face with something more appropriate would work for your benefit whichever path you choose. Think of the themes present. If you go with your newest version, it's the terror of death. The position here is that you're sided with the moai while the viper is the evil terrorizing him. Can you reflect this in your choice of color and lighting? Moai undeserving of his fate, viper vigorously commited to moai genocide. Maybe the moai could have a more powerful expression?