[WIP] Lord Vehement

[Vermolius]

Just note that I'm a newbie at pixel art. I'm challenging myself by learning the way of the pixel.

I've got a fun little game planned and I decided I'd start piddling with sprites since I'm terrible at everything!

Anyway, I've settled on a process by which I first draw the outline of what I want with some detail lines as well. Then I move on to trying to shade it in.

Here is Lord Vehement in all his glory:
=> => => => => =>

I also made an isometric-ish (ish: considering I don't know the proper angle) treasure chest for practice:


Being new, I'm looking for constructive criticism along with tips for pixel art in general. Any and all aid is very much welcome!

Thanks.

[Pizza Tom]

His legs should probably be a bit longer. You've also got a lot of detail in a relatively small space, so at 1x it looks a bit noisy. There's also little contrast, so it looks a bit flat.

[Vermolius]

His legs should probably be a bit longer. You've also got a lot of detail in a relatively small space, so at 1x it looks a bit noisy. There's also little contrast, so it looks a bit flat.

Taking your advice, I made the legs longer, changed the palette a bit, and put in a bunch of work on killing the noise.



I'd say it's coming along but I'm having trouble with it looking like he has underwear on    That and I'm having trouble with shading the legs in general.

Please advise.

[Ddawg]

I think the leg shading is fine, I don't know what YOU mean.
Yeah the underwear is weird...Maybe if you make it darker or lighter then the rest of him, it'll look better.

[Derek_Reaves]

Hey! Nice progress there Vermolius.

Heres a tip for you.

Don't be scared of playing around with the hues of your piece. Sometimes it takes a good while to tweak, but the end result is worth it. Think about different colors that can be used for shadows and highlights of a color.

Your main color is red in this piece. Purple is a great shadow color for red and yellow is a great highlight color.

For green yellow can be a highlight and blue a shade. Same goes for other colors as well.

Heres a quick edit to show you just how much more depth a nice color palette can add to your piece. All I did was change the hue of all your shadows and highlights. No saturation or lum(ination?) changes.



One on the far left is your original. I personally prefer the middle one, but don't think these are complete! I'm only critiquing the coloring, and my edits only took about 2 minutes so play around with it and study other peoples pieces to see how they go about contrasting their shades.

I just noticed I didn't touch the cape! sorry!

Also just curious, what are you developing the game in?

[Derek_Reaves]

Hey! Nice progress there Vermolius.

Heres a tip for you.

Don't be scared of playing around with the hues of your piece. Sometimes it takes a good while to tweak, but the end result is worth it. Think about different colors that can be used for shadows and highlights of a color.

Your main color is red in this piece. Purple is a great shadow color for red and yellow is a great highlight color.

For green yellow can be a highlight and blue a shade. Same goes for other colors as well.

Heres a quick edit to show you just how much more depth a nice color palette can add to your piece. All I did was change the hue of all your shadows and highlights. No saturation or lum(ination?) changes.



One on the far left is your original. I personally prefer the middle one, but don't think these are complete! I'm only critiquing the coloring, and my edits only took about 2 minutes so play around with it and study other peoples pieces to see how they go about contrasting their shades.

I don't know how this got quoted. I pressed modify and this appeared . Sorry about that. Requesting deletion of this post please

[Vermolius]

I've since updated further. I:

• Wasn't satisfied with the legs so I reshaped them, which I believe turned out better.
• I changed his abdomen a little and added cape along his shoulders.

@Derek_Reaves
Thank you kindly for the wonderful advice. I'll see what I can do.

I've been operating under the impression that for shadows one should aim for colder colors (blue/purple) and highlights should be warmer colors. (yellow/orange). I'm also considering the alteration of the color scheme, in some places, to break the monotony of the red. The cape is just a venture, he looked bland without -something-, I would love to hear what you have to offer about the cape.

I haven't really decided where I plan on putting the programming together. My options are open. Maybe XNA. I do know that it's going to be a single player RPG.

[MdNight]

Hey pal, it seems you've come a long way since you first show me this. For starters his srmor seems to be made of clay rather than metal, it is very round and not shiny enough. His arms seem to in a very tense position and they are a little short, His feet seem to be a little big and look like two potatoes. The cape looks like it is made of cardboard. Like you said before he is very monochrmatic and therefore very dull, try using hue shifting and reshape the armor. Well anyways I hope this help I'll leave you with this edit I made for you hope it helps.

Cheers!


P.S: I didn't shade the cape I just redesign it.

[Vermolius]

That's pretty fancy MdNight! I like what you've done with the armor. I might try to incorporate more of a gleaming metallic look but as I went I felt more and more like he should be fleshy. I'm going to recolor some of him and see how he looks then. Will update, possibly tonight.

[Vermolius]

Following advice I've made a bunch of changes. I'm still toying with the cape as it is proving difficult. I made his shoulder spikes a bit spikier, flanged out and recolored the cape, moved the glare on the faceplate and chest-piece to match the light source, spread his legs apart a tad, and re-added the shadow around his feet.



Suffice it to say I'm not entirely pleased with the cape, it is the best I've gotten it to look though. I wouldn't mind advice on the shadow either, keep in mind it will be partially transparent in game.