It's been a good while.

[Atrophy]

Well.. Hello there, I haven't been around this neck of the woods in a hefty amount of time. I sadly faded from pixel art for a bit.. but yesterday, I opened up graphics gale. and began to pixel.. what started out as only an eye.. moved to become something that i think is well done for being out of the pixel scene for about a year.
Anyway.. without further adieu.. The piece that I did.



Critiques and such would be fantastic. I would really love to get back into pixeling, so motivate me please.  

[Dyble]

There should be holes on the beak like this

Here

[Atrophy]

Thanks for the reply. I completely forgot about the beak. hopefully now it looks okay.

[Scribblette]

I was going to say this was beautiful, but I have the real thing perched on my wrist right now and can't think anything would compare - plus, with this version I can bury my nose in a fluffy tummy. Mwa!

It's lovely, though. If you're wanting to go all hardcore on it, I'd redo the eyes - they don't do justice to the lovely feathers you've got there. I guess the only other thing that comes to mind is that they have finer/tinier feathers in the area from nose to beak in most birds I see... as thick as they are in your picture, they make me think of, maybe, sheep? Wool, somehow.

That said, there's no reason why you couldn't have a complete fantasy creature built as you're doing, and as game art I wouldn't pick at it at at all (except maybe more detail on the eye).

Edit: Ha, nose to beak. I meant between the eyes and beak. For some reason I've always imagined an invisible nose between the eyes and nostril.

[Sm.]

How bout some more reflective realistic eyes?



I think it would totally fit in  .

P.S. @ Scribblette: You barely beat me to the point .

[Bissle]

Have to back up the previous posts; the feathers are gorgeous. Like you said, you started off with an eye and it grew from there, so it looks kind of out-of-place in this piece. A more realistic eagle eye like in Sm.'s pic qould work better. Also, perhaps the feathers around the eye and nose shouldn't be so dense.

In any case, this doesn't look like the work of someone who's been out of practice for a year--Great work! 

[Atrophy]

Have to back up the previous posts; the feathers are gorgeous. Like you said, you started off with an eye and it grew from there, so it looks kind of out-of-place in this piece. A more realistic eagle eye like in Sm.'s pic qould work better. Also, perhaps the feathers around the eye and nose shouldn't be so dense.

In any case, this doesn't look like the work of someone who's been out of practice for a year--Great work!  

Thanks, sorry for the delay. Had personal things to take care of.
Anyway, I did touch of the feathers around the beak a little.. probably for the worst.. but as for the eye.. I'm HORRID at.. and this is the like the best I could do.

Next thing I should try to do is merge the colors of the beak into the features.. or at least cut it down a little.