[wip] Burning Witch

[Tuivelswip]

Hi everybody. I have a question, maybe somebody can help me.
I made this pic, but I'm not yet happy with it. How can I illustrate the reflection of the fire on the objects? For example on the woman's body.
Thanks for your help
Greetings Tuivelswip

(Thank you for the info. )

[alspal]

can you host that image somewhere else? I'm just seeing a tiny resized iimage

[Crow]

There's a certain trick for ImageShack images you can use to easily get the original filename out of the thumbnail
Here's the original sized one:

[Bissle]

Looking pretty good--great form! I think there could be a greater contrast regarding the colors, and the woman's face needs more definition.

Try red and yellowish shades for the reflection of the fire.

[Tuivelswip]

Thank you very much for your tips.  I tried to visualise what you advised me. I think it looks already a bit better now. But I have still problems with the shadowing.
How can I put more contrast into the picture, without making it to dark? And how can I make the smoke look more smoky? 
I appreciate every advise. Have a nice Sunday. 

[Bissle]

Yes, a big improvement! The shading under her dress is much better, and reflection of the fire looks good, too, except over her chest, it looks like a rip, not sure it that was intentional. The smoke seems sufficiently smokey to me 

For better contrast, just keep experimenting with different combos of colors until you find something you like.

I'm hoping that someone would edit this to give you a good reference.

Keep it up, I'd love to see another update soon.

[Opacus]

Hi there.

I made an edit for you.
It's only the head and chest area I edited.


Though the idea is very nice, the execution is currently lacking a bit. One of the things that stands out the most to me is that you seem to want this to be TOO smooth.
In pixel art, there's often no room for this since it's at such a small resolution. You want everything to look well defined and readable. That is your first priority. After that you can smooth things out.
But still, you don't want to loose any of that volume or readability because you smoothed it out too much.

One of the reasons that it looks so soft, and lacking in contrast, is the amount of colours you used.
ProMotion counted a whopping 100 colours!

This is far more than you'll ever need in pixel art. In the largest of pieces you might need 64(And even then, a really complex piece. Such as http://www.pixeljoint.com/pixelart/6661.htm), and in mockups you may find more sometimes because of a lack of optimalisation.
For a pixel art this size you will never need more than ~32 colours.
You have so many useless colours in this! And with useless, I mean colours that you can't differentiate from one another.
There are many colours that are practically the same, but just a teeny tiny bit lighter. This is unneeded.
Try to use as little colours as possible. You might even be able to make this look better with as little as 20 colours or so.

You also seem to put too much effort into the textures, before you've created the basic forms. And in this way volumes are obscured. Which makes the whole piece look flat, and dull.
You seem to have tried some secondary lighting, by letting that light from the fire light the underside of her breasts. Though correct, it's too much.
Just a subtle line as I demonstrated in my edit suffices. It's also alot less light than in your version. Because the light does loose some of it's intensity when it hits that cloth.
On metal it would probably be the same colour, but on a matte surface like a dress, it would never remain it's original intensity.

What I suggest here is that you study some pixel art upclose. Discover what makes it pixel art.
And I also think a volume study wouldn't be out of place here. Study how light falls on an object, and what it does to the form, the contrast and the overall appearance of the object.

[Tourist]

Some comments:

The scene is intriguing.  It makes me want to know more about what's going on.

I like the flames.  They look good.


On the other hand,

Bonfires just don't look like that.  They burn from the inside, not the outer edges.  Air rises in the middle (where the flames are) and gets pulled in from the sides to feed the flame.  The tinder is placed in the center inside of the larger sticks.  Google image search for bonfire offers this nice example:




The other problem I see is the lighting.  If the setting is night, then most of the light should be coming from the fire rather than the sky.  If the fire is just starting (and is small)  then light from the sky is more visible, but it makes the fire less threatening.   But strong orange lighting from underneath would really change the way the face is lit up, and not in a good way. 

Unfortunately, this might mean rethinking the composition a bit.  If the wood was stacked in an irregular heap, you might get away with fire around the edges more.  If the witch is really expected to burn (rather than be rescued at the last moment) then I'd say put the fire in the middle of the wood pile like the image above.  If you want strong flames and clear features, maybe set the thing during the day or early evening, for the sun to provide light. 

You might consider putting a ring of spectators as the background.  Executions usually attract a crowd and you can use their clothing to help define the time period and circumstances.  They wouldn't need a lot of detail, just enough to suggest what's going on.

Hope this helps,
Tourist

[Tuivelswip]

Thank you two for your useful tips!
I'm just starting to get familiar with pixel art and I guess I still make lot of mistakes.  But I'm willing to learn new things! 
I had not that much time to consider all the inputs you gave me. But I want to make progress, so I used the little time I had to work on the lightnings and shadings...
The example from "Opacus" was very useful! The face looks a lot better now. Much more human  . I just changed the facial expression, because I wanted her to look kind of angry (I mean, she's a witch  ). And I tried to use the technique you showed me on the woman's body/dress. I'm curious what you think about it...

About the fire... I wanted it to look like it just started to burn. The scene has to be at night, because it just looks better. I know this is probably not very realistic, but that's the power of fantasy!
I thought about to include a crowd in the background... But at the moment this one person was challenge enough for me...

Again, thank you for your advices.

 

[Dr D]

You can't actually take Opacus' boobs.

[Gil]

Yeah, agreed, that looks like an edit of Opacus' edit. It's very minor though.

[Tuivelswip]

I am very sorry if it looks like I took the edit. Maybe I just did it too much the same.  I just tried to get it that way he showed me with his example. But I see what you mean.
I tried now to use the same shading but more different now. This time I'm happy with it. But I'll continue working on it.

Have a nice evening.

[Opacus]

You can't actually take Opacus' boobs.

That sounds so wrong in so many ways.

[Tuivelswip]

I promise, I will never ever take anybodies boobs!  

Well, here is my newest try on my picture... Now it's a bit darker and more reddish. I'm very interested in your opinion.

 

[Tuna Unleashed]

I think the white dress was better, it seemed to reinforce her innocence.

[Tuivelswip]

First I tried to keep the white dress. But in this version with more red colours it just seemed not to fit any more. It also looks more like the scene plays at night... But somehow I liked the white dress better too... I don't know which one I shall keep...

Here both examples...