Death Lord - PixelArt Scene

[venatorinc]

Hey,

just started on a new project, wanted to draw a (un)death lord still sitting in its throne, in the middle of a volcano/cave
Made some line-art of the lord himself and his throne, background will come at last.


These are NOT the colors I will be using, just did this to make a difference between the throne and the lord himself.
Any comments/critics? Or should I already start coloring/shading?

Thanks,
Lorenzo

[CrazyMLC]

The undeath lord looks very anorexic and pathetic. I see no menacing look in his eyes, and he looks like he's just standing on short little legs. 
Nothing a few touch-ups cant fix, I assure you! 

[venatorinc]

I also thought the legs looked kinda weird. I'll edit that, but by the way:
it's his "corpse", he's only half-alive, so that's why he's anorexic 
Also, he doesn't even have eyes XD Need to shade it so it looks like 2 empty holes 

[QuaziGNRLnose]

i keep telling people this and your no exception, SCALE DOWN! why is it so big?! its going to be very difficult to make this look right at this size, especially when it has no realistic volumes to work with because of the rough line art!!!
half the size at least! especially if its one of your first pieces.

[venatorinc]

i keep telling people this and your no exception, SCALE DOWN! why is it so big?! its going to be very difficult to make this look right at this size, especially when it has no realistic volumes to work with because of the rough line art!!!
half the size at least! especially if its one of your first pieces.

I love doing art on big scales. And no, it's not one of my first pixels. I've got over a year of experience 
And it only looks really big thanks to the white bg, but that's just a preview of where the real background is coming.

[Ultimaodin]

@quaz- actually I personally found doing big images to start off with to be better. It helped me learn shapes, shading and dithering techniques especially when retricting the pallet. Big piecs are good to learn from as they require more to edit but they are easy to see what eeds to be edited. That's my personal oppinion. However it's usually better to do so with a referance and I get the feeling ven doesn't have such.
First off considering the view point of the chair the guys knees should go up and cover part of his waist line for visibility. The shoulder pads (argh I hate shoulder pads) look way too pointy, curve it a bit at the end. The chair's spikes are a bit ugly. The bottom one is good but the form of the thers are horrid. What programme are you using? If your using Paint Shop Pro or Photoshop, try selecting said spike and duplicating it.  Then try rotating and minimising slightly to get the idea of the shapes for the others and redrawn with the lines as an example. (when you rotate it will more than likely become blurred unless you're a weird arse like me who creates their line art as vector selections)

also what s with the rib/hip flab?

[venatorinc]

I just use Paint.. got kinda used to it
Edited:
-Throne spikes
-Shoulder pads
-Knees

[LoTekK]

Regardless of your over-a-year of experience, you may want to consider working a little smaller, if only to work on your lines. You appear to be rushing your lines, which wouldn't be so tempting on a smaller piece.



Then there's the aforementioned anatomical issues.

[Opacus]

Sorry to say but: A year of experience isn't that much. Especially not so with pixel art unless you're extremely talented.
I'd say the average pixelartist is only ready for such sizes after 4 years or so.

Anyway, here's my two cents:
For a dark lord he's hardly conveying any vibe. He doesn't look very dark, or evil. He's just kind of zombie sitting on a throne.
You want something as menacing as a darklord to have alot of pressence and make it all look very dramatic.
One thing that can help achieve this is an interesting perspective.

Your current image is hardly exciting. It's because we're just look straight at him, like he's a normal guy sitting on a normal char.
It's very undynamic, and very uninteresting. Here are 2 suggestions for you. The one a bit more extreme then the other but it illustrates my point.



And for inspiration:
http://www.pcpowerplay.com.au/games/images/news/0809/lichkingdate.jpg

[Ultimaodin]

Relax the shoulders themselves and make the elbows touch the arms of the chair, as right now the arm chairs look very far away from his body. The arms of the character himself look straight. Try sitting in an arm chair and see how your arms rest.
The knees need to be less rounded I think. Not sure how to explain.
The Spikes are definately improved however you have jaggies as Lotek stated. remember to use decendin patterns like: 8-6-4-3-2-1
never: 8-6-4-5-2-3-2-1-1

Oh and tilt the feet slightly outward, rarely ever do they sit flat and straight on.