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Total Members Voted: 52

[EpicJ]

I drew an Arctic Kobold, some custom species i've had for a while. I'm pretty proud of it, although there are some things i would probably tweak.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[Parsely]

I drew an Arctic Kobold, some custom species i've had for a while. I'm pretty proud of it, although there are some things i would probably tweak.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Looks cool! I like your palette.

[Parsely]

A doll that will become a character later.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

My favorite artist is posting her pixel art process, check it out!

[Doubloon-Seven]

I've never really tried pixel art, myself, but I gave it an attempt, and made a pretty nice (In my opinion) .gif of a mounted cannon. Bit small, though. What do you think of it, and what do you think I can improve upon in the future?

[Parsely]

I've never really tried pixel art, myself, but I gave it an attempt, and made a pretty nice (In my opinion) .gif of a mounted cannon. Bit small, though. What do you think of it, and what do you think I can improve upon in the future?

Good job for a first try! Most people don't start out straightaway with animation.

The muzzle blast lasts too long. The fire should probably be only one frame since it's rather instantaneous, and as for the smoke and debris coming out it's a bit much. Check out some videos of cannons being fired, usually the smoke is gone in less than a second, unless it's a ground vehicle in which case most of the dust tends to come from the ground rather than the gun itself.

https://youtu.be/pKnTdVEwoQ0?t=12s

Check out the tutorials I've linked in the OP for some good general advice on pixel art techniques, especially the one from PixelJoint.

[Lord_lemonpie]

So, this is the first time I seriously tried character spriting.

Spoiler: larger version (click to show/hide)

I know it's probably pretty shit, especially compared to the works of art you've all been chirning out. What can I improve?

For some reason the dude also kept getting a little thiccer every time I worked on his legs. Do I subconsiously like thicc guys? Anyways I had to resize his cheeks multiple times because they just kept growing.

I've also been making miniscule Coats of Arms for a forum game I'll soon start. Would love some feedback on them too!

[EpicJ]

I know it's probably pretty shit, especially compared to the works of art you've all been chirning out. What can I improve?

I've also been making miniscule Coats of Arms for a forum game I'll soon start. Would love some feedback on them too!

Looks pretty good for a first time. One thing i would take note of is balance. Right now he looks like he's about to slip over backwards. Maybe re-position the leg slightly so it's stabilizing a little more. The legs themselves are also an odd shape. I see you probably went for a calf type thing, but it just ends up making the legs look unnatural. Or rather, un-human. For a standing pose, you'd want them more straight.
There are also more subtle angle changes that could be done, like how the vest should curve around the shoulder rather than having a straight line but that's just nit-picking at this point.

As for the coats of arms, they look great. Nothing i can really say about them besides maybe making the shading more uniform. Some have a lot of shading and others are simple colours.

[ZM5]

Hey, so, first time I lurked into a creative projects thread - I admit I have no experience with pixel art at all (or any sort of art to begin with, admittedly), but I was thinking of doing a graphics pack for DF at some point with a somewhat SNES RPG-ish look - anyone have any tips or recommended programs for someone completely new to this sort of thing?
I'm aware it's probably too much of an ambitious project for someone with no experience - that said I still wanna give it a go.
I haven't checked out the tutorials in the first post yet but I am planning to once I'm back home.

Love the stuff I've been seeing on here, by the way!

[AltairSonOfDarkness]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

My first serious attempt at pixel art. What do you think?
It's kinda repetitive because those are game sprites.

[Lord_lemonpie]

Did you make those sprites yourself? If so, holy shit, that's amazing! If not, I still like the way you compiled them. Has a nice, somewhat omnious feel to it.

[Parsely]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

My first serious attempt at pixel art. What do you think?
It's kinda repetitive because those are game sprites.

Hey that's great! I really like the background, the trees look very convincing and you've really nailed the foggy atmosphere. Looking forward to seeing it animated.

Criticism (my hex codes might not be exact because the image was lossy):
- This isn't noticeable unless you zoom in on an image editor but it looks like it was saved then scaled up in a different program, because there's banding around all the pixels that shouldn't be there.
- I don't like that there's a green in the background (#393d38) and also in the foreground (#839c7c). Generally speaking, having the same hues in the foreground and background is a big no-no, especially in a video game, otherwise it can be hard to tell what's what. A hue shifted purple would be good, since it sticks to your purple background palette. Know that you don't need to be very literal with your colors (trees can be whatever color you want, not just green).
- The bridge is obviously in the foreground yet it doesn't stand out very well against the trees because it's just as dark as the background. You should make the bridge brighter or more saturated to help boost that contrast.
- Lotta lonely pixels both in the background (trees) and the foreground (rocks). Stray pixels all by themselves and not grouped up to form shapes can sometimes look out of place.
- The palette is very disconnected. You should try and make your foreground in a similar way to the way you made your background. Take one color, and whenever you need a new color shift off of that. These are some examples of palettes made using ramping techniques: [1] http://aprilsundae.deviantart.com/art/Pixel-Art-Palette-Set-639633548 [2] http://rol-sa.deviantart.com/art/Pixel-Palettes-594766970

Spoiler: Here's a little edit where I used a big brush to demonstrate some of the changes I recommend. (click to show/hide)

As always, I recommend checking out the OP for tutorials on pixel art.

E: Here's a good example I found of a distinct background/foreground hue difference. The background is cold purple that shifts into warm yellow. Meanwhile the foreground is a less smooth, but still unified, shift from cold grey-blue to a warm green.

[AltairSonOfDarkness]

Did you make those sprites yourself? If so, holy shit, that's amazing! If not, I still like the way you compiled them. Has a nice, somewhat omnious feel to it.

Yes, i drew them in one afternoon using GameMaker's sprite editor. It was really challenging, stones and trees in particular.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Hey that's great! I really like the background, the trees look very convincing and you've really nailed the foggy atmosphere. Looking forward to seeing it animated.

Criticism (my hex codes might not be exact because the image was lossy):
- This isn't noticeable unless you zoom in on an image editor but it looks like it was saved then scaled up in a different program, because there's banding around all the pixels that shouldn't be there.
- I don't like that there's a green in the background (#393d38) and also in the foreground (#839c7c). Generally speaking, having the same hues in the foreground and background is a big no-no, especially in a video game, otherwise it can be hard to tell what's what. A hue shifted purple would be good, since it sticks to your purple background palette. Know that you don't need to be very literal with your colors (trees can be whatever color you want, not just green).
- The bridge is obviously in the foreground yet it doesn't stand out very well against the trees because it's just as dark as the background. You should make the bridge brighter or more saturated to help boost that contrast.
- Lotta lonely pixels both in the background (trees) and the foreground (rocks). Stray pixels all by themselves and not grouped up to form shapes can sometimes look out of place.
- The palette is very disconnected. You should try and make your foreground in a similar way to the way you made your background. Take one color, and whenever you need a new color shift off of that. These are some examples of palettes made using ramping techniques: [1] http://aprilsundae.deviantart.com/art/Pixel-Art-Palette-Set-639633548 [2] http://rol-sa.deviantart.com/art/Pixel-Palettes-594766970



As always, I recommend checking out the OP for tutorials on pixel art.

E: Here's a good example I found of a distinct background/foreground hue difference. The background is cold purple that shifts into warm yellow. Meanwhile the foreground is a less smooth, but still unified, shift from cold grey-blue to a warm green.

Thank you!
The scaling was made by GameMaker, as it is a screenshoot of a running game (no animations yet). It keeps the aspect ratio, but the game is 320x180 and my screen is 1366x786 so the proportions are impossible to keep for every pixel.
I will try some other colors, thanks!
I like the bridge not contrasting much with the background, it adds to the gloomy atmosphere. It will be more noticeable once i add rain bouncing of the surface.
Well, that was my first attempt, i also see that not everything is in it's place. Trees are alright with my vision, but the rocks require correcting.
Well, my grays, browns, purples and greens are the same saturation and hue, just changing the value. I don't really know how to improve this.

I'll try few fixes and see how it turns out. Thank you again!

E: Fixed the spoilers.

[Parsely]

Whenever you make a new color you should try changing hue, brightness, and saturation.

This is what I tend to do thought it's not the ONLY way to make new colors:

If you're making a brighter color you:
- Shift towards a warmer (more red) hue
- Decrease saturation
- Increase brightness

If you're making a darker color you do the opposite.
- Shift towards a colder (more blue) hue
- Increase saturation
- Decrease brightness

These aren't rules because there are lots of ways to disobey them still make things look good. Definitely look into color theory. This is a good thread on color palettes that kinda goes into ramping in more detail than I can: http://pixeljoint.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=10695

I like the bridge not contrasting much with the background, it adds to the gloomy atmosphere. It will be more noticeable once i add rain bouncing of the surface.

Well, that was my first attempt, i also see that not everything is in it's place. Trees are alright with my vision, but the rocks require correcting.

Well, my grays, browns, purples and greens are the same saturation and hue, just changing the value. I don't really know how to improve this.

Objects that are further away should always look less saturated than objects in the foreground. Because the bridge has the same saturation and brightness as the background it doesn't look like it's connected to the rocks. If you don't keep your background and foreground distinct this will come back to bite you later on. https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/51/a6/0e/51a60e369021199df0c3f53c806ed7b1.jpg The lower left image is the best example of what I'm talking about. You can very clearly tell what objects you're supposed to focus on because of the differences in saturation. Your background looks good, so if you just made the bridge more saturated the contrast would improve without messing with the dimness you're going for.

The rocks could definitely have more color. Right now they're at 0 hue and 0 saturation and increment by exactly 25 in brightness. It's very rigid.

You should definitely be changing your saturation if you're working with scenes like this.

---

If you lent me a .png that wasn't scaled I could record myself rebuilding your palette using color ramping.

[AltairSonOfDarkness]

Here you go.
Do you mind being credited as a pixel art consulter?

[AltairSonOfDarkness]

A little update on the game's look: