Pixel Art Thread

[Anonymous No.2613325]

Previous thread : >>2568331

In this thread you are free to post any of your OCs/studies, ask for tips, critiques, help, post tutorials, references, other artists' cool works and talk about your experience or anything concerning Pixel Art. Please make it clear whether you need critiques or not as to avoid misunderstanding in case you are sharing something that is not yours.

If you are new to Pixel Art feel free to read this first : http://pixeljoint.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=11299

http://pixeljoint.com/
http://pixelation.org/
http://2dwillneverdie.com/
https://twitter.com/Pixel_Dailies
http://finalbossblues.com/pixel-tutorials/

[Anonymous No.2613328]

As usual I will gladly accept any suggestions about what could be added and changed about the text and links from the current OP.

[Anonymous No.2613357]

>>2613325
>>2613328
Neither of these are pixel art.

[Anonymous No.2613389]

>>2613357
half-right.

this is pixel art:
>>2613325
this is not:
>>2613328

[Anonymous No.2613485]

reposting because I never got any feedback in the old thread

[Anonymous No.2613550]

first animation ever, wish me luck for the future comrades

[Anonymous No.2613570]

>>2613485
The monocle looks wash out a bit, unless you zoom and look at it for a few seconds you don't instantly notice it's a monocle.

Could try different colors, or perhaps make it bigger. It's fine if it's not necessarily realistic size-wise since your drawing is already stylized in the first place, so mess around, maybe.

>>2613550
Good luck!

[Anonymous No.2613577]

>>2613389
I'm an absolute noob, so pardon the ignorance: Why not? To me it seems far more pixel-arty than the .gif in the OP.

[Anonymous No.2613585]

>>2613577
Because OP's image shows the artist was concerned with the placement of individual pixels. The other image is just smaller, the pixels themselves are a mess though. Tons of colors and anti-aliasing indicate the use of automatic tools, which place pixels in a way that the artist can't fully anticipate and ruin the crispness of pixel art.

[Anonymous No.2613589]

>>2613485
The hand is a tiny nub, the pose is boring and stiff. Lots of unnecessary outlines. Weak ally I'd focus more on the fundamentals and anatomy at this point, but when you pixel think more about defining forms with pixel clusters

[Anonymous No.2613604]

>>2613577
OP here, to piggyback on what anon told you, open both gifs into a pixel art program such as Aseprite and look at it from up close. You'll notice how Miku has a bunch of pixel/color changes that were most likely not individually chosen and put by hand but automated by one way or another.

First pic on the other hand is drawn in a fully "controlled" way, it's rather obvious each pixel was deliberately placed.

[Anonymous No.2613652]

>>2613550
attempt n* 2

[Anonymous No.2613667]

>>2613652
bigger version

[Anonymous No.2613682]

>>2613585
>>2613604

If you are not in control of EVERY FUCKING PIXEL in your image, is not pixel art. That's why 99% of you plebs trigger me so much.

>Mosaic filter: Autistic and not pixel art.
>Drawn in paint: Not automatically pixel art.
>Perler bead shit: Autistic and not pixel art.

[Anonymous No.2613765]

>>2613682
>If you are not in control of EVERY FUCKING PIXEL in your image, is not pixel art
strawman argument. I never said this and I don't agree with it.

[Anonymous No.2613769]

>>2613682
This is exactly what the two you quoted were saying, are you retarded?

[Anonymous No.2613798]

>>2613079
>>2613086
Late reply, but thank you for this. The second example demonstrating the highlight curvature is spot on, but it's something I hadn't considered at all.
Cheers.

[Anonymous No.2613819]

Drew this today.
Pretty happy with it, but fuck colouring.

[Anonymous No.2613821]

>>2613769
You don't think I would know what I said, or what a meant? That'll be a tough argument to make.
You don't have to labor over the placement of LITERALLY every pixel. It would be completely I feasible for larger works to be controlled at this level. If it's a 16x16 sprite, then it is ESSENTIAL that every pixel is used to its fullest potential. But with higher resolutions, individual pixels can shift without any immediately noticeable difference in the information being conveyed. There is a point where the image communicates effectively and shows sufficient control of the medium. Beyond that is sunk costs.

[Anonymous No.2613826]

>>2613819
Pretty dope my man

[Anonymous No.2613828]

>>2613826
Thanks!

[Anonymous No.2613834]

>>2613819
Cool, nice shit anon.

[Anonymous No.2613835]

>>2613828
Only thing id do is thicken up the midsection a bit since she has large breasts and thighs or have her torso being absorbed into the tree as well

[Anonymous No.2613842]

>>2613769
Right, well then I'm retarded, have no idea what I said or meant, and am making it up as I go along. Moving on-

You don't have to labor over the placement of LITERALLY every pixel. It would be completely I feasible for larger works to be controlled at this level. If it's a 16x16 sprite, then it is ESSENTIAL that every pixel is used to its fullest potential. But with higher resolutions, individual pixels can shift without any immediately noticeable difference in the information being conveyed. There is a point where the image communicates effectively and shows sufficient control of the medium. Beyond that is sunk costs.

[Anonymous No.2613846]

>>2613769
Right, well then I'm retarded, have no idea what I said or meant, and am making it up as I go along. Moving on-

You don't have to labor over the placement of LITERALLY every pixel. It would be completely infeasible for larger works to be controlled at this level. If it's a 16x16 sprite, then it is ESSENTIAL that every pixel is used to its fullest potential. But with higher resolutions, individual pixels can shift without any immediately noticeable difference in the information being conveyed. There is a point where the image communicates effectively and shows sufficient control of the medium. Beyond that is sunk costs.

[Anonymous No.2613927]

>>2613846
>Drawing on a higher res than 320*240

If you consider it "pixel art"... Surprise. It's not. Stop saying it.

>>2613765
I forgot to add a "this". Now happy, mah nigga? I literally want to please you.

[Anonymous No.2613936]

>>2613819

I'm curious, How is this style done?

[Anonymous No.2613943]

>>2613667
bonjour

[Anonymous No.2613981]

holy fuck the bickering in this thread. i'm gonna clear things up:
- OP's image IS pixel art. the image dimensions alone do not define whether or not something is pixel art. the control you have over individual pixels does.
- that miku one WAS originally pixel art. the reason it no longer looks like pixel art, is because some noob resized it to be huge, and then shrunk it back down, but all without using the proper scaling technique (nearest neighbor)...so now the image looks blurry and the edges all look fucked.

this is a problem i keep seeing over and over again. people not knowing how to resize pixel art images and essentially mutilating them as a result.

>>2613667
when resizing pixel art, use nearest neighbor for scaling...otherwise it becomes blurry.

>>2613927
>>a higher res than 320*240
>>If you consider it "pixel art"... Surprise. It's not.
That's completely wrong. I know you're trying to drill it into that persons head that pixel art = manually place pixels (regardless of the size), while oekaki = just drawing pixels without any regard for individual placement...but the whole canvas size argument isn't helping your point dude.
Picture related.

[Anonymous No.2613990]

>>2613927
If you think pixel art is restricted to a certain canvas size, do the world a favor and keep your definitions of pixel art to yourself. The scene is plagued with noobies who recite incorrect dogma like "pixel art can't use more than X colors" and "pixel art has to be X size" as it is.

Pixel art can be any size, but the amount of work it takes to maintain control at the level of the individual pixel increases dramatically as canvas size increases.

[Anonymous No.2614103]

>>2613936
This is probably just going to rekindle the pixelart definition flamewar, but I made a little tutorial on how I draw this shit (on request):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8L7QIXIsrcc
(Part 1/4)

Hope it's of use to you, Anon.

[Anonymous No.2614114]

What's the best program to use for pixel art?

[Anonymous No.2614209]

>>2613819
>>2614103
It's low res digital painting rather than pixel art imo, but probably close enough for tee purposes of this thread

[Anonymous No.2614234]

[Anonymous No.2614256]

>>2614114
photoshop works good

[Anonymous No.2614262]

>>2614209
i think if you can see the pixels, i think it's safe to consider it pixel art tbqh

[Anonymous No.2614270]

>>2614262
You can see the pixels on anything if you zoom in. It's about how the pixels relate to each other, the hand of the artist showing in the placement of individual pixels. These show some of that, but I personally wouldn't call them pixel art. I can understand that others would.

[Anonymous No.2614395]

>>2613990
>why would you want to have control over every PIXEL in PIXEL art? That's wrong lol.

I'll put this simple: If you change the color of ONE pixel... Has the whole image changed? If yes: Pixel art. If not: Oekaki.

That's why things such as Dithering, Antialias or Selout exist. To aid you in controlling pixels individually, keeping a limited palette and giving VOLUME.

OP picture looks flat and unfinished af. No fucking textures. And yes, giving textures at pixel lever requires skill.

>Your pic reply.

Do you even isometric? That was made using blocks of smaller size, then put them together.

Come on, dude. Have a little respect to actual pixel art.

[Anonymous No.2614399]

>>2614395 meant to quote >>2613981 too.

[Anonymous No.2614410]

>>2614270
Not even that. Pixel art is done a certain way to limit how much color you use. That's why dithering is used instead of straight up laying down a bunch of colors and hues between transitions.

[Anonymous No.2614648]

>>2614410
Not all pixelart uses dithering (almost no games do, actually), and dithering was mostly done automatically - So no "full control over every pixel".

[Anonymous No.2614695]

>>2614410
Dithering was mostly useful in the days of CRTs, much less useful now, though it does have its applications.

Pixel artists in the 8bit and 16bit eras were working within the technical limitations that hardware offered at the time. You can bet your ass that color counts would have been twice as high if the artists had the option. And it would still be pixel art, there is no magic number of colors that pixel art can't reach, though obviously hundreds or thousands of colors usually means automatic tools were used.

[Anonymous No.2614703]

>>2614395
If you change the color of a single pixel, and it doesn't noticeably change the overall image, it doesn't mean you're not making pixel art. It just means you're not making extremely low-res art. Larger images (pic related) still need to be controlled at the pixel level to be pixel art. But if ONE pixel were moved, the overall image would not be noticeably affected. And to labor over the placement of LITERALLY EVERY PIXEL is purist madness and diminishing returns.

[Anonymous No.2614711]

>>2614703
Forgot pic

[Anonymous No.2614724]

>>2614711
What?
You could easily remove pixes from that that without ever having anyone notice any difference.

[Anonymous No.2614729]

>>2614724
That's the point

[Anonymous No.2614751]

>>2614711
>"That shit is just a resized painting right?"
>load it into Aseprite
>zoom in
>"Oh shit."

[Anonymous No.2614759]

>>2614711

[Anonymous No.2614790]

Thanks for the critique in the last thread anon(s), I think this will be the final version of the sprite. I'm gonna go ahead and work on some sprite art on a lower resolution.

Oh, and I made an alternate version with rim-lighting, but I don't think I'm too keen on it.

http://i.imgur.com/5rS2LwA.png

[Anonymous No.2614909]

>>2613819
Trying to figure out colours now.
Goddam', colours are hard.

[Anonymous No.2615395]

>>2614395
Just because it doesn't have texture everywhere, doesn't mean it isn't pixel art.

>>Do you even isometric? That was made using blocks of smaller size, then put them together.
No it wasn't. The original artist has a progress gif of each step as they made it. This was done BY HAND manually. Just because something is isometric, doesn't mean it was made with building blocks. I'm perfectly aware that tile-sets exist, but not all people use them...and even if they did, each tile they made is still pixel art, meaning that the end result of merging them is still pixel art too.

You're arguing for the sake of arguing. Either post pixel art or kindly fuck off.

[Anonymous No.2615396]

>>2614711
holy shit.
it looks like something from aldo katayanagi.
that's some dedication.

[Anonymous No.2615398]

>>2614790
you're welcome.
the rim lighting isn't too bad, but it does look a bit weird as the rest of the lighting seems to completely disregard it.

nice work.

[Anonymous No.2615400]

>>2614909
This sort of stuff reminds me of the GBA games I'd play as a kid, where the pallete was enough to be realistic but the resolution was too low for it to be detailed. There was an x-men game that looked sort of like this, where you could switch between wolverine, nightcrawler, iceman and colossus.
'low res digital painting', is more retro than normal-style pixel art, I think.
Thanks for the memory reminder.

[Anonymous No.2615402]

>>2614103
it wasn't a flamewar over pixel art, just a debate that your video title was misleading because you claim it teaches pixel art when it clearly doesn't....it just teaches painting at a low resolution.
being misleading is annoying as fuck, makes finding things a bitch online because things get flooded with false information about specific techniques.

[Anonymous No.2615404]

>>2614262
that cottontail pixel art is clearly done by hand though, pixel by pixel, where as the other one is clearly just painted instead.
stop trying to blur the lines between two obviously different things.

[Anonymous No.2615567]

>>2614751
To be fair it began as a resized painting before I sunk a zillion hours of pixel long into it.
>>2614759
Waifu2x is the shit, I've tried other programs but the results were never as good.
>>2615396
Wasn't aware of Aldo's work, thanks for mentioning it. Trippy shit.

[Anonymous No.2615577]

>>2614751 #
To be fair it began as a resized painting before I sunk a zillion hours of pixelling into it.
>>2614759 #
Waifu2x is the shit, I've tried other programs but the results were never as good.
>>2615396 #
Wasn't aware of Aldo's work, thanks for mentioning it. Trippy shit.

[Anonymous No.2615624]

>>2615402
>a debate that your video title was misleading
What, where?
All I see here is people debating how much control you need over pixels for it to be "pixelart" - No reference to my video at all.

[Anonymous No.2615647]

>>2615624
I think he's talking about he previous thread. Your video is a good example of the gray area though, there's obviously some control at the pixel level, just not the purist toolset.

[Anonymous No.2615664]

>>2615647
>the previous thread
But this is the first time I'm posting my video on this board? (Have posted it on /v/ and /vg/AGDG because the people who requested it hang out there)

[Anonymous No.2615665]

>>2615664
It has been posted here before, regardless of who posted it

[Anonymous No.2615696]

>>2615665
Oh, okay. Surprising.

[Anonymous No.2615926]

>>2613389
top one is oekaki tho. Just because the lines are clean doesn't mean it's pixel art.

[Anonymous No.2615983]

>>2614909
>>2613819
Okay, pixelart or not, I think I'm done with this now.
Spent way too much time on it.

[Anonymous No.2615990]

>>2615983
nice sensor mate

[Anonymous No.2616124]

>>2615926
>top one is oekaki tho
nope

first of all, "oekaki" is misused terribly in the pixel art scene. It just means drawing in Japanese. Some pixel artists use the term to mean the rough sketchy style of drawings you see created on online apps.

Semantics aside, the piece in OP is not "oekaki." Just magnify and look- the artist isn't sketching wildly at 1x, he's zoomed in and paying attention to the placement of individual pixels, from the dithering on the hair to the lines on the water. How do you see it as oekaki? Is it the large, open areas of color? Because that doesn't matter at all.

[Anonymous No.2616735]

>>2615696
>>2615664
>>2615624
it's literally in the previous thread, which is linked in the top of this thread.
additionally, if you'd bothered to look at your analytics on youtube you'd see that some of your views are coming from there.

for you to suddenly turn up and be just as defensive as people were about this in the previous thread is just plain suspicious. we aren't fools. just stop.

>>2615926
it has nothing to do with clean lines. OPs image IS pixel art, and is NOT oekaki. zoom in and look at the details on the face. it's clearly done by hand, pixel by pixel. fuck off with this stupid debate already and post some pixel art.

[Anonymous No.2616744]

Commission I did for a podcast. They wanted retro fighting game style portraits and I aimed for something close to KoF 2000 but with less animu faces to allow for better likeness.

[Anonymous No.2616758]

>>2616744
Quality shit bro

[Anonymous No.2616790]

>>2616735
You wot.
No need to be angry, m8.
I'm fine with you not accepting it as pixelart.

I was just surprised the video had been posted, as it didn't seem to be very popular in general.

[Anonymous No.2616826]

some shit im doing for a game jam

[Anonymous No.2616828]

>>2616826

[Anonymous No.2616830]

>>2616828

[Anonymous No.2617049]

>>2616744
Based shit m8.

Mind sharing link to podcast?

[Anonymous No.2617132]

>>2616758
>>2617049

Thanks! I'd love to hear crits too if you have any, I posted it on pixelation and didn't get much feedback.

Here is the podcast: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCw4X685ui5aOJ8DZqqxpm4w

[Anonymous No.2617165]

>>2617132
I have no crits really, they're pretty solid. some minor banding in a spot or two, barely noticeable, and there's a shade of blue on the third guy that burns a bit on my monitor due to being a bit too saturated.

[Anonymous No.2617169]

>>2616735
I'm the one who posted his videos last thread, it wasn't him.

With that said I'm not sure why he's pretending not to know as we linked to this thread over /agdg/ taking about the drama it caused ourselves and I remember him acknowledging it (he wasn't phased by it though). Maybe he genuinely doesn't remember or misunderstood something back then though, either way it's not worth arguing over this any further I think.

[Anonymous No.2617172]

>>2617165

Thanks. Do you like these colors better on the jacket? This is another version I made.

[Anonymous No.2617192]

>>2617172
Yes. I don't mind the brightest shade of blue used in those large open areas of the jacket, it's the second lightest that burns for me. overall these colors are better though, removes the burn.

[Anonymous No.2617200]

>>2617172
>>2617192
a smaller adjustment like pic related looks good on my monitor. also adjusted a few very minor spots of banding.

[Anonymous No.2617214]

>>2614395
>Do you even isometric? That was made using blocks of smaller size, then put them together.

[Anonymous No.2617264]

>>2616790
see
>>2617169

You're right though, it's not worth arguing about.

[Anonymous No.2617274]

>>2616744
Looks bloody brilliant dude. Great use of colors, and you nailed it on the theme.

The bottom edge of the sword is a bit distracting, just to the right of the collar. I think this is because the darker shading on it has the illusion of pillow shading slightly, like it's stacked on top of the same exact pixels as the darkest part.
Might look fine against a different background though, instead of the colors on this site.

[Anonymous No.2617299]

>>2617214
It's beautiful.

[Anonymous No.2617306]

>>2617200

Sorry I'm a bit retarded but can you point out exactly where you did the adjustments? Thanks!

>>2617274

Glad you liked it. How would you go about doing it differently, any ideas? The portraits ended up on a clear blue background for the podcast banner. I was thinking a character select thing.

[Anonymous No.2617349]

>>2617264
>>2617169
Oh, well fuck.
In my memory that was a thread on /v/, but obviously I'm mistaken.

Anyway, here's some more fake pixelart work.
Used software by a guy called Leddev to smooth out transitions between frames.
I think it might look pretty splatty with some particles added.

[Anonymous No.2617362]

>>2617306
like I said, minor shit

[Anonymous No.2617374]

>>2617349
>being this lazy

[Anonymous No.2617411]

>>2617349
Looks pretty cool so far. I wouldn't call it finish yeah, needs a little something still.

[Anonymous No.2617479]

>>2617411
Thanks!

>I wouldn't call it finish yeah, needs a little something still.
Will add blood particles and bones being blasted away, but do you have other recommendations?

[Anonymous No.2617490]

>>2617479
actually drawing the frames you lazy dipshit

[Anonymous No.2617512]

>>2617490
He's a cunt but he's right

[Anonymous No.2617528]

>>2617349
the transition happens so fast it's hard to even distinguish what's going on. just looks like a smear of red suddenly appearing with specks of bone here and there.

is it meant to look like the tree is tearing them apart? i honestly can't tell.

[Anonymous No.2617530]

>>2617528
>i honestly can't tell.
well thats because he drew 3 fucking frames and used a fucking shit algorithm to tween it.

[Anonymous No.2617545]

>>2617306
>>How would you go about doing it differently, any ideas?
I'd bring it down to just a 1px dark line, as the less darker shadow is already quite powerful.

[Anonymous No.2617557]

>>2617530
indeed.
to the dude using automation to generate in-betweens, you're skipping one of the most important parts of hand-drawn animation. there is no way this will turn out as anything other than yuck.

there's a time and place for faking in-betweens, basic line art and flat colors works good (the math for path and shape guessing is easy), but fully painted pieces are terrible for it. it's only really geared towards non-stylized, live-action stuff, eg. morphing between faces in that Michael Jackson video.

this just reminds me of trying out SVP to make 30fps movies look like 60fps. it's really bad to look at. any complex details end up getting smeared together and it makes the edges of things lose their definition.

[Anonymous No.2617859]

>>2617479
More or less as others pointed out, the transitions happen too fast because there are missing frames.

I wouldn't go as far as saying it's that hard to read though, but that's maybe because I'm used to see your art / game.

[Anonymous No.2617879]

I started few weeks ago

[Anonymous No.2617880]

>>2617879

[Anonymous No.2617905]

>>2617879
>>2617880

Minimize your color palette. Try making good pieces with no more than four colors.

[Anonymous No.2618022]

>>2617362

Ah, I see what you mean now.

>>2617545

That looks good. Thanks again lads

[Anonymous No.2618096]

>>2618022
You're welcome anon. Hope the final character select backdrop turns out good!

[Anonymous No.2618112]

>>2617490
>>2617512
>>2617528
>>2617530
>>2617557
A lot of this just sounds like mindless salt to me, but I'll try responding.

>lazy
It's not. I'm trying new software to see what effects I can achieve with it. I have always drawn all the frames of my animations so far (Pic related - I'm not all that good at animation in general, but I do put a lot of time and effort into it, and do my best).

>can't tell what's going on / too fast
It's an explosion. She's splattering. With bones and gibs, and blood particles, I'm sure it'll make more sense to you.

-

I really like the strange distortions I can get out of this algorithm, and feel that it fits my intended purpose very well.
I can understand that you might disagree on that subjective point.

[Anonymous No.2618167]

>>2617879
>>2617880
as >>2617905 said, minimize your color palette, but also try to get higher contrast in your colors. You're using a lot of colors but without them really making a difference because the contrast is so low, it's hard to tell the colors apart (from a distance anyway).

I like that they're standing on little grass patches btw.

[Anonymous No.2618177]

>>2618022
random edit here. made an alternate without the darker line at all on the sword. I think the reason the dark was distracting in the first place was because it was maybe too much contrast on what was more of a "background object." Dunno if this works better or not though.

>>2618112
not real pixel art get out of this thread reeeeeeeee

kidding aside, I think the animation on that ...thing... would look better if it didn't have the smear on the teeth. Not only is the animation not quick enough for a smear to work, the smear itself doesn't even make sense. That is, the smear suggests the teeth are coming down from a higher spot, but the teeth never reach that height outside of the smear.

[Anonymous No.2618225]

>>2618177
Yeah, you're probably right about the teeth.
It seemed like a good idea at the time.

Anyway, I'll fuck off now, since my graphics don't meet the criteria and seems to get everyone's panties in a bunch.

[Anonymous No.2618292]

>>2618225
>Anyway, I'll fuck off now, since my graphics don't meet the criteria and seems to get everyone's panties in a bunch.
Don't feel sad, though. I mean, yeah, it's low-res art instead of pixel art, but it still looks pretty good.

[Anonymous No.2618382]

>>2618225
Yeah your work needs more frames and smoother transition but seriously don't give up ok? This style is right up my alley and I really look forward to seeing your finished products. I am really digging the dark monster stuff. Blog?

[Anonymous No.2618413]

>>2613485
it took me a long time to realise those lines
" = = " were actually the eyes and brows.
As their color is too rough and have the same leght they seem like glasses at some point.

[Anonymous No.2618423]

>>2613652
why does it bend?
Stars make a straight line in the sky.

[Anonymous No.2618527]

>>2618292
>>2618382
Yeah, not giving up - Don't have much else driving me at this point.
Thanks.

>Blog?
http://theonian.tumblr.com/

[Anonymous No.2618600]

>>2615983
Those colors came out really nice!

[Anonymous No.2618760]

>>2617879
where is the light coming from.

[Anonymous No.2618856]

Still learning, would like advice

[Anonymous No.2618864]

>>2618856

You're in absolute beginner territory. Read the sticky, study painting references on pinterest, read and study art books.

The fundamentals transcend medium, and pixel art other than a few extra rules is closest to traditional painting.

[Anonymous No.2619341]

Should I go for a more stylized look?

Also I'll probably need to redo this because I'll need to animate it later

[Anonymous No.2619692]

>>2619341
Hopefully it's easier to animate

[Anonymous No.2619886]

>>2616826
Colonization?

[Anonymous No.2620041]

>>2616744
is that one at the end Dan Soder??

[Anonymous No.2620083]

Any advice on how to improve my pixel art?

[Anonymous No.2620373]

>>2618225
>>2618527
>>2618112

your art definitely isn't pixel art, but it's still nice art dude.
just post it in the animation threads instead, would make far more sense.

[Anonymous No.2620394]

>>2620083

Slowly work larger.

Study gesture, anatomy, and other pixel art.

[Anonymous No.2620408]

>>2620041

Haha afraid not

[Anonymous No.2620673]

>>2618225
personally I don't mind if you post here, I guess it's hard because if you're not using pixel-art-exclusive techniques, that makes it difficult to critique it. But then I also don't know where else you'd post the artwork. I bet if you posted it in another thread, they'd try to point you to the pixel art thread. It is a hybrid thing, but there's nothing wrong with that.

And yeah I think mainly the smear was just unnecessary for that instance, your work has a wonderful "realistic detail" look to it, and I think a cartoonish smear doesn't really fit that. There's nothing inherently wrong with smears though. If you do add smears and stretches or whatever, I'd add them in subtle ways. Besides that, I find your animations to be quite nice, and I remember your work from gamedev threads from maybe months ago.

[Anonymous No.2620683]

>>2620673
>I also don't know where else you'd post the artwork
see
>>2620373

after all, he seems to want help on animation, not pixel technique. doesn't matter much either way though, he seems to be the main guy who thinks it's controversial of him to post it in this thread.

[Anonymous No.2621250]

I'm going to have this whole month of August all for myself and I thought I'd make myself a daily drawing routine to follow in order to improve my art skills.

The thing is I have no idea how to go about it. I know I could simply study standard art fundamentals but I was thinking of something more pixel oriented here. Thoughts? Any ideas? I'll take anything.
For a start I was thinking of doing https://twitter.com/Pixel_Dailies..

[Anonymous No.2621431]

>>2621250
pixel dailies should be fine. I'd say focus on the fundamental stuff, really study it because the better you are at that, the better you'll be at pixel art too. I would try to make time for both.

>>2620683
True, he did seem to ask more about the animation. If he wasn't asking about animation though, would you say he should post here then?

>>2620083
there's artifacts in this, I think. I'd say start by saving your images in .png format. jpg usually gets artifacts but I think gif can too sometimes, I'm not sure. As for improving the artwork, and seeing this as beginner work, my recommendation is to pixel a fair amount of sprites, try to figure stuff out on your own, then post your work here for feedback on specific aspects you would like to improve on (or post as you go along, either way I'd love to see more work). It's kind of hard to make any suggestions when the question is a vague/general thing. If you want to improve on your anatomy for example, make an attempt at drawing correct anatomy, and then ask for feedback on how you did.

[Anonymous No.2621433]

>>2619692
best one so far. Anatomy is a little wonky, but he's got a better pose and silhouette. For now, I recommend using only two shades for each color, try to make sure each color and shade stick out from each other (contrast). There's too many shades that I can barely tell are different.

[Anonymous No.2621451]

>>2617374
Would be a waste of time to animate this frame by frame. Fucking purist are so retarded. Go get a job.

[Anonymous No.2621452]

>>2621431
>If he wasn't asking about animation though, would you say he should post here then?
yes, though I'd ask he not post shit full of jpeg artifacts.

[Anonymous No.2622700]

The correct definition of pixel art is kinda fuzzy, but anything that uses alpha channels (except for the background) is definitely not pixel art. In my opinion, colors are also important to pixel art, and I think if you don't have control over what colors you're using, it's questionable if you're making pixel art.
But as has been said, the most important part is that you have control over each pixel, tools like bucket fills are fine, but tools like the paintbrush is definitely not fine. The pencil tool, the bucket tool, the eraser, the color picker and the cut-paste should be all you need as a pixel artist.

Size also has absolutely nothing to do with pixel art. It usually just makes the piece take longer time, unless you're doing some kind of stylized thing where 90% of the piece is one color.

[Anonymous No.2622732]

>>2622700

I consider myself a pixel art purist but not using a (binary without transfer) brush for some arbitrary reason is dumb. if you pixel a organic shape like a tree making a oekaki-ish block in is totally fine. Also a lot of sprites in fighting games were traced from preliminary drawings made by traditional animators.

[Anonymous No.2622749]

>>2622732
As long as there's no color blending or transparency involved, it's fine. For an example of what I mean, look at the picture. The left one is a round pencil tool. The right is a round brush tool. The left is totally fine, in my opinion. You still control where you're putting the pixels. The right, however, create 58(!) unique colors in just one click. You don't really have any control of the colors you're using anymore, so that's totally not fine.

[Anonymous No.2622954]

left is old, right is newer, both still WIP

[Anonymous No.2623020]

>>2613667
Don't use bicubic or bilinear interpolation when scaling pixel art. If you do the upscaled version will have what is essentially a gradient effect based on the weighted sum of the neighboring pixels. That will lead to a blurry image and not the crisp pixel art style you want.

>Tfw you finally have a use for that way too hard Image processing class

[Anonymous No.2623120]

How's this?

[Anonymous No.2623129]

>>2622954
That texture you added on the right flattened everything. Left is better.

[Anonymous No.2623230]

>>2622700
>>The correct definition of pixel art is kinda fuzzy
nah it's pretty solid. i think as long as the final fleshing out after basic shape sketching is 99% done by hand, pixel by pixel, it's pixel art. that 1% being obvious techniques like repeating patterns, etc.

>>but anything that uses alpha channels (except for the background) is definitely not pixel art
i think this is actually fine, if it's done by hand...pixel by pixel.
the reason it's easy to come to a conclusion that this shouldn't be classed as "pixel art" is because we don't see hand-placed pixels of varying transparency that often. it's not very popular.
this is because most people prefer the look of older pixel art, from a time where pixel opacity was either a solid 1 or 0, and any look of being "semi-transparent" was achieved with dithering instead (eg. shadows in old games).

the jump to semi-transparent pixel art was more-so a technical one. game devs just did it with code, rather than in the art (eg. in the sonic games when they started having semi-transparent particles...but it was just one single level of opacity being applied over the entire image).

>>2622732
>>binary without transfer
whenever i read this it feels like something out of a comsci text book. i feel like "aliased brush" sounds way more straight-forward.

>>2622954
brilliant colors. not too sure about the light green along the underneath of the head (based on the light source), perhaps make that a shade darker.

>>2623020
they do an entire class just on how to process images? what the fuck.

[Anonymous No.2623324]

>>2623129

[Anonymous No.2623368]

>>2623324
>>2622954
why are you doing this in GameMaker man, their image editor is pure torture for pixel art.

try using aesprite, GrafX2 or GraphicsGale (all available for free).
even MSPaint would be better.

[Anonymous No.2623479]

>>2623368

because it has everything i need and absolutely nothing more

just a simple one-pixel brush, some alpha, easy palette editing, and done

[Anonymous No.2623532]

>>2623479
>>easy palette editing
i wouldn't call that "easy" personally, the other ones i mentioned are far better for palette control.

i understand what you mean though. the concept of keeping it simple. a lot of software is a cluster-fuck to look at.

[Anonymous No.2623745]

Early attempt at animating. How does it look?

[Anonymous No.2623776]

Do you guys use a mouse or tablet for your pixel art?
Am I deliberately making things harder for myself by not wanting to do that entire process of transferring hand drawn frames into pixel art?

[Anonymous No.2624094]

>>2623776
Tablet. Mouse or tablet when it comes to pushing individual pixels

[Anonymous No.2624444]

>>2623776
I think either is fine for pixel art. Personally I use a mouse.

[Anonymous No.2625224]

>>2623776
I feel like it mostly depends on preference.

The only bit thing is that I like to have a dynamic undersketch and I feel like a tablet does a better job making it dynamic but other than that I don't see much difference. If you can use a full resolution overlay in your software then I recommend to scan sketches and paint with mouse over them. (I would actually really like to do that but Aseprite doesn't have this feature yet. it's supposed to come very early in the 1.2 version)

[Anonymous No.2625307]

Well I'm finally giving pixel art a shot, right now I'm watching tv shows in the background and drawing random pixel art pictures on a giant canvas. I just finished pic related. What do you think?

I need to learn how to design my own characters though. It always looks like a mess when I try to make my own characters.
Any tips?

[Anonymous No.2625369]

>>2623745
Top isnt too bad, but the cape just confuses me. Its like its hard then soft at the end. Make it more exagerated or just dont animate it at all.

[Anonymous No.2625375]

>>2623745
is she breathing or does she have strong pecs

[Anonymous No.2626115]

>>2623120
Ayy not bad. The fact that it's not perfectly mirrored bugs me though. One hair has one more pixel than the other.

>>2625307
I can tell who it is/10

[Anonymous No.2626564]

Just did this for pixel dailies.

[Anonymous No.2627371]

Help on this WIP? It's an aerial ship for a rpg maker game i'm making

>>2626564
waaaw. do you have a blog?

[Anonymous No.2627386]

>>2627371
I couldn't tell that thing in the middle was a sail. Add some shading, it looks like you just made some lines and did the fill tool in between them.

[Anonymous No.2627417]

>>2627371
Indeed in need of shading but I'm sure you knew this already. I like the shape so far I think. Hard to judge at this point. Post progress.

[Anonymous No.2627717]

>>2627371
Nah. I feel like I should make one but I really don't pixel very often, I guess. I juuust started posting on twitter though.

[Anonymous No.2628082]

>>2627717
do it, judging from the picture you posted, you seem to have the level to make commissions and earn some money with your stuff, you just need to get a reasonable amount of people following you. since getting this is usually long, you should start as soon as possible.

>>2627386
>>2627417
It's how the ship will look like on the map (minus the characters). I added shadows'n shit, but i think i need to readjust the colors to match the atmosphere

[Anonymous No.2628386]

Just finished this, what do you think?

[Anonymous No.2628391]

>>2628386

[Anonymous No.2628422]

>>2628391

Stop abusing that term please.

An improperly defined lightsource and pillowshading are not automatically the same thing.

[Anonymous No.2628435]

>>2628391
You're drunk, anon.

[Anonymous No.2628449]

http://lucky96u.deviantart.com/

The only guy I know that makes pixel art

[Anonymous No.2629361]

here's a sprite i made
i have an outlined version and a non-outlined version
pls tell me which style to use
also need critique cause im shit
ignore the numbers

[Anonymous No.2629363]

>>2629361
fuck here's the outlined version
ill resize the non-outlined image

[Anonymous No.2629370]

>>2629363
non-outlined

[Anonymous No.2630198]

>>2629361
1) learn anatomy
2) use hue shifts for shading, so it won't look flat
3) use saturated color for buffing, not for everything

[Anonymous No.2630299]

>>2630198
2) hue shifting is just about creating a more visually interesting palette, depth is created with value rather than hue.
3) buffing?

[BPD !!J0X48+vwRox No.2630481]

>>2630299
here's the updated version

[Anonymous No.2630588]

>>2630481
palette's better in this. I personally like the orange outfit more since it contrasts with the blue hair, the orange needs better colors though. (again this one's got a better palette for the suit) I would say some colors need a bit more contrast though.

I love the design btw. The anatomy could use some work, but I think it shouldn't be too realistic at the same time and keep the sorta cartoony look you got going on.

Also small thing, the arm seems to not really be an arm. Might wanna add some pockets so it doesn't look like the bottom of the arms is connected to the rest of the jacket.

Also, the linework could be cleaner. There's a lot of jaggies.

Keep it up anon, hope to see more soon.

[Anonymous No.2633582]

Bump.

[Anonymous No.2633609]

>>2626564
looks nice, but the 画 is kinda fucky

[Anonymous No.2633878]

>>2633609
I don't really know japanese characters, I just used a translator and basically copied that. What's wrong with it?

[Anonymous No.2634377]

>>2633878
田 is too tiny/misplaced.
http://jisho.org/search/%E7%94%BB%20%23kanji

[Anonymous No.2634527]

Aside from the right arm looking like it's about to pop off at any minute, is there anything I need to change fundamentally about this sprite? Keep in mind that it's obviously not done yet.

[Anonymous No.2634572]

>>2634377
original on left, edits on right. Any of these look better?

[Anonymous No.2634771]

>>2634527

More contrast of the colors would help the sprite more. I changed the colors a bit to show what I mean.

I moved over the arm a pixel or two. Moving around parts of the art may feel time consuming at first, but it's worth it to correct mistakes the manual way.

The muscles on the right leg are also off. you may need a reference to double check how the leg bends in that position.

[Anonymous No.2634859]

>>2634572
1st edit is the correct one.

[Anonymous No.2634872]

>>2634859
Second this. Still want to reduce the sides of the U a bit though, probably so it meets the top of the square.

[Anonymous No.2634881]

How do I animate pixel art? I find it hard to make things look "fluid". It's also sooo fucking slow because using transform tools to turn limbs around etc on such a low res fucks everything up and I need to pretty much repaint most of the frame anyways.

[Kawaiidraaaws No.2634955]

Awe that is really cute!

[Anonymous No.2635017]

How's my chest ?

[Anonymous No.2635020]

>>2635017
Also, dreadful door 1

[Anonymous No.2635021]

>>2635017
Dreadful door 2

[Anonymous No.2635022]

>>2635017
Cute, but remember - all the other 68237 game images must be made in the same style, else there will be a style break in your game.

[Anonymous No.2635133]

>>2634859
>>2634872
Edited. Thanks guys!

>>2634881
>using tools.
Personally I like pixel art that's animated manually more anyway, it certainly means no mixels or anything that ruins the sprite.

I think tools works better on larger sprites than it does on smaller ones anyway, and personally think you should just animate them manually if the sprites are small. Besides, drawing the frames individually means you have more control over how things move anyway. Tools can only rotate on a 2D plane really, though there are some exceptions.

>>2635017
>that chest with its top off
l-lewd.

The chest sprites look like something off of super nintendo. Specifically, it's banded up the ass, but that's not necessarily a bad thing I think. I dunno, maybe you could play with the shading somehow, more than just making each side one color. Though I don't think it's necessary.

>>2635020
>>2635021
I will say, what I like about these doors and the chest is that they very clearly are what they are. The simple/cartoonish style works I think.

[BPD !!J0X48+vwRox No.2635504]

here's a piece i made the other day

[Anonymous No.2635538]

>>2635017
>>2635020
>>2635021
Nothing wrong with the designs per se, it's just not original, and the colors are bad, feels like a Windows 95 game.

I'm being blunt to help you. As other anon said you might want to try to make them unique by adding a personal touch to these.

[Anonymous No.2635791]

>>2634771
How's this?

[Anonymous No.2635926]

>>2635791
Cool drawing, but why so pixelated?

[Anonymous No.2636022]

>>2635926
What kind of question is that?
not him

[Anonymous No.2636098]

>>2636022
I'm dead serious... why all the pixels and not normal lines? It's not the 80s anymore, computers have evolved, you know.

[Anonymous No.2636113]

>>2636098
I have no words...

[Anonymous No.2636118]

>>2636113
It's not bait. I wanna do sprites myself, or better said develope games. But I still don't understand why people still make them pixelated, when they also could do them like a normal drawing.

[Anonymous No.2636183]

>>2636118
1. the pixel style predates computers (pic related)
2. however, today it is associated with computers and video games specifically. so the medium fits his image (a fighter sprite).
3. I've seen a lot of shitty looking vector/flash based games, "normal drawing" is no guarantee that the art won't suck. besides, pixel art is an established style in videogames

[Anonymous No.2636199]

>>2636183
>hurr it's just our style
Wow, great reason... So in other words you merely do it out of tradition and because everyone else does it... that's pretty stupid.

[Anonymous No.2636226]

>>2636199
>implying 'muh style' was my reason
did you miss the part where I pointed out that this style predates computers so your "outdated 80s vidya art" argument makes no sense? (see attached pic)

Did you also skip the part where I mentioned that, because we DO associate it with video games today, that it fits the subject matter that he chose?

And yet here you are, having given zero arguments for why pixel art is inferior to "normal drawing", battling strawmen who say "hurr muh style"

kutgw kiddo

[Anonymous No.2636240]

gotta go fast

[Anonymous No.2636244]

>>2636226
better image
c. 1875

[Anonymous No.2636281]

>>2636226
I never said it's inferior, I just see no reason why people still use it primarily for video game sprites.

[Anonymous No.2636283]

>>2636281
why wouldn't they? you still haven't explained your reasoning.

[Anonymous No.2636286]

>>2636283
>why wouldn't they?
Because they also could just use normal drawings, like everyone else does.

[Anonymous No.2636289]

>>2636286
that's not a reason, that's just suggesting they do something different without explaining why. try harder. apply yourself.

[Anonymous No.2636292]

>>2636289
There also is no reason why anyone should do pixel art, but people do it anyway in games.

[Anonymous No.2636294]

>>2636292
there's no reason to do anything, let's just kill ourselves.

it's a style of 2D art whose aesthetic has strong ties to video game culture and it's less labor-intensive than 3D models. Vector/Flash games with "normal drawing" art often look like shit, just like there is shitty pixel art out there. Why do you care which style someone uses for a video game so much?

[Anonymous No.2636301]

>>2636294
>Why do you care which style someone uses for a video game so much?
Because I want to make a game myself, but I have no experience with pixel art, only with regular art, and I just wonder why everyone does pixel art for games, when they actually also could do sprites with regular lines.

I guess they just do it because it's easier when you don't have to work with fine lines, but just blocks instead, but just doing it because it's easier, is not a good reasoning to me.

[Anonymous No.2636303]

>>2636301
Not that guy but I think it's a matter of player associations. Players associate pixel art with the great games they played as a kid, while they generally tend to associate vector art with shitty mobile games and shitty flash games from the 00's. I could name you about 50 games right now that had pixel art that I really enjoyed, but I can't think of any games right now that used vector art that I enjoyed enough to remember even a day later. That perception is important.

[Anonymous No.2636323]

>>2636301
>it's easier
it isn't

[Anonymous No.2636327]

>>2636303
Ok, so after reading about more about Vector art, I think I found the answer now. Actually I always though people could just do a drawing with regular fine lines, give it a transparent background and implement it into their game, but apparently this isn't even the case (for what reason, I don't know).

Anyway, I read that vector art should only be good for simple cartoony art, and for this, the lines look already too clean and sterile, plus it can be complicated to create it, that's why most people go for pixel art or raster art instead.

[Anonymous No.2636343]

>>2636327
Actually scratch that... Now I read that people actually can do hand drawn sprites. Just because a sprite has fine lines doesn't mean it has to be vector art (pic related).

[Anonymous No.2636351]

>>2636343
looks good, just a different style than if it were made using pixel art. pretty sure the sprites in Bastion are all 3D though.

[Anonymous No.2636355]

>>2636351
>pretty sure the sprites in Bastion are all 3D though.
Oops, you are right... Only other example with hand drawn sprites I know of would be Castle Crashers, but that game looks pretty bad.

I don't know... I guess people really use pixel/raster mostly, because animating detailed hand drawn sprites would take too much time. Although I don't understand why.

[Anonymous No.2636387]

>>2636355
as I said here, >>2636303 people associate hand drawn sprites with shitty looking games like castle crashers.

[Anonymous No.2636391]

>>2636387
But what does it matter if they associate it with this, when you theoretically also could make games which look like an anime with it?

I think, the only reason why people use pixels for games still is just because it is easier to work with. You don't really have to pay attention to line width since you just work with blocks instead. That's why you can much better cut out parts of the sprite and use it as tiles. With hand drawn sprites doing this is much harder, except you do very simple cartoony styles.

[Anonymous No.2636396]

>>2636391
please do even a little bit of pixel art before shitposting about how easy it is.

[Anonymous No.2636400]

>>2636396
Many pxel artists say themselves that doing good hand drawn sprites is much harder. It's just common sense, because you actually work with fine lines in them, instead of just blocks.

[Anonymous No.2636405]

>>2636400
there are drawbacks to both styles. Both could be considered difficult in different ways and for different reasons. I really can't stress enough how much you don't know what you're talking about. There's really nothing to be gained in any discipline from talking about how easy or difficult something you haven't actually tried might be.

[Anonymous No.2636409]

>>2636405
Which drawback should pixel art have please? The only drawback would be that it can be difficult to place the pixels when doing extremely simple pixel art, but other than that, there are no drawbacks.

With fine line art, you actually have to be able to make really fine lines, which is much more difficult than just placing blocks.

[Anonymous No.2636417]

>>2636409
Jesus Christ


Alright, from someone who actually does pixel art, here are some drawbacks:
1. The low resolution makes subtle movements difficult. if your character is only 32 pixels wide, moving their hand even one pixel constitutes a fairly noticeable distance, so subtle things like hair or clothes moving gently back and forth become difficult or even impossible to convey

2. Long, thin shapes are difficult, especially if they need to curve as well. think about something that needs to taper at the end, like a flame or a sword. If it needs to taper from 3 pixels to one, every step down in width is going to jump out at the viewer, whereas with line art you could just draw a diagonal line

3.soft curves are basically not an option, especially on smaller details like character accessories

4. Small details in gerenal can be completely lost, meaning you may have to alter your character design to fit the medium.

5. straight diagonal lines look like garbage if they're not at a 90 or 45 degree angle

6. rotating objects look terrible, often having to be distorted.

7. honestly fuck you for making me write this I hope you're happy

[Anonymous No.2636420]

>>2636417
All these problems come down is just, like I already said, if you do pixel art in low resolutions.

Pixel art in low resolutions may be not able to display small details well, but when you do it hand drawn, you actually have to draw these small details, which is much more difficult, than just cutting them away.

[Anonymous No.2636422]

>>2636420
>but when you do it hand drawn, you actually have to draw these small details, which is much more difficult
you're confusing difficult with time consuming

[Anonymous No.2636426]

>>2636422
No, I am not.

[Anonymous No.2636432]

>>2636426
alright, let's break this down. Say you have a character with a small detail, like a belt buckle. If you're working with line art, you have to redraw it every frame. this will take some time, but since it's a simple shape, it will not be difficult to draw.

[Anonymous No.2636441]

>>2636432
It may not be that difficult to draw, but you still have to draw it, which is more difficult than just cutting it away. Plus when have to animate these small details, it actually becomes really difficult.

[Anonymous No.2636443]

>>2636441
again, you're literally just substituting time consuming with difficult. Cutting details is less time consuming than drawing them. I honestly can't believe I'm having an argument of 4chan with some dumb kid instead of doing something productive. I'm going to close this tab now. Good luck with whatever project you attempt in whatever style you choose, you mind- numbingly dense motherfucker

[Anonymous No.2636448]

>>2636400
>>2636409

this "just blocks/just squares" argument doesn't hold up. that's WHY it is often MORE difficult. You have to create lines and details using only tiny squares, rather than lots of fine linework. it requires an additional skill set.
>it's just common sense

[Anonymous No.2636450]

Can I draw pixel characters if I can’t draw human characters on paper at all, or should I learn to draw real characters first ?
What basics do I need to draw, say, 100px to 200px-tall character sprites ?

[Anonymous No.2636453]

>>2636450
>Can I draw pixel characters if I can’t draw human characters on paper at all
no
seriously what the fuck kind of question is this? if you can't draw, you can't draw. pixel art will just make it more difficult, because your lack of pixelling ability stacks with your lack of drawing ability.

the foundations are the foundations, whether it's pixels or pencils you need to know them if you're going to do ANY 2d medium well.

[Anonymous No.2636488]

>>2636443
>Cutting details is less time consuming than drawing them.
Yes, and it is also more difficult to draw them. Are you dense or something? A well composed highly detailed picture is obviously more difficult than just a simple picture.

>You have to create lines and details using only tiny squares, rather than lots of fine linework.
Doing a line with a square is something anyone can do. You easily can do trial and error with this, deleting pixels and replacing them. With lines however, you actually have to be able to draw fine lines, which is spmething really not everyone can do. In contrary, most people do complete chicken scratch lines.

[Anonymous No.2636510]

>>2636488
You're erroneously conflating 'pixel art' with 'simple' because you have zero experience in the medium. Same reason you earlier claimed it was "easier" than "normal drawing." Maybe you should actually attempt to make pixel art before telling us how easy it is.

>>2636488
learning to push pixels is a skill, just like training yourself to draw fluid lines with controlled line weight. you need to know how to anti-alias for curved lines, to vary the value of pixels to control perceived line weight, etc. And details on small sprites require more experience as a pixel artist than do large sprites, because the smaller work space necessitates that you understand pixel clusters and know how to imply detail and form.

Seriously, just TRY making pixel art before blathering about something you've shown you do not fully understand.

[Anonymous No.2636907]

>>2636400
>Many pxel artists say themselves that doing good hand drawn sprites is much harder.
And traditional animators have said that doing pixel art is harder, it's almost like they're two different mediums.

[Anonymous No.2637028]

>>2636301
animated sprites would be easier and quicker to make/correct when done in pixel art imo

[Anonymous No.2637192]

>>2636199
It's a sub-medium you fucking monkey retard, like some people like painting, digital, traditional or whatever, some like pixel art.

You should probably learn what subjectivity is.

[Anonymous No.2637389]

why are you stupid faggots arguing over whether or not someone should have done something as pixel art.

this is clearly a pixel art thread.
read the fucking OP, retards.

this is like walking into a fruit market and going "why are you selling fruit? you should sell bread instead!"

[Anonymous No.2637421]

>>2637389
This. It's fine if you don't like pixel art as a medium I guess, but this a pixel art thread.

[Anonymous No.2637425]

if I want an experienced pixel artist at isometric pixel art and willing to pay, any recommendations for who to check on?

[Anonymous No.2637438]

>>2637425
I dunno who is doing commissions and who isn't, worth posting in the job forums at pixeljoint and pixelation though

[Anonymous No.2637483]

>>2637425
Check dA and tumblr too.

[Anonymous No.2637502]

>>2613325
>tfw having no time to finish this.

JUST

[Anonymous No.2637650]

>>2635791
cool but don't use full black contours like that. it flattens the image out, especially the face because it contrasts too much with the hair. It's not as bad on the body because it's all darker but it would still be better to use a different and less dark color.

[Anonymous No.2637687]

>>2637502
Goddamn

Blog/more?

[Anonymous No.2637809]

>>2637687
But anon, I'm not really a prolific pixel artist and that's the only recent pixel art I made... my portfolio consists only of my illustrations.

[Anonymous No.2637976]

>>2613325
Here's a lucina that I did a while ago. the left is new and the right is old

[Anonymous No.2638049]

>>2617349
I can't find the tool anywhere, got any links?

[Anonymous No.2638115]

>>2637976
Neat, but I personally think you should stick to the old colours.

[Anonymous No.2638273]

>>2638049
Ask over /agdg/. Post a pic of his work to draw his attention.

[Anonymous No.2638446]

>>2637483
not him but since Pixeljoint and Pixelation have their own forums for job hunting, that's straightforward and all. But what about DA and tumblr? How do you go about requesting artists on there?

[Anonymous No.2638495]

>>2637976
needs more contrast in the legs area imo

[Anonymous No.2638880]

>>2638446
Dig for pixel artists you like and see whether they do commissions or not. If they don't tell just ask them.

Pixel Joint and Pixelation are nice and all but not everyone frequents them, if one is serious about paying an artist to work for them I think it'd be natural to look at all your options before deciding on one.

[Anonymous No.2639025]

>>2623745
loincloth make me thing she has a tail.

[Anonymous No.2639033]

>>2638880
Thanks. Yeah that makes sense, and besides, although Pixeljoint for example does have options to submit artwork for your own "pages," it's more of an art gallery thing I think than a portfolio of your work. Tumblr and DA are definitely more lax and the artists typically post more of their work on there, so I can see why that might be even better for the selection process.

Any other sites anyone recommends?

[Anonymous No.2639043]

[Anonymous No.2639269]

>>2636118
>>2636098
>>2635926

Nigger you're in a pixel art thread. A form of digital mosaic art.

[Anonymous No.2639278]

>>2636301
>I guess they just do it because it's easier when you don't have to work with fine lines

What? Pixel art is just as hard as any form of art. I'd also say its impractical compared to drawn images. Drawn images can be shot out faster than pixel art frames, as pixel art needs to be modified at every pixel you wish to change, and unlike other ways of animation, every single frame needs to be as clean as possible. 1 pixel being off, is a large impact on the whole frame. While drawn images can get away with a few janky lines. Pixel art also needs to do all anti aliasing by hand. Harder, no. More time consuming, yes.

Why do most people still use pixel art for games though? Nostalgia is one, ease of access to programs for game making that use pixelart, pixel art is more likely to run on everyone's PCs. Plus it's fun.

[Anonymous No.2639287]

Fuck trying to animate this.

[Anonymous No.2639375]

I've literally never tried doing art stuff in my life, I threw together some placeholder stuff for a game I'm making until I can find a real artist willing to work with me

Just a basic shot, drew it in gimp in 64x64 then resized to 512x512 for posting

[Anonymous No.2639494]

>>2639033
Twitter and /r/Pixelart

[Anonymous No.2639942]

>>2635791
Finally done.

Any criticism?

[base base No.2640291]

just made a base base

can you dudes do anything with it?

[Anonymous No.2640292]

Do people use a mouse for pixel art or a tablet?

[base base No.2640295]

>>2639287

yo does this help at all

[base base No.2640296]

>>2640292

mouse for sprites

sketches can technically be done with a tablet
that are then made into "pixel art"

[Anonymous No.2640330]

>>2639942
Are you a pro?

[Anonymous No.2640331]

>>2637502
You're my inspiration now, anon. I don't know how you managed to do this, but I want to emulate it.

[Anonymous No.2640333]

>>2637502
There are 6 hours from 8pm to 2am anon; we believe in you.

[Anonymous No.2640380]

>>2640331
>>2640333
I work several projects at a time... 7 days a week ;_;

[Anonymous No.2640384]

>>2640331
here's the process of the thumbnails and the version w;/o the UI mockup

[Anonymous No.2640386]

>>2640380
>>2640384
If you can pump out a few more screenshots like that I'm sure you could make a very successful Patreon to work towards your goals. It's simply stunning, my dude.

[Anonymous No.2640390]

>>2640386
Too bad I'm not a pixel artist. lol.

Color count w/o the UI is 64 :).

[Anonymous No.2640471]

currently working on this. might stream the rest?

[Anonymous No.2640531]

>>2640384
amazing

[Anonymous No.2640630]

so, uh, who here is fine with their art free to use?

[Anonymous No.2640638]

>>2640630
"hey artists! give me things for free! i am a little child that doesnt know the value of your work!"

[Anonymous No.2640736]

>>2640330
Please no sarcasm, I want to actually improve.

[Anonymous No.2640858]

>>2640630
Here you go anon! Free for you to do whatever you wish with it, I won't judge!

[Anonymous No.2641225]

>>2640630
No problem, just finished this, feel free to use it for your game.

[Anonymous No.2641227]

>>2640736
I don't think he was being sarcastic, it's pretty good. I'm not sure anyone has much to say about it at a pixel level. I'd recommend you to post it over >>2636277 if you want crits on your anatomy.

[Anonymous No.2641614]

>>2641225
I feel like I had that pic on my harddrive for around 4 years now.

[Anonymous No.2641616]

Not sure whether to give this up, start over, or just try and fix the pillow shading.
Started this last year, before I started intently studying light and shadow.

[Anonymous No.2642147]

I'm not sure where to go from here with this one. Any ideas for improvements?
>>2639942
The face looks kinda wonky, and I think it uses too much of the outline color (black).
>>2641616
I think it's mainly the foreground that has problems with pillow shading

[Anonymous No.2642638]

>>2620373
Its pixel art.

[Anonymous No.2642647]

>>2630481
Reminds me of this guy.

[Anonymous No.2642664]

here's a little something I made. its probably flawed but I like it.

[Anonymous No.2642707]

>>2642664
Neat.
I would get rid of that black outline though. It makes the character look pill shaped.

[Anonymous No.2643045]

>>2642707
yeah I'll do that. I originally made her in cladun then redid her in Clip studio.

[Anonymous No.2643192]

I'm new to pixel art. Below is a time lapse of a character I did. Unfortunately it's the only time lapse I have. Pic related is a spritesheet of some more characters.

http://i.4cdn.org/wsg/1471524965218.webm

One of the things I'm having trouble understanding is color. I read through some of the links in OP, but I'm still not getting it. When I use "darker" or "lighter" shades, I don't know what to change about the color. Is it the value, saturation or hue? I usually change value and saturation, because it /looks/ right to me, but I don't know if that's the proper way to do it.

[Anonymous No.2643313]

>>2643192
>Is it the value, saturation or hue?
all three

[Anonymous No.2643340]

>>2637976
Don't antialias on the background if you want to possibly change it's color from white. The inner AA is alright, but ditch the outer AA in favor of transparent bg. There is no reason why this should have a white bg.

[Anonymous No.2643358]

>>2643192
>I'm new to pixel art
More like you're new to art in general.

[Anonymous No.2643748]

Crit please?

[Anonymous No.2644080]

>>2643748
I like it.

You might want to move the pistol a few pixels further to the side. Having it against a white background would make it more readable.

Also the coat looks a bit flat to me, especially near the skirt part. I would try adding some more shadow between overlapping parts and be more selective with the really dark contours.

[Anonymous No.2644305]

>>2643748
Pistol is hard to read since it blends too well into her head. I'd also change the outline colors from black to a dark variant of the color they outline, e.g. dark blue, grey, brown as you've done at some places already. The biggest contrast in your pictures is always in the outlines, which looks a bit jarring in full-size.

[Anonymous No.2644387]

Here's a quick doodle I've been doing of Rem and Ram from Re: Zero. I've just started actually trying to make something half decent. I haven't really tried doing AA to this piece yet so it looks pretty jaggy n' shit. Any helpful advice would be appreciated.

[Anonymous No.2644388]

>>2644387
Fuck, forgot pic.

[Anonymous No.2645012]

>>2644388
Who caved in their heads? They look like they were dropped as babies

[Anonymous No.2645664]

>>2644388
I'm sorry but this is not good and there isn't much to crit aside from telling you to study fundamentals.

Take your drawing and imagine it non-pixel if you can't figure out why it's bad.

[Anonymous No.2645814]

>>2643192
I recommend making larger sprites. At the moment, I think the pixel placement is done in a way that's a little more "symbolism" than it is "representative of the actual thing."

What I mean is that the pixels are placed in the "simplest way possible" such that it symbolizes what it's supposed to be. Rather than draw actual eyes for example, single pixels alone are used on the wizard and knight sprites to symbolize the eyes. This is the equivalent of making dot eyes on a stick figure.

There's nothing wrong with this, mind you, but I think if you work with larger sprites, the flaws of this might become more apparent. Typically, if a character is really small, dot eyes won't even be possible because the eyes would be too big. (the tall character with the shield for example, can't have dot eyes without looking weird or forced).

Anyway, I see some potential here, given some of the shading on the small knight character and the wizard character. Though the shading in general is pretty flat at this point. I recommending drawing and shading a ball, should be simple enough.

And finally, as for the colors, I wouldn't worry about that just yet. For now, I'll just say to stick with as few colors as you possibly can, and make sure the colors all contrast enough that you can tell the difference between every shade. The knight character for example, has two shades of grey that are really really close to each other.

[Anonymous No.2645821]

>>2643748
As others said, the pistol being moved so there's some negative space between it and the girl's head would make it more readable and give a stronger silhouette.

Something about the colors in this bugs me. I'm not sure what it is exactly but they seem dull. I made an edit here to try to show some more contrast and hue-shifting, though note that I exaggerated the blues by making them really light. I get that the jacket is supposed to be dark blue.

A also made a small edit to the eyes and mouth. I made the mouth subtler and the eyes much smaller as well. In the original, her mouth looks really wide, and oddly reminds me of Jim from The Office. As for the eyes, I felt they were too large, like she has huge blue irises but with no white or even any pupils.

[Anonymous No.2645828]

>>2644388
As others said the heads appear squished. Just make 'em more circular and they should be fine. Look at picture of REM and RAM for reference, their heads are that typical anime fat upside-down tear drop shape. This is more like a round rectangle.

I think you did pretty well on some of the linework though, mainly the sides with the ear, and the colors are actually quite nice too, though could use a bit more contrast. The cheeks, nose, and ear pixeling are the best parts of this.

[Anonymous No.2645830]

>>2643748
>>2645821
I'm sorry about this, but the point is I think girls typically have more "dainty" mouths. Or at least here, I think a subtler mouth makes here seem more focused.

[Anonymous No.2646988]

So, how do I improve this piece? I think the perspective is a bit screwy, but I don't know how to fix that.

[Anonymous No.2646994]

>>2646988
The tree just looks like a mess of pixels to me, I had to really think to understand what it was supposed to be. I don't think the perspective is bad, I think it's hard to tell what stuff is.

[Anonymous No.2646997]

Am new to pixelart is there any advices that could improve my drawings?...i use chara maker 1999 and Idraw.

[Anonymous No.2647200]

[Anonymous No.2647377]

>>2647200
Pretty good.

[Anonymous No.2647639]

New thread :

>>2647633
>>2647633
>>2647633
>>2647633

[Anonymous No.2647792]

>>2647200

Don't save your pixel art as jpeg's friend. The compression artifacts ruin the sharp pixel look.