/ic/ - Artwork/Critique

[Anonymous No.6813658]

pixel art thread

[Anonymous No.6813666]

How do I improve?
Been in a rut for a while

[Anonymous No.6813685]

>>6813666
Use less colors and remember that the sillouhete matters most

[Anonymous No.6814768]

>>6813658
the soft edges are nice, cozy palette

>>6813666
checked.
hue shifting goes a long way (I cheat by stealing palettes from lospec). And maybe try to make the shading more volumetric

[Anonymous No.6814956]

What I meant was how do I make better looking art, not necessarily the color
the colors seem like a smaller problem to me compared to how I feel I am no longer progressing

[Anonymous No.6814980]

>>6814956
study art you like

[Anonymous No.6815033]

>>6814980
Is study just a fancy word for copy?
Because otherwise I don't know how to do that
Basically I want to design better looking stuff that looks good and cool
I like pic rel even though I'm pretty sure it's a 3d model

[Anonymous No.6815037]

>>6813658
I'm new to animating in pixels, so any kind of advice is welcomed

[Anonymous No.6815500]

where do you start with learning pixel art? What skills do you need for it coming in at the start?

[Anonymous No.6815671]

>>6814768
>>6815500
>where do you start?
BJG on yt has some good beginner guides
https://youtu.be/WUlgvNe4BLU?si=eKzNEmSj38UJ1y7j
https://youtu.be/90BghUX7SD0?si=mzQhaozla-3vpqTz
The gist is to start with harsh limitations (low resolution and color count). Doing a lot with a little is what makes pixel art fun

>what skills do you need?
it probably helps to have an understanding of color, form, etc but I started with basically nothing and learned along the way. I'd say just get started and experiment with different things

[Anonymous No.6815722]

>>6815500
By doing
start with 16x16 with only a few colors

[Anonymous No.6815728]

>>6815037
upscale your art whenever you post it online, unless it being-pixel perfect is necessary

[Anonymous No.6815731]

>>6815728
DON'T TELL ME WHAT TO DO YOU PIECE OF SHIT

[Anonymous No.6815744]

>>6815500
As far as books go "Pixel logic" and "Make Your Own Pixel Art Create Graphics for Games, Animations, and More" will teach you everything there's to know about rendering pixel art. But both will openly tell you that their objective is not to teach you how to draw.
This is the learning path on one of the books and if you have been on /ic/ for a while is pretty much what is recommended here. I started with Betty Edwards a long time ago but loomis is a really popular choice too.

The pixel art community is no different from the folks drawing high res in the sense that they will screach and fight with all their might against leaning art fundamentals. But believe me, is the fastest way to get you to draw cool shit.

[Anonymous No.6815749]

>>6815731

>tell me how to improve
>>6815728
>NOOO DONT TELL ME HOW TO IMPROVE

[Anonymous No.6815758]

>>6815731
>>6815749
THIS ISNT ME
>>6815728
And thanks anon. From now on Ill try to make it bigger to post it

[Anonymous No.6815807]

How the hell do I pick scale?
these are all bananas I made real quick, all different sizes
How the hell do I choose the right size?
the more effort I put in the less I can just go back and increase the resolution

[Anonymous No.6815840]

>>6815758
goodluck on your pixel art journey, fren

[Anonymous No.6815850]

>>6815807
what exactly do you mean by "the right size" and scale?

[Anonymous No.6815876]

>>6815850
That's exactly my problem

[Anonymous No.6815890]

>>6815033
Yeah. Pick a game and try to make a sprite that would fit in that. Use the games sprites as reference, you don't have to copy 1:1.

[Anonymous No.6815896]

>>6815807
You may want to consider making the banana in relation to a character. Unless it's an icon? Then pick a size, perhaps 8x8, 16x16 or 32x32?

[Anonymous No.6815984]

>>6815033
what the other anon said. essentially pretend that you became the artist you admire, then create new art in that style.

[Anonymous No.6816025]

>>6815876
What is the banana for? That's how you choose
>If it's art for art's sake then whatever size
>If it's for a game and it's a powerup for example then make it around half the size of the main character
>If you want to recreate old video game art styles then make it 16x16 or 32x32

[Anonymous No.6816144]

tried a mobile pixel drawing app and so far i like it

[Anonymous No.6816285]

bump

[Anonymous No.6816348]

>>6815890
>play video games
WHAT THE HELL NOOOOO THAT'S LITERALLY HELL!!! ARRRGGG
Alright fine, I'll play video games.

[Anonymous No.6816349]

>>6815896
The banana is just an example, how do I pick the correct size of the character then?

[Anonymous No.6816358]

>>6815896
>>6816025
But look at this street fighter sprite
They chose the size somehow and it looks good

[Anonymous No.6816374]

>>6816358
yes because the artist is an actual professional and we are /beg/s

also, those sprites were cropped to the edge of the pixel to save storage

[Anonymous No.6816384]

>>6816374
I wanna be like the pros though

[Anonymous No.6816444]

>>6816384
we all do don't we

[Anonymous No.6816526]

>>6816358
they had the maximum screen resolution of the arcade/console to use as a guide for how big the sprite should be. 320x240 is a common one back then. So to have Chun Li under the half the screen height, they chose around 100 pixels.

[Anonymous No.6816531]

>>6816526
*being dreamcast, they did have higher res to work with if they wanted, but they stuck with previous games resolutions for consistency/efficiency. the backgrounds used higher res irrc.

[Anonymous No.6816793]

>>6816526
>>6816531
Why not make her bigger or smaller?
See my problem? It's a problem of too much choice and not being able to go back
It's causing me paralysis
I haven't been able to make art in weeks due to this

[Anonymous No.6817133]

>>6816793
they didnt make her bigger bc then it would clutter too much of the screen and didnt make her smaller bc then you could notice her less. pick a screen resolution youd like to work in like 240p or 480p and see how what works for you. like >>6816025 said it really depends on the context in which the banana would be used

[Anonymous No.6817183]

>>6817133
What is 240p and 480p exactly?
I know they are like screen resolutions, but not really what they are exactly
I think they are the maximum height right?

[Anonymous No.6817194]

Scaletard here
So here is an example of some work I did
it's 128x256, but I pulled those numbers out the ass.
I did intuitively know the depth of work I could expect based on what I do with smaller works, I had the intuition, but I was basically just putting my balls into the wind guessing the canvas size.
I would just like a more standardized choice of size so I have consistency in my work.
I know this might seem like schizo ramblings but everything else I've done was 32x32 or 64x64, and now for works bigger than that scale I am feeling like I'm going nuts.

[Anonymous No.6817224]

>>6816384
Dinoswordus my darling!

[Anonymous No.6818000]

bump

[Anonymous No.6820718]

bumpy

[Anonymous No.6821369]

I decided to practice by tracing/copying the official art for Emmet from Pokemon BW/BW2. I would love some critique to see what I can improve on.

[Anonymous No.6821389]

>>6815033
If you dont study/copy from external source then the only way is throwing random thing at the wall and see whichever sticks. Duh, go study artists you like and try copying them, you'll likely figure out new things/methods just by simply trying to replicate someone else's work that you can put your own spin into in the next artwork

[Anonymous No.6822256]

>>6821369
I just look up the character and it looks very similar. If you actually want some feedback, you should try something a little more challenging, like drawing a character on the same size that could fit with this one. To see if you can emulate the style.
To me this exercise doesn't seem to be that useful, to be honest. You could have practiced accuracy, but you decided to trace it, so i guess no to that. I have seen some people that trace drawings because they want to practice rendering but there is nothing to render here, the original is cel shaded so you didn't make any decisions.

[Anonymous No.6822334]

Ok, i found this on the twatters, amd i wanna know what app is used here?

[Anonymous No.6822335]

>>6822334
not pixel art

[Anonymous No.6822639]

glad to see this threads are still up

[Anonymous No.6822640]

glad to see this threads are still up

[Anonymous No.6822696]

>>6822335
why not

[Anonymous No.6823808]

>>6822696
Because i said so!

[Anonymous No.6823827]

>>6822334
Wow that brings back memories. Pretty sure that's some old web-based oekaki program, Shi-painter or some variant maybe?

[Anonymous No.6823887]

>>6823827
Looks like it

[Anonymous No.6824394]

bump

[Anonymous No.6824399]

>>6822335
Retard

[Anonymous No.6824568]

>>6815807
>>6816793
Here's an actual answer to your question: you don't need to think about scale unless your project needs to be at a specific scale. Just eyeball the size of whatever you're making; if space limits the amount of detail you want to use, scale your project up. If you feel there's too much under-utilized canvas space, scale your project down. Don't feel like you can't go back and fix things if they look off, and often times whatever you make will look fine at whatever resolution you use. If you're feeling overwhelmed with choice, just make a canvas and start placing pixels without worrying about filling all the space up.

[Anonymous No.6826123]

bump

[Anonymous No.6826160]

anyone here into the double outline look? easy to do with shift + o, just do it twice
this guy does it a lot and it's kind of nice

kenney.nl/assets/category:2D

[Anonymous No.6826281]

>>6815033
>I'm pretty sure it's a 3d model
i believe he makes clay sculptures, takes photos of them and then runs them through a filter... though this one does look a little too consistent/detailed, it could be 3d

[Anonymous No.6826482]

why is it so difficult to just import a tileset into Aseprite? I can't figure it out and nothing I look up is helping
I have the beta access and the tilemap layer stuff is there, but getting the actual image into the tilemap panel is impossible

[Anonymous No.6827907]

>>6826482
kenny art is so soulless, I hope this is just practice and not a real project

guy I made for my game

[Anonymous No.6828458]

>>6823827
too bad is java so it doesnt work no more on win10

[Anonymous No.6828948]

[Anonymous No.6829813]

>>6826160
dicking about some more

[Anonymous No.6829852]

>>6822335
kys

[Anonymous No.6830220]

>>6829813
I hate pixel art animation so much it's not even funny. I can't work out this running animation
maybe this is fine? I don't know, I need feedback

[Anonymous No.6830229]

>>6830220

[Anonymous No.6830233]

>>6830220
I like 2/3 frame walk cycles. Reminds me of the NES. If I recall, the mario bros 2 sprites has 2 frame walking amimations.

[Anonymous No.6830244]

>>6830233
yeah, something about it just throws me off all the time. maybe because I made the legs so skinny, and they're the same color?
fuck knows

[Anonymous No.6830618]

>>6830220
I would add more frames to this because i don't think it reads well, i think the problem is that a lot of the movement is conveyed with the arms on those examples. I Would also change the color of the leg that is on the background to make it more clear and also try to make the shell move to the sides not only up and down

[Anonymous No.6830642]

[Anonymous No.6831801]

i know this is pretty big for pixel art but i'm struggling to refine this and make it actually look finished, especailly with the tail and claws. any ideas? maybe the color pallete could be better too?

[Anonymous No.6832252]

>>6831801
I like the colors of the hands and arms. For the head and tail, you really can't go wrong with hue shifting. Maybe try some green-tinted blues for the highlights. Other than that, I'm sure you'll be happier with the piece once you start finalizing the shading

[Anonymous No.6833550]

I posted this as a thread unknowingly xd
At least I updated it a little.
Apologies!

[Anonymous No.6834978]

I'm never finishing this, but I thought I could at least use it to bump the thread.

[Anonymous No.6835960]

>>6834978
good pixelart gets shitgnored because the jannies hate it, so they make the schizo thread instead and some suckers think its the real one and post their stuff there.

[Anonymous No.6836519]

Steven ambatukam

[Anonymous No.6836711]

>>6833550
Yep I am finally done with her mugshot.
I've also made a version without a the visor.

[Anonymous No.6836717]

>>6836711
Visor less version

[Anonymous No.6837979]

>>6836711
>>6836717
I don't know if this is a character that is known for the visor, but I like the visor-less version a lot more. Both versions look pretty good though

[Anonymous No.6838309]

bump

[Anonymous No.6838884]

My first ever original piece

[Anonymous No.6838954]

>>6836711
>>6836717
WHERE'S THE BOOB WINDOW YOU MOTHERFUCKER

sprite polish, removing arm lines that should not be seen from behind.

[Anonymous No.6839003]

>>6838954
Anon, this helped me to see how to animate action in pixelarts thanks

[Anonymous No.6839010]

>>6839003
Also, what happens if you make the slashes in shorter intervals like adding one in between?

[Anonymous No.6839048]

Does anyone else make a canvas for their pixel art?

I wish Aseprite could exempt layers from index mode.

[Anonymous No.6839057]

>>6826482
I'm gonna tell you what I did starting with pic related, a template for making seamless tilesets

1: Open new sheet, set to 256x256
2: Paste this into aseprite
3: Right click the layer, convert to -> Tilemap
4: Above the pallet, click the "manual" button (the single rectangle)
5: Draw on the canvas, and watch tiles update in real time.

To adjust the granularity of the grid, go to View, Grid, Grid Settings, and set it as appropriate. A multiple of 8 is usually ideal. Please note you cannot adjust the grid on a layer already marked as a tilemap, you'll have to convert it back to a layer.

[Anonymous No.6839066]

>>6839057
If you set it to 16 in every box, you should get this. From here you can draw on any of the tiles and they'll update the other ones as you do so.

[Anonymous No.6839660]

>>6839048
What is this?

[Anonymous No.6840141]

>>6839660
A canvas specialized for doing sprites for old consoles. The palettes are the possible colors for specific systems, the 1-F thing (honestly it should be 0 to F but I don't care) on the left is for restricting your color usage according to system, and the largest one is for restricting the size of your artwork.

[Anonymous No.6841155]

hi, lemme know what u think

[Anonymous No.6841174]

>>6841155
soul/10

[Anonymous No.6841637]

[Anonymous No.6841639]

>>6841637

[Anonymous No.6841682]

>>6841637
>>6841639
Nice

[Anonymous No.6841750]

>>6841637
>>6841639
>MOAR

[Anonymous No.6842804]

>>6841155
Cute beg art

[Anonymous No.6842808]

>>6813658
Made a portal

[Anonymous No.6842946]

>>6838954
Noted, thanks.
Sorry bout the boob window.

[Anonymous No.6842948]

>>6837979
Glad you liked it friend.

[Anonymous No.6843253]

>>6813658
Made a small meme animation: https://youtu.be/wpxSVTdMmOg

[Anonymous No.6846087]

>>6815033
we need more hylics-esque art anon

[Anonymous No.6846144]

>>6829813
still goofing with double outlines. I dig the look

>>6842808
nice

[Anonymous No.6846389]

>>6846144
who needs walk cycles when you can have roll cycles

[Anonymous No.6846509]

>>6826160
if you use a bit duller colors and make the outlines something non-black, this would make good looking paper mario style sprites. Nice work!

[Anonymous No.6846647]

Are there any good pixel art programs for iPad? Preferably one where you can animate them too

[Anonymous No.6848020]

>>6846647
Pixel Studio is pretty full-featured, and I find its animation interface to be quite intuitive

[Anonymous No.6851196]

Where do I start? There doesn't seem to be a Loomis of pixel art.

[Anonymous No.6851816]

[Anonymous No.6851818]

>>6851816
K I N O

[Anonymous No.6852964]

>>6851816
This doesn't look like genuine is obviously a filter. To turn a high res picture into pixel art you need to reduce the number of colors and the resolution, after that you need to clean up all the orphan pixels or it will look noisy.This is and example of how it looks with less colors but it still need clean up

[Anonymous No.6854786]

found this
explain this sorcery

[Anonymous No.6854815]

>>6852964
it was AI. it's been posted here before too.

[Anonymous No.6854831]

>>6854815
Damn, AI pixel art is pretty good.
And I dont like AI...

[Anonymous No.6854961]

>>6854831
>AI pixel art is pretty good.
>literally a downscaled illustration with high unsharp mask
Your crappy AI will never compare to real pixel art.

[Anonymous No.6855149]

Anyone got some tips on how I could improve this background?

[Anonymous No.6855605]

>>6855149
The colors of the trees in the fore-, middle-, and background are way too similar, I had to squint to see that they weren't really the same color. Increase the difference of values between the layers of trees, and maybe involve some hue-shifting if you think it looks better.
The far background should be darker in color than the trees if it's a continuation of the (presumably dark) forest.
I don't understand the lighting of the ground; why is the grass on the left lighter than the lower grass on the right if there's a consistent layer of leaves at the top of the frame? The picture would look much better if you could show the viewer where the light is coming from.
And imo, there's too much dithering. If you're going to use this much dithering, it's best to just add another color. Dithering should be used sparingly unless there's a concrete stylistic reason for using it.

[Anonymous No.6856281]

>>6855605
The reason the transition goes from dark to light and not light to dark is because I'm trying to account for atmospheric perspective. So that's why the forefront trees are darker, same as to why dark green is at the front. The dithering has no stylistic choice I just didn't know how to spruce of the ground so added some random texture >.<, personally I think it looks fine as a place holder texture. I might try adding some specific stuff like some flora but I'm not really sure how I could make the grass look better on it's own.

[Anonymous No.6856286]

YOU SHOULD SEE MY SCIBIDIBANBAN ART FRIEND!S!! >>6856224

[Anonymous No.6856581]

>make something low resolution
>try making the same thing at an actual game resolution
>total crapshoot
why does this keep happening? how do I get around it?

[Anonymous No.6856598]

>>6856581
make the tiles/spritesheet, and build it out of that. don't make the whole pic in one go. unless you are going to make fighting game backgrounds... then you gotta go all in.

[Anonymous No.6856687]

>>6856281
Grass texture can be done with alternating values (or hues too, like picrel). I've also found that adding patches of dirt or exposed stone can spruce things up nicely.
I like the detail you added with the leaves

[Anonymous No.6858836]

>>6813658
dumb question from a beg, but what are your processes when you do pixel art, especially animation? I would assume it's drawing the main forms/actions as normal in ps/csp/pts, then importing it into the pixel art program and drawing over it? or are you guys just going straight into the pixel art program and doing everything there? or are both valid and more so dependent on the artist's skill level?

[Anonymous No.6858846]

>>6858836
>both valid and more so dependent on the artist's skill level

[Anonymous No.6858923]

>>6858836
For animations i usually do everything on the final resolution. But if im doing a high detail piece, i do find it easier to draw the sketch on another program and then trace it on the final resolution.

[Anonymous No.6859725]

join the based pixel art discord server (that's not my name for it i didn't make the server) you nutsacks https://discord.gg/9GzuemZhVR

[Anonymous No.6859972]

>>6856581
>try making the same thing
But you didn't make the same thing

[Anonymous No.6860183]

>>6846389
Cute

[Anonymous No.6860821]

I know it's bad, I just wanted to show it to someone who likes pixels

[Anonymous No.6861549]

>>6860821
Bad colors choice and banding. But not bad beside those.

[Anonymous No.6862001]

>>6860821
I would recommend you to practice using a reference, this characters are super popular and there should no be any problems finding those angles to draw. I think is a cool idea, the weakest part is peach face at the end. I change 2 frames and i looks cuter in my opinion.

[Anonymous No.6862003]

>>6862001
>the weakest part is peach face
He doesn`t know... hehe... fr...
>and i looks cuter in my opinion.
You are cute, fr.

[Anonymous No.6862006]

>>6862001
Pyface tho maybe you are not cuter than "Peach". Maybe you more of a Bowser type.

[Anonymous No.6864582]

[Anonymous No.6865204]

>>6864582
cute. also commander keens girlfriend.

[Anonymous No.6865239]

it looks like shit and i wasted 6 hours and my life is a waste

[Anonymous No.6865243]

>>6865239
forgot pic

[Anonymous No.6865262]

>>6813658

[Anonymous No.6865264]

>>6865262

[Anonymous No.6865267]

>>6865264

[Anonymous No.6865282]

>>6865243
I think this looks fine! The only thing i might say is maybe try to not have the trees so consistently vertical. A lot of the time trees dont sit on perfectly flat land and even if they do theyll usually have some bend to them.

[Anonymous No.6865283]

>>6865282
same fag

[Anonymous No.6865287]

>>6865283
Yeah what am i thinking you cant compliment people!! Grow up

[Anonymous No.6865290]

They look like AI

[Anonymous No.6865306]

>>6865287
nice 4 hour edit in mspaint.
They are so obviously AI. you didn't even try.

[Anonymous No.6865322]

lol the AI cmon man there are some people that at least fooled a few others doing that

[Anonymous No.6865516]

>>6865287
KEK look at the shitty jpeg artefacts and pixels melting into each other, how did you think anyone would fall for that shitskin

[Anonymous No.6865634]

Does sprite descaling always distorts pixel art even if resized by even numbers?

[Anonymous No.6865639]

>>6865634
I don`t mean small sprites btw. So let`s say 108x140 sprite should normally be scaled down without distortion to half it`s size? Right?

[Anonymous No.6865675]

>>6865639
Anyone?

[Anonymous No.6865692]

>>6822640
this is really cool anon, moar?

[Anonymous No.6865722]

>>6865675
It start to distort once you try to make it smaller than the original size sprite, it only works when it was scale up and you want to turn it back to the original size.

[Anonymous No.6865743]

>>6865722
So just redraw it from 0 then? Or would it be better to use descaled version and just tweak it?

[Anonymous No.6865747]

>>6865743
I don't think you need me to tell you this but, tweaking it should be easier

[Anonymous No.6865768]

>>6865747
Kek, yeah.