Travis Posted October 26, 2016 I am no artist, but I keep needing to make game assets for my little projects, and I always fall back on pixel art. I decided to start actually trying to get better at doing this as I go. The best way to get better is to practice, so join me as I try to do (the occasional ?) Pixel Dailies topic as sent by the @Pixel_Dailies twitter account. I want to post what I create in this thread so that I can get some constructive criticism. Maybe you will post yours just to show off! Doesn't matter to me! Post your own, criticize mine, whatever! I am going to keep practicing and posting the not-too-embarrassing items. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Travis Posted October 26, 2016 10/25/2016 - #RocketLauncher I am trying to spend less than 30 minutes on these. I spent more than that on this one, and you can tell I decided to be done by the time I got to the background. That part is just sort of filler, but kind of conveys the idea I wanted within my own "time limit". Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Rilen Posted October 26, 2016 Cool idea! What program are you using? What kind of tablet setup? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Travis Posted October 26, 2016 1 hour ago, Rilen said: Cool idea! What program are you using? What kind of tablet setup? I used to use paint shop pro because I had used it at work for years and it was pretty cheap. I just started using pyxel edit. For $9, this program is really slick. It has a few bugs where the hot keys don't quite take effect on occassion, etc., but paint shop pro had similar scale bugs too. Oh, and I'm just using mouse and keyboard. I'm doing this on the cheap! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Rilen Posted October 26, 2016 Wow, awesome! I think I always assume that everyone is using a sweet tablet and that's my excuse for not trying to draw good. $9 is a steal. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Travis Posted October 27, 2016 10/26/2016 #BirthdayGirl I probably shouldn't post whatever I try every time, but for now, I just am for better or for worse. Probably a lot of issues with this one... Not too sure why I went this way with the theme, but I made it pretty tough for someone trying to get the hang of this. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Problem Machine Posted October 27, 2016 I've been doing a lot of pixel art stuff for my game, but probably don't have time for additional challenges like these. I like your birthday cake -- looks a bit angular around the edges, if you don't have any tween colors might want to play around with some dithering. For pixel stuff I've been using Aseprite and it seems really good. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Travis Posted October 27, 2016 45 minutes ago, Problem Machine said: I've been doing a lot of pixel art stuff for my game, but probably don't have time for additional challenges like these. I like your birthday cake -- looks a bit angular around the edges, if you don't have any tween colors might want to play around with some dithering. For pixel stuff I've been using Aseprite and it seems really good. Thanks for the input! I might try to mess with it some more another day. It took a long time to get it to look this good... Do you mean the shading portions look too angular or the edges? (Or both?!) EDIT: Tried a little dithering and I didn't like the results... Does this help? (Or again, were you more concerned with the edges/frosting?) Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Problem Machine Posted October 27, 2016 I guess the shading portions. Like, the turning edge for the light, rather than the outline. It looks a little octagonal. Here, I did this real quick to illustrate what I mean. I also put a bit of the midtone along the dark edge for a bit of reflected light effect. The tongue looks really nice too, btw. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Travis Posted October 27, 2016 Ohhh, nice! After you mentioned it, I noticed the octagonal look. I tried a little dithering in the areas you did, but I didn't do it quite the same. Your way looks great! I also like the darker tone on the white frosting you added. I guess I was being a bit timid about shading that part for no good reason. This is just the sort of input I was hoping for! I really appreciate it. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
osmosisch Posted October 27, 2016 The tongue is amazing! Only issue there is the glazing dripping down from the tongue tip doesn't seem to be shaded by the tongue, I think? I love that you're doing this. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Travis Posted October 27, 2016 2 hours ago, osmosisch said: The tongue is amazing! Only issue there is the glazing dripping down from the tongue tip doesn't seem to be shaded by the tongue, I think? I love that you're doing this. Well, I was trying to make the tongue appear like it was just going flat down the front edge of the table, so I didn't think there would be shading except on the right side of the drool? Maybe I didn't quite get it right? I will play around with that some more too. Thanks for the support! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
SuperBiasedMan Posted October 27, 2016 I think in that case you could shade the tongue to show that it's curled down at an angle. As it stands, it seems like the tongue is on a relatively flat plane. Looks good Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Travis Posted October 27, 2016 I think I need to spend some time tomorrow looking at the tongue with a fresh set of eyes and try to not start whatever the challenge is (also this is taking more time than intended). I like all the input on the tongue and drool! I will also try to fix up today's, which I tried to fit into 32x32 to keep it really low res. Again, I picked something with cylinders, which I should try to avoid the next time! Let me know what you think of today's. I am going to post it and walk away from the image for a while to see what sticks out to me when I come back to it. I think some of what I was going for is getting lost, but I won't call it out to shade your critiques. Also, anyone else should feel free to join in and do any of these dailies, or any other pixel art thing. I just want to see and discuss pixel art to get better at it even if just a little. 10/27/2016 #mammoth_tank Here it is again at a smaller scale, with a larger (totally boring) background: Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
skamakazi Posted October 28, 2016 Love the art, especially the mammoth. Make a goofy TBS game called Tankimals! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
SuperBiasedMan Posted October 28, 2016 Looking at that, I'd suggest using more blocks of colours. I like your mammoth, but the disaparate pixels on the body/legs don't really define any form. It's almost like a hanging sheet. If you blocked out light and shadow on distinct legs it'd help clarify the physical shape of it. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Travis Posted October 28, 2016 4 minutes ago, SuperBiasedMan said: Looking at that, I'd suggest using more blocks of colours. I like your mammoth, but the disaparate pixels on the body/legs don't really define any form. It's almost like a hanging sheet. If you blocked out light and shadow on distinct legs it'd help clarify the physical shape of it. Actually, it is supposed to look sort of like a sheet of hair hanging over wheels... I guess that isn't apparent. I was trying to have a few chunks of hair (which had to be single pixels at this scale) hanging down over parts of the wheels. I struggled a lot with the fur...If it doesn't look like wheels under there, have any idea of what could make that more apparent? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
SuperBiasedMan Posted October 28, 2016 Oh it actually did look like wheels! I guess I had just thought it wasn't meant to, my bad! ^^' Turns out it looks like the thing you wanted. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Travis Posted October 28, 2016 6 minutes ago, SuperBiasedMan said: Oh it actually did look like wheels! I guess I had just thought it wasn't meant to, my bad! ^^' Turns out it looks like the thing you wanted. Hahaha! Fantastic! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Travis Posted October 28, 2016 Well, today's topic wasn't particularly inspiring to me. I should have just skipped, but I am kind of hooked on this for now. Since the topic is "owl" and I didn't have any interesting ideas, I figured I'd just make an owl, but limit myself. I again squeezed it into 32x32, but I limited myself to the NES palette. This became quite the challenge. There is only one true brown-brown in the thing, and no good dark tans that aren't all yellowy. Anyway, this forced me to imply shading with accentuating a few other things. I think it worked out OK. Also, the lack of grays is also a challenge. Finding a nighttime background wasn't easy. I went with a roof due to the colors available, basically. I also played with dithering on the clouds in the background but it just looked funky. I think that might work with practice, though. I posted at 3x and 4x. Maybe I should post at 2x too so it really blurs out... maybe just squint? Thanks again for the input! 10/28/2016 #Owl Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Problem Machine Posted October 29, 2016 This looks really good. tbh I think that some color restraints are necessary to really get a nice pixelly feel. With no color restraints, the overall effect is often just that of down-rezzed normal art, which doesn't really look good IMO. I know it's frustrating, but this can force you to make choices that imply a lot of detail. I really like how the tiles turned out here, with the broken up lines. Owl might look a bit improved if it were less symmetrical and had a bit more of a light source, but the symmetrical look makes sense with the NES palette because then it could be just two sprites that are drawn once and then flipped and then drawn again. It doesn't adhere to the 8x8 boundaries one would expect then, but still. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Travis Posted October 29, 2016 12 hours ago, Problem Machine said: This looks really good. tbh I think that some color restraints are necessary to really get a nice pixelly feel. With no color restraints, the overall effect is often just that of down-rezzed normal art, which doesn't really look good IMO. I know it's frustrating, but this can force you to make choices that imply a lot of detail. I really like how the tiles turned out here, with the broken up lines. Owl might look a bit improved if it were less symmetrical and had a bit more of a light source, but the symmetrical look makes sense with the NES palette because then it could be just two sprites that are drawn once and then flipped and then drawn again. It doesn't adhere to the 8x8 boundaries one would expect then, but still. I agree on the color restraints. I've been trying to not just use whatever and keep it limited anyway. I've been doing some reading up on color theory and pixel art and I'm going to try to incorporate some of that into whatever I do next. I agree the symmetry is a bit bleh, but I was thinking if this is NES, this guy could be made from four 16x16 tiles (ignoring any tiles per row/column limitation or whatever). I decided to put just a slight light source above him since I was so limited on shades. Thanks for the input! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Travis Posted October 29, 2016 Time to just post today's and move on. I worked on this way too long and there are parts that still drive me nuts. I am just sticking it here to see if anyone can point out what is really wrong with it (and help me figure out why...) 10/29/2016 #bug Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
osmosisch Posted October 30, 2016 I love that last bug thing. I thin the biggest issue is a lack of depth definition in the head/face. You did a great job on the lower thorax so it's jarring to see the face be completely flat. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Travis Posted October 31, 2016 7 hours ago, osmosisch said: I love that last bug thing. I thin the biggest issue is a lack of depth definition in the head/face. You did a great job on the lower thorax so it's jarring to see the face be completely flat. My original idea was that he would have a flat face... because that was creepy to me, but that amongst many other angular, highlighting, and shading issues make me happy to trash that idea to make it look less jarring, as you say. I took a stab at some facial shading. Think this helps? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites