Either give a suitable background for the portraits or change the color of the outlines alone. It looks odd.

As for the faces, they look good although the face on the first row third column or in other words the one in the middle of the top looks like she has faded away or something fix that.

Which is why I also suggested the outlines to be changed?

And apologies for not knowing that its a he.

More contrast and in the image a lot of fatty pixels

Hey Alex. Could you post a reference?, it would help us a lot seeing as this is a self portrait.

Out of the palettes you've posted, I like the last the most, but only because it fits my preferences :P I also like it because it has nice differences in value between colours, which is great and makes the image look like it has more volume. Which to me is essential when creating a palette.

Someone here said "her" and its my worry that this looks very feminine. To break that mould, make the features of the face stronger, the angles more acute, and the hair with less volume and a different cut. The hair cut here probably looks nothing like your hair which is a reason why I'd like to see a reference of some sort. As you see below the hair looks more believable. It probably doesn't help that you haven't put in ears yet, they are important with long hair as they help determine the angle the hair flows.


Its a quick edit and should give you more ideas to make it look more like yourself.

Here are a few little pieces of advice when creating faces.
-On most faces there are creases coming down either side the side of the nose and around the mouth.
-A lot of artists make the hair way to large, when really it should be closer to the head. If you look at the edit, I actually brought the hair down and in a bit.
-Most lips are only a small margin longer than the width of the nose.
-Necks, they start just under the jaw and contrary to belief actually get slightly smaller as they go down 0_0
Seriously thats like the biggest gripe I have with a lot of portraits. Be aware, that's slightly different if we were speaking about a fat person. haha

Anyway, I hope that helps.

Important not to get carried away mimic wrinkles! This is a big mistake, especially in pixel art.
He was older by ten years.

I do not believe that the portrait was like a female. For all proportions it could be identified with the male type of face

Edited by Yuran - 20 August 2012 at 9:16am

In and of itself, I think this is great. As a portrait, the likeness is lacking. I have to more or less echo what Yuran wrote: making the eyes closer together and working on the nose would make it look more like you. I feel the bridge of the nose should be thinner and the tip rounder.



Something like this, though you could do far better. Keep it up!

Can't see the edit difference but the version on the right of the ref with the smaller eyes certainly has a much better likeness than all the others. The jawline I think needs to be 1-2 pixels lower.
I have to totally agree that too much pixelling adds age to your very young and smooth flesh which that version is much better at.

Here I think it might be even better now: