As I've said, a second thread for projects on small canvases I'm doing. Naturally there'll be a lot more in here over time as they are quicker to finish.


I've been trying to do a 64x64px realistic portrait of H.P. Lovecraft as an avatar and experimenting around with AA today.
This is my progress so far:


This is the last save I did for now:


And this is the reference I've been using. http://cdn.theatlantic.com/static/mt/assets/culture_test/banner_lovecraft.jpg

A tiny study for practice should be a good way to open this thread.

I think you can improve on the expression. Your expression reads scar face like.  He seems unamused, even slightly annoyed.
When I look at the ref photo, I see a tender fragility in him.  It's in his eyes, lips and skin. 

  

I also reduced the colors from 18 to 8.  In greyscale, you don't need that many colors since it is much easier to get a larger range of values in a smaller number of colors than in a multicolored palette

I didnt work on the hair, but it definitely needs some work too though.

I also didn't work on eliminating all of the banding, but I personally like to do that last.  I like to get the look I'm going for, then try to keep it when I get rid of banding, since I find it saves a step.


Edited by Friend - 20 March 2015 at 12:56pm

Sorry for the double-post. Changed the expression and removed two colors from the palette so far. I forgot to mention that I wanted to use dithering as little as possible with this one.


Edited by cmmrc - 20 March 2015 at 2:44pm

i cant open the link you posted in the last message.  So are you not going for the expression of your reference?

the AA on the side of the face is not working.  In fact you went the wrong way with it.  Notice how if you look at the edge of the face looking at the bright skin color, the edge is still very jagged?  the dark color you used to try to AA that section simply made the area more blurry, and without softening the edge at all.  This is the opposite of what you normally want to accomplish with AA.  You want instead to soften the jaggies, while keeping the sharpness of the line as much as possible.  This also means the less AA you can get away with the better. 

The AA color does not work because it is not bright enough.  AA actually requires much brighter colors than you'd think.  Maybe even slightly brighter than the middle value between two edges.  Notice how my AA colors are bright?  I also eased into the AA since you are going for a realistic look.

I think of it this way.  You are AA'ing the edge of the cheek.  There are two options, given your naked line art.  You can either try to AA upwards, meaning you darken the edge of the line art with a dark color, or you AA downwards, meaning you simply elongate the lineart with AA. 

Figuring out what you need to do requires you to think about the line art, and which directions it can be AA'ed. 

Looking at the straight edge at bottom right of the cheek leading into the chin, you see you have a jagged edge despite your AA.  Because it is more of a straight edge than a curve, AA'ing it should be much simpler and straight forward.  Instead of choosing barely lighter colors that don't soften the edge, mixed with a very dark color that will just blur the line, you can soften the edge perfectly while keeping it sharp with just a medium color and only placing 1 pixel at each jaggy to smooth out the straight line.  I demonstrated this in my edit

instead of trying to whittle down the colors, why not try to just use the software to color reduce and see how much you can reduce your palette before you lose precious detail? 

maybe part of your problem with your eyes is simply you have too many colors and they are too close in value :p  I had to toy around with the values until I could distinguish every color. 

The hair and top of the head look very nice now

it's looking awesome.  The upper head looks really solid, but as you say you can improve on the side of the head.  Try emphasizing the brow bone and upper cheek bone on the side of the head.  Note the curves on the side of the face.

I think the eyes might be messing up the likeness.  It sort of suggests he has diva eyelashes how youve drawn the clusters, even though you probably didn't mean to suggest eyelashes above the eye?  I think how I added a specular in the eye (also something you did in your original post) eliminated this and added a lot of likeness...His eyes are an important feature to get his likeness right.

I like your dedication and youre quite talented :d

On your 4th edit, to my eye it looks like it was a step backwards in that it lost some of its humanistic feel.  Instead, it shifted slightly towards looking like some kind of animatronic doll in a horror movie, but that's just what I see.


Edited by Friend - 20 March 2015 at 5:06pm

it will just take time until your pixeling catches up to your drawing.  I myself am absolutely terrible at drawing, but I can pixel pretty ok. 

Have you tried getting feedback at pixelation? (wayofthepixel.net) 
You might find more feedback there, since that place seems to have more high level artist crowd. 

Your new edit has a little more life, but the facial features still feel too stiff.  Your cluster work is crazy though!  Dont fry your eyes out though.  Must hurt how youre using all of those greys with that much detail. 

I tried a slight update just for fun.  I messed around more with the face and simply added your new hair and collar : p

  annnd (1 px longer chin, not sure if better or worse)




Edited by Friend - 20 March 2015 at 7:36pm

Chunk it up.  Focus on how a certain facial feature makes you feel or something along those lines and dont move on until it feels right.  Sometimes the artist has to know when to switch off the analyzing brain and when to simply just go with how it feels.  Funny enough, going with how something feels can often produce more realistic results than trying to approach it analytically.

don't forget to have fun though.  I know, you kinda seem like a perfectionist.  Being a perfectionist and being a pixel pusher is a double edged sword. 

I smiled almost the entire time I was playing with an edit.  I tried to just let go of whether or not the edit will be any good, and instead just decided to really trust myself and tried to connect with the person I was pixeling.  If youre a fan of hpl, I'm sure you can do this. 

Im not sure if thatll help, but one thing I have learned is that no matter how much knowledge or skill youre working worth, if you enter the game without the right frame of mind, your results can show it.  You are creating, so sometimes whatever youre feeling or thinking as you do it can show up on your work. 

Im sure you know that.  Idk, tomorrow will be a new day =D  Fresh eyes, fresh slate.  If you need to sleep, sleep.  Your pixels arent going anywhere


Edited by Friend - 20 March 2015 at 6:20pm

Another double post, but just because I feel like this could be finished now.
If anyone has any suggestion for improvements, I'd love to hear them before submitting and starting on something different~!

EDIT:

Changed the position of the mouth. Do I need to move the right eye a bit or does it only look like that to me?

EDIT 2:

I think this is done now. I tried to copy his signature- never was any good at typography, though. That might show.


Edited by cmmrc - 21 March 2015 at 5:52am

Thanks!
Already started something new. I decided to save all my steps in the animated gif right away for easier management and a bit more harddrive space.
I'll try to use under five colors here. It's Richard D. James, also known as Aphex Twin! And AFX, and the Tusk, and..
I'm going with his standard expression that you see on all his album covers, promos, and everybody in his videos. It's hard to link to any reference when he's one of these guys that like to always make the same face, hahah.


EDIT:



EDIT 2:
Almost done.



Edited by cmmrc - 21 March 2015 at 8:42am

looks weird yet me likey.  one suggestion, maybe doing the intricate pixel pushing before you finalize the concept is not so smart

Another double post, but the one above is getting a bit too messy.

Very nice! First, Lovecraft, then an 'Elder thing' (one of his creatures)...
Red and purple really suits it/him.
I'd love to see another one!

Just submitted it to the gallery! If anyone of you sees glaring mitsakes (probably at the arms. It's the arms, isn't it? Oh god it's the arms) please tell me.

This is how it's looking now:


As usual, I made an animated gif out of my steps:

Sorry for the double-post, but I'm short of ripping my hair out. Deadline for this animation is pretty much tomorrow, and I have no idea how to fix it anymore.

Oh god, just noticed them, too. I just made her shoulders a bit smaller in a new file and hadn't cleaned up the skirt yet before uploading.
She isn't meant to, and I'm not sure why it's looking like that. I was hoping it was mostly due to the lack of background. Any idea what I could do? Never seriously had to animate anything before- I just have some Muybridge pictures lying around here as reference and am honestly pretty lost at this point.

Edit:
Fixed the strays and made the background transparent.



Edited by cmmrc - 16 May 2015 at 3:14pm

Reversing the frame order did wonders. I think.


Also, thank you a lot! I'm still kinda proud of it myself, mainly due to that goddamn weird palette I forced myself to stick to, hahah.

Hahah, actually, for once it's no monster in disguise. It's all more or less coming down to "cmmrc tries to learn animation in the shortest amount of time possible to not flunk one of his courses".
Long story short, she's one of roughly 45 characters the player can either try ghostly communications with or spook to death. Therefore, I'll definitely have to do an animation of her reaction to her bathroom sink or whatnot transforming into a tentacle monster, so there's that at least. :)

Thanks for the link! I just knew her head was too stiff and she should be moving it somehow, but had no idea how much and couldn't really tell from the still images I used as reference whether there's really any movement going on.
I think I could probably try to make the streak that's covering her left ear bop up and down a bit, that might help. I had huge trouble with her hair anyway since it's supposed to be one of these rather stiff and hair-spray laden (if that stuff existed back then) pinned-up hairstyles except for a few curls falling down.
I deleted the submission from the gallery for now to try and fix her head movement later today.
 I mentioned the deadline for it being today, and it's "good enough" for the course, but that's only if you go by comparison. Doesn't mean that I can't still make this actually good.