Pixel Joint Forum: Observer Ward Attempt

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   Hey there, fairly new here and to pixel-art (Though my profile says I've been registered for almost 2 years - never realized you could earn points by doing things other than drawing so I never managed to get to the forums)

I've been trying to draw a mock-up 'skin' for the Observer Ward from Dota 2.  However, I've been caught up on the eye - the white of the eye feels flat and lacking contrast, but I'm not sure how to adjust the colors without it looking too green or having the color changes too abrupt.  

This is the color palette I'm using currently: (12 colors)

Should I reduce the number of colors for the eye if I'm making the body a completely different color, or is the current color count acceptable?  The PJ Image specs tool says that I have 2 colors that are used in less than 1% of the image (I'm using these for AA) and I don't know if they're redundant or not.

http://wouterpleizier.nl/pj/index.php?input=http%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2FmaC9lI4.png

Sorry for the wall of text...

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Xevmescrige Seaman Joined: 10 August 2017 Online Status: Offline Posts: 5	Topic: Observer Ward Attempt Posted: 12 August 2017 at 2:02pm
	Hey there, fairly new here and to pixel-art (Though my profile says I've been registered for almost 2 years - never realized you could earn points by doing things other than drawing so I never managed to get to the forums) I've been trying to draw a mock-up 'skin' for the Observer Ward from Dota 2. However, I've been caught up on the eye - the white of the eye feels flat and lacking contrast, but I'm not sure how to adjust the colors without it looking too green or having the color changes too abrupt. This is the color palette I'm using currently: (12 colors) Should I reduce the number of colors for the eye if I'm making the body a completely different color, or is the current color count acceptable? The PJ Image specs tool says that I have 2 colors that are used in less than 1% of the image (I'm using these for AA) and I don't know if they're redundant or not. http://wouterpleizier.nl/pj/index.php?input=http%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2FmaC9lI4.png Sorry for the wall of text...
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eishiya Commander Joined: 04 August 2022 Online Status: Offline Posts: 1109	Posted: 12 August 2017 at 2:56pm
	The light yellow you use in the iris isn't included in your palette image. Your two middle oranges are almost identical, and the tiny details you create with juxtaposing them are barely visible at 1x. You could collapse them into a single colour just fine, and you could create a similar texture by more careful use of your other colours. The AA colour on the pupil is too dark to soften the purple-yellow transition. Your darkest orange does a fine job of that, though! I think the eye feels flat because your shadows look more like texture/colouration than shadows, they aren't solid enough. Here are a couple of edits, one to get rid of what I felt were redundant colours (which has the benefit of increasing contrast a bit!), and the other makes the shadow more solid, as well as bringing in the outline colour to darken it: These are 9 colours + transparency, instead of 12+transparency.
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Xevmescrige Seaman Joined: 10 August 2017 Online Status: Offline Posts: 5	Posted: 12 August 2017 at 4:30pm
	Thanks for the advice, I always thought the flat-ness was just because of the large areas of solid color. I've changed the palette to remove the redundant colors as you've suggested - I've also changed the palette a bit as the green looked a bit odd. (Also trying out a change in the pattern) (EDIT):really ugly patch on second eye & Formatting Here's the updated color palette: I like that your suggestion really unified the colors a bit more!
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eishiya Commander Joined: 04 August 2022 Online Status: Offline Posts: 1109	Posted: 12 August 2017 at 4:39pm
	Good changes! I think the blue works better with the orange, since they're opposing colours. Makes the orange pop much better. I like the alternate texture! Have you tried perhaps emulating some veins on the eye with the texture? I didn't really notice this with the green, though it was an issue there before too - the darkest blue contrasts much more from the other blues much more than the other blues do from each other. Try adjusting them so that they cover your desired value range more evenly. That'll get you a smoother gradation without requiring extra colours.
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Xevmescrige Seaman Joined: 10 August 2017 Online Status: Offline Posts: 5	Posted: 14 August 2017 at 12:00pm
	I exaggerated pattern 2 a bit to try to emulate veins and then fixed the colors a bit Now I'm trying to add an anglerfish of sorts to 'hold' the eye (I was originally going to go for some coral or a plant sort of structure but decided this would be a bit more interesting) but the perspective feels a bit off for both the fish and the flower. Here's a rough sketch I have I think I should be able to make the fish with the colors I have, but I'm not entirely sure.
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eishiya Commander Joined: 04 August 2022 Online Status: Offline Posts: 1109	Posted: 14 August 2017 at 12:08pm
	You'll probably want to add some darker colours for the angler fish, unless it's meant to be light-coloured. I'm curious, how come your palette is arranged the way it is, with a loop? Why not just put the yellow in the main orange ramp? The perspective is off, I agree. Have you tried sketching in the parts of the fish blocked by the eye? That might help you see what's wrong and how to fix it. Try starting with the jaw since that's the part that depends on the eye, drawing even the unseen parts, and then the rest of the fish from there.
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Xevmescrige Seaman Joined: 10 August 2017 Online Status: Offline Posts: 5	Posted: 14 August 2017 at 12:51pm
	The loop was just to show that those 2 were the same colors - I might need to outline the palette because color 9 (the background) isn't included otherwise. I changed the fish's pose and it seemed to help with the issue a bit, albeit it now looking a little silly. I kind of like it though, with the fish handling an oversized eye. EDIT:
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Xevmescrige Seaman Joined: 10 August 2017 Online Status: Offline Posts: 5	Posted: 15 August 2017 at 3:22pm
	I think it's done or close to done - I think I might add a seafloor or some bubbles because the background is still completely flat. I'd like to add some teeth but I'm having trouble giving the bottom jaw some depth without making it look a bit odd (See edit on previous post)
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WIP (Work In Progress)
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