Pixel Joint Forum: A tiny study of an Instagram photo

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I'm only a few months in to my pixel art adventure, so one way I'm practicing is by finding inspiring photographs and rendering them as pixel art.

I'm quite proud of this one, all things considered. But what mistakes have I made and how could I make it better?

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Chonky Ben Midshipman Joined: 25 June 2019 Online Status: Offline Posts: 15	Topic: A tiny study of an Instagram photo Posted: 16 June 2019 at 10:19am
	I'm only a few months in to my pixel art adventure, so one way I'm practicing is by finding inspiring photographs and rendering them as pixel art. I'm quite proud of this one, all things considered. But what mistakes have I made and how could I make it better?
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Sarahboev Midshipman Joined: 29 December 2024 Online Status: Offline Posts: 78	Posted: 17 June 2019 at 8:36am
	How fun! It's always good practice to draw from life. I think it looks pretty sweet, the only thing is that i'd probably push the tones a bit more. Ie. I just brought it into Aseprite real quick and just used the contrast slider and find parts of it read a bit better? (my edits on top and your version is on the bottom) When you're doing stuff at a small scale (especially pixel art) its good to rely on good levels of tones. Sometimes I find just desaturating the colors for a sec can give you a good idea how its coming along. Yellows and green's can kinda be tricky but most colors translate into the grayscale pretty well to show you tone-wise how you're doing. It might be a cool exercise to take an image, grayscale it, draw/pixel it and then overlays colors? I feel like Hellcorpceo's Pokemon painting process is a decent example? (https://www.deviantart.com/hellcorpceo/art/Mebukijika-Process-With-Brushes-346498205)
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Chonky Ben Midshipman Joined: 25 June 2019 Online Status: Offline Posts: 15	Posted: 19 June 2019 at 3:12am
	I think the takeaway from this is that I really need to get hold of Aseprite. I'm currently using Pyxel Edit, which I love but it's feature poor. Desaturation and contrast controls are things I used to reach for back when I used Photoshop for web design... Your edit definitely pops more, and I may well try a grayscale exercise as well. Thanks! Oh, and great link! It's not a million miles away from how I attack things at the moment. I'll either "trace" or draw the basic shapes of the image, block them in with flat color, add light and shadow, then add progressive levels of detail. I guess working in b&w to start with means you can really concentrate on light and shadow without distraction. I wonder if it has an influence on the palette of the final product?
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Sarahboev Midshipman Joined: 29 December 2024 Online Status: Offline Posts: 78	Posted: 19 June 2019 at 6:39am
	*Originally posted by Chonky Ben* I think the takeaway from this is that I really need to get hold of Aseprite. I'm currently using Pyxel Edit, which I love but it's feature poor. Desaturation and contrast controls are things I used to reach for back when I used Photoshop for web design... Your edit definitely pops more, and I may well try a grayscale exercise as well. Thanks! Oh, and great link! It's not a million miles away from how I attack things at the moment. I'll either "trace" or draw the basic shapes of the image, block them in with flat color, add light and shadow, then add progressive levels of detail. I guess working in b&w to start with means you can really concentrate on light and shadow without distraction. I wonder if it has an influence on the palette of the final product? Its no prob at all! I find working in b&w is good for getting down tones and for the most part you can overlay colors no prob. The only colors that might be a bit tricky are yellows? What I do is overlay the colors then do some tweaking. But yeah I highly recommend Aseprite, its a nifty lil' program!
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WIP (Work In Progress)
Pixel Joint Forum : Pixel Art : WIP (Work In Progress)