firstly, this has improved a whole lot since ur first post, this has potential to become quite a nice little piece..
i think it was definitly a wise choice to go smaller in size which will teach u a lot about the essentials of pixel art
however before u go any further in refining on pixel level and getting lost in detail stuff i think it is important that u impove on ur composition..
right now everything looks slightly slanted, doesnt convey much feeling of depth and overall looks a bit empty and abandoned...
i think u really need to throw those mushrooms back in there since their red makes for a strong contrast in the overall blueish scene and therefore gives the eye some more to work with..
also its always good to have leading lines which can guide the viewer through an image either telling some sort of story or just simply by creating depth and sucking the viewer into the image...
heres a quick edit, trying to create more depths and atmosphere through different depth layers and lighting

yeah not too fond about the colors in my edit aswell but i thought theyd fit the golden-hour-ish lighting i got going with those shadows and stuff
.. anyway main thing imo is that u really need to turn that island a bit

Yeah, I was kind of hesitant when Jalonso talked to me about resizing it but now I really not regret doing it. I guess the last things to do is the shading and the clouds... apart from that I don't really think there's much else for me to do (or at least that I can think of).

Minish Cap is actually a very good example, their colors are cute.

Added a flag. I think it's ready but I think I should get a "okay" from someone or a last critic.

@Crozier
I removed the gears and stuff but as for the grass I kind of like the jaggy look and to be honest I would prefer it without texture.

Hey man, you have way too many colours. Here is an edit with 24 colours and a few slight adjustments:

I really like what you did with the cannon. Yeah... I think that most of my colours may have been mostly from trying to do AA :P. I'm not exactly a huge fan on the purple, but I must say I really love the brighter colours. What did you do exactly to reduce the colour count?

Is adding pink like that just a style or does it affect other colours somehow?

Here's an edit of your edit (I kept the purple on the mushroom because I thought that it looked really cool with it)




yay, 7777 topics have been made!

Edited by ADrawingMan - 22 May 2013 at 1:39pm

The right part of the tree is rather boring and not as tree-ly curved as the left part. Also the outline is kind of killing it.
I also really dislike the bottom part of the tower. The crazy bricks with the highly contrasting leaning bricks is not too appealing, in my opinion. Perhaps dull the bricks, and make it a more consistent pattern. (oh and the leaves on the bottom side of the tower is strange).
The bottom few clouds are a bit out of place due to their strange curves. The large lumps aren't as nice as the clouds above it (with the smaller bumps). Also the specks near the clouds aren't really needed. They are merely distracting.
Anyway, its certainly a lot nicer than when you started. Good luck with this, and don't forget "Rome wasn't built in a day."

Edited by crozier - 23 May 2013 at 5:25pm

Be patient...its worth it.

Break the image into many small squares and 'pixel' those as stand alone art pieces. Focus and be deliberate in your pixel placements. If it looks funny it is. Focus on each 'cluster' or color area on its on and clean it up.

You have lots of stray colors here and there so clean those up too.

Now is the time to tweak your palette. For example in this square you can change the sky a bit darker to use for AAing the roof, or add a new blue or find an existing color somewhere that works.

Don't make me go over there and whack you.



Edited by jalonso - 23 May 2013 at 6:16pm

I picked through it using the tiled method, I may have to go through it one or two times more again to take out some colours but here it is so far...



I don't think the bricks are 100% yet but it is an improvement I think (I like them better than the previous ones that is).

Anyone have any ideas on how to fix that funny little piece of leaf that is covering the bottom right corner of the tower with the blue cone?

Edited by ADrawingMan - 25 May 2013 at 4:09pm

I must agree with jal :/.

Adding an example of pixel level detail

Still on the attention to 'on the pixel level'

You have many ugly spots that you should notice and clean up. These are some.

You have lost control of your colors and its going to cause you a lot of work.
You are up to 110 colors. Here are lots of areas of waste and strays.

Use colors in more than a single spot and remove any and all needless shades as you go. Here I quickly brought down the color count to 44.

You don't seem to cross the 'on the pixel' level threshold so you might need to consider a fixed, small palette and canvas



Edited by jalonso - 26 May 2013 at 9:54am

Oh, that's better. Focus like that on all areas and this size canvas will be ok.

Yes, watch that 99% thing.

Doing good :)
Notice how the purple and the darkest brown in the rocks are almost the same color. Edit that dark brown to be just a bit darker so it doesn't blend with the purple. If dark enough then consider making all the black be that real dark brown.

Ah I see what you mean. I tried making the purple darker than the brown so it would look more like cracks.

@AtskaHeart
Thanks! I like your edit much better though :P.

Edited by ADrawingMan - 26 May 2013 at 2:06pm

Good luck with your island ADrawingMan! I have some tips for the rocks at the bottom of your island: perhaps be a bit more subtle. Not every rock needs to be surrounded with a dark outline, for example if one overlaps the other you could technically not see a line! Zoom in on Atska's example and see that they are not all completely seperated.

@Jal
You do such a great job at creating artists! I have said it before but not often enough: Without you I would not be here. And now 5 years later you are still doing it, helping beginners step by step to a masterpiece! Forever patiently with clear instructions and edits.
Please give yourself a gold star in my name for best C+C ever!

Put 'on the pixel level' on hold and go back to 'planning'

Find your blocks by coloring them in (think perspective, size, design, layout, look and feel, etc.) then refine from that and when satisfied c/p onto the main art. Think of it as a stand alone asset that you'll paste in. You are basically making the wireframe.

Left you a blank to work on :)


@Hapiel,


Edited by jalonso - 26 May 2013 at 5:00pm

A brick texture shouldn't be full of bricks, but hints that there are bricks (which is actually more eye-pleasing).

I haven't had the chance to do a ton (school and all that) except change a few of the colors.

man, ill be honest with you..
i think there hasnt been much improvement in the last 10 updates or so..
u hardly take any advice :/
the island thing is still crooked, the compostion is bad and theres no real sense of depth (which there should be, you know, its in the sky... which is like vast and stuff...)
it looks abandoned and boring .. bring life into it... birds, smoke... anything..
the thing on the top is quite unreadable.. i suppose its a connon or something.. make it smoke, have the fuse burn (or is it?... idk, cant read it), put down a pile of cannonballs on the ground...
the texture on the bottom doesnt work.. dont seperate the blocks with outlines.. it just looks like a bunch of loose stones, about to fall down...
the colors are dull, the clouds shaded badly.. color count is way to high for what it is.. and makes dithering (as on the roof) completely unnecassary...

sorry if this sounds a bit harsh, but to be honest i get a bit p***ed of when people dont take any advice..
there were a lot of very good tips given in this thread.. but u didnt really stick to any of those, except for making it smaller... and honestly, i like the big version from the start better than what u r at now... so why even bother with pixel art..? maybe just make a digital painting, or vector or something along those lines...

anyway...heres another edit... have a good look at it



Edited by onek - 29 May 2013 at 5:11am

u really shouldnt be thinking like details (birds etc) are best left to the final stages of refining..
everything u want to include in ur picture should be there right from the beginning albeit being just some blocky shapes or so... just something to get the idea
your initial sketch should be clear and thoroughly planned out so you can just refine it further and further as u go .. thats what pixel art is about imo.. refining coarse shapes and perfect them towards best readabilty possible
what u are trying to depict here is some sort of landscape (skyscape?) and in that case composition is the most important factor .. a good landscape/scenic painting entire lifes from composition and should carefully be planned out..
starting out with a good sketch is essential to get a good composition.. and good compostion is essential to get a picture that works
i see this problem with many beginners on this forum .. they simply start out with a bad base.. wrong anatomy, bad composition etc.. and then later on get lost in rather unimportant stuff like techniquewithout fixing the real issues

i think ur biggest problem is that u are working too contained... just moving in the borders of ur initial lineart..
i dont like this linart approach at all because in most cases the results just end up looking stiff and boring
be a bit more daring and block out general forms with a big brush (like the clouds and the tree top ) and then refine further...
u are far from a skill level to get the perfect line art right away...
what i would do is just take ur picture as it is now and go crazy and wildly paint over it trying to feel the volumes, the light and the shades... FEEL ur painting! :)

My internet has been down so I haven't really been able to show you anything, any who, here it is.



The one on the right uses a pallet similar to that of onek. I didn't do a TON of stuff mainly due to another project that I got caught up in.

Edited by ADrawingMan - 05 June 2013 at 3:26pm

Suggest leaves instead of actually going overboard. remember its obvious its a tree.

You still have a lot of cleaning up to do and fine tooth comb all over the place...no slacking.

Not try..DO!

The bricks on the little square look nice but don't follow the lines of the tower and are more of a pattern than a texture. I do like them being simple like that.

...kill the birds.

He's joking about the birds. He has a deep seated hatred against black birds because of a traumatic experience as a small beetle.

I like the jaggy/spiky outline a lot more than the previous. The window is a tad odd. It looks like it leans towards the left while the tower leans right.