CHALLENGE: Not-Particularly-Big-Soft

This week we want you to pick a maximum of 12 colours from the Microsoft Office palette (shown below) to depict something small.

It could be toy car, bacteria, a chihuahua etc... just as long as it's something that could reasonably be considered small in comparison to an average-sized human.

Canvas Size - Max 192 (width) x 96 (height).
Colours - Max 12; Use only colours from the Microsoft Office palette shown below:

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CHALLENGE RULES

• Participants have until this upcoming Sunday at midnight (12AM Pacific) to submit their entry (strict). Don't forget to check the 'Submit to weekly challenge' checkbox.
• Only new pixels allowed.
• Open to all members.
• Posting WIPs in this thread or in new threads in the WIP section is highly encouraged, but ONLY SUBMIT YOUR FINAL ART.

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CHALLENGE JUDGING

• Every Sunday at midnight (12AM Pacific) the previous week's entries are judged.
• Every week a new voting poll will be posted for previous week's entries.
• Winner announced the following week.

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CHALLENGE PRIZES/GOODIES

• Top three finishers will receive an award displayed in your PJ gallery profile for all to see and envy.
• Top finisher gets to call the following week's challenge...sweet.
• 'Participation' ribbons will be given for all who enter.
• No matter what happens you get challenged :)

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CHALLENGE VOTING

Vote now for your favorite pixelart in this week's challenge!

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CHALLENGE AWARDS

The Not-Particularly-Big-Soft pixel art challenge is complete and we have three new champions. This week's challenge awards go to the following pieces:



Thanks so much to all who took the time to vote and participate in the challenge!

Small coccyx.

I think its both funny and annoying the fact small dogs think they are stronger enought to hurt me.

Boron atom.



Very small. Isn't it?

Here's my WIP. What you think?

It's a fairy or something.. Pretty cool work so far.

PNG or Bitmap

I like this style and colors a lot - you picked a good set of expressive colors within the given palette. But I feel like the shape of the feet are a little uneven? I'm not sure how to describe that. The hind leg's foot is a little squarish and MAYBE a little too long (I don't know, though, I'm not great at animal anatomy), and while the front two are alright the front leg on the viewer's left is quite round on the paw, maybe you could try defining the toes somewhat? :) Raccoons have very sharp claws and defined toes, after all.

The outline on the very top left (its back) is also a little uneven, it's not too noticeable unless you're looking for it but it isn't a very smooth curve.


I think the atom ideas are very clever, haha. I was thinking small but not THAT small!



I LOVE this background. It shows that three colors can go a long way and it's well rendered, even though water and ripples are a difficult subject to work on. The minimalistic colors remind me of Gameboy games.

The fairy, however, immediately sticks out - the colors are very stark, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but the colors in the background are very minimalist and desaturated so it's weird to have a bunch of bright, saturated skintones and purples in the middle of the piece. I think you should consider rendering her in colors that complement the background more, maybe even the colors that you've already chosen or similar shades. She looks out of place, is the problem.

As for her pose, she's supposed to be diving, right? Her pose isn't conveying that effectively - the hair is flowing like she's diving but the feet look like they're touching the lilypad still. Her legs are also a bit awkwardly curved, making it difficult to discern what's going on with her lower leg area. Where are her knees? Stylization is obviously an okay thing, but you've gone with a fairly realistic anatomy for the rest of the piece, so it sticks out.

Try putting her higher in the air and make her body look less bent. Look for diving poses on deviantART's stock model section or Google something like 'olympic diver'. I'm no expert on diving poses, but it seems the body often stays relatively straight for most of the dive, so such a dramatic bending motion makes it look like she's reaching down awkwardly to touch the water, especially when she's so close to the ground.

Hope this helps!



I really, really love the use of blue and greens with the lighting here - it works very well with the greyscale colors in the piece, providing a lighting that is both cold and atmospheric. It feels like the focus is less on the 'something small' and more on the person holding it, though - it took me a minute to figure out what the 'something small' was. If you wanted to change that, you could try toning down the lighting on the face somewhat to draw the eye's focus to the crystal, making it more of a focal point.

The hand is a little weird, too, I'm not sure if that's intentional stylization or not. Mostly it is comparatively small - if you place your hand on your face you will notice that it easily covers most of your face. If you rest the bottom of your palm on the bottom of your chin, the tips of your fingers still easily reach your brow. If you compare his hand to his face, it's too small.


Here's my attempt (and my first entry into a challenge I think, actually). I drew a Bold Jumping Spider:



I'm not super happy with it, but oh well. This palette sure is hard to work with.

Edited by jellybeanfish - 23 April 2012 at 6:27pm

You could light the match on fire? Or make it look burnt out, have it being held between two fingers, sticking out of a matchbox...

It doesn't look blurry to me. Maybe it's your browser? Are you zoomed in at all? What browser are you using? I'm using Google Chrome.

No problem! I used to have that problem a lot when I still used Firefox, haha.


I wrote up more crit because I am apparently full of words tonight:



The biggest problem with this, I think, is that you're using too many colors. This is a common mistake - the color you're using isn't giving the desired effect, so you add on more, which in turn tends to make a piece's colors look 'muddy' and overexposed. The rule with pixel art is generally 'less is more'.

You're also not really considering Kirby's shape with the shading - he's more or less a sphere with arms and legs. The shading is very curvy in places with shadows around the eyes and makes him look more like you're trying to shade a face. Which works for faces, not living spheres that happen to have cartoony faces on them. You gotta treat Kirby like a sphere and shade him as such.

I drew a sphere to try and show what I mean:



This is 2 colors not counting the outline. Quick and dirty and not perfect by any means, but you can see that it's a sphere - and that the light hitting the sphere is also spheric because light and shadow conform to the shape of the surface they're on.

Though there's very few colors used, the contrast between the two is enough to make sure the shadows are visible and apparent. Every color plays an important role. Still, if you wanted to soften it a little:



This is 3 colors not counting the outline, still not very many. It's soft, but the shadow is still obvious.

So, I would recommend trying to shade Kirby more like a sphere - if you want to see how the games did it, there's plenty of awesome resources over at The Spriter's Resource to help you out. Try minimizing your colors to see if that helps you out some - make sure every color is important and serves a clear purpose. If you're struggling to see a shadow, you should make that color darker. Conversely, if the shadow is too dark, try choosing a lighter color instead, etc. Every color counts!

Of course, I'm an amateur so I might not know anything - take everything with a grain of salt. I hope this helps a little, though.

Will this work? Here's a WIP... a pencil!



Comment please.

Edited by Aastikya - 24 April 2012 at 5:17am

New piece.

Aaaaah! I've done little bugs for my glass!!... Buy they're green.

Blargh. Used a million colours and it's not even that great and there's already one that's way better and my life sucks. :c



Time to find a new subject I guess.

Bugs are good topic to this challenge...

I guess we posted at the same time guys, 1:30 ROFL

wait, rules changed, draw ladybugs with microsoft palette... stop imitating someone else's idea!

Edited by philippejugnet - 24 April 2012 at 2:17pm

Mine are not ladybug. 

Update!


Edited by AdamPlays - 25 April 2012 at 12:02pm

@Erstus - I like non-dithered version more :]

wip



Edited by a3um - 24 April 2012 at 11:23pm

@ultimaodin - swarm of spiders coming from the hole:) Hopefully multiple small things are acceptable

Update. Ok, decided to go with a single spider



Update 2


Edited by a3um - 25 April 2012 at 7:06am

Maybe one day I'll be good enough to give useful feedback to others, but until then...
Here's a little WIP chicken:


 

Looks great Bladeking! Love how the dither translates into duvet so well.

I'm really sorry about my first post, it was rather self centered. I didn't even tell everyone else how great their WIPs were looking!

Thanks for the encouragement, offwhite.
Is the aphid readable here? Any suggestions for cutting colours?