I like how the camo wasn't just the same pattern repeated over and over. This looks ok for a first pixel art.

Thanks you two for your great help!  I'm adding some light to this peice of pixel art and so far it looks more better!  I'll post a picture once I'm done, thank you!

Hello there cpaw88, welcome to pixel art . There's 2 main things that make this piece difficult to shade, imo. They are the camo texture and the fact that the tank is comprised of pieces all flat on the same plane, so light is basically hitting them all the same.

Your first step is to define a lightsource to base your shading off. I have a personal preference to shade most of the things I do from the top-right. I think a diagonal for the lightsource is best, because if you imagine a box, it will have 2 lit sides and 2 shadowed sides, as opposed to a directly overhead lightsource, where the box would have only 1 lit side (the top) and 3 shadowed sides.

Ok I'm kind of rambling. Pick a light-source, if it were me, I would remove the camo until after I'd finished shading the tank, and then add it, because I think that would make it easier. But thats up to you...

Oh and I'd recommend looking up some Metal Slug screenshots to see how they went about pixelling their gorgeous tanks

No problem , yeah I bloody love Metal Slug. If you are going back to the drawing board, might I recommend you try a smaller size for it; I think that'll make it easier to work with.

Edited by EyeCraft - 19 October 2006 at 5:55am

The problem is you're drawing it on quite a flat angle, try adding a bit of perspective to it by showing other sides of the tank, such as the top face of the tank.
Here's an example of what I mean (this is mine btw, also quite inspired by Metal Slug, hehe):



Notice how you can see the top faces of the tank as well as the side?

Also, the wheels on that new tank don't match the lightsource of the rest of the tank.

Your tanks are very good for a first try, keep it up, I believe you will get the hang of it very doon

Ahh, good stuff. I'll do an edit to try to give you a guide...

Is anyone else here able to help me improve?

Thanks.

Thank you for the tip.  The reason it looks the way it does it because I'm not going for a real look but to learn how to color and make the tank have more depth, ect...

I will make the barrel smaller however it does look a bit odd to be that big at the end when the rest of the barrel isn't that large.

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EDIT:  Thanks for showing me!   That looks a lot better then what I had before.


Edited by cpaw88 - 20 October 2006 at 3:54pm

Hehe np!!

Thanks!  Thats very nice to see such helpful people on this forum!  This is my new Alien!

Thanks!  Sorry if I seem a bit slow at this, a bit hard to get the hang of things the first time around. 

I have the light source at the very top middle.  I'll do another edit and see what I can make, thanks for the tips once again. 


Edited by cpaw88 - 21 October 2006 at 1:00am