Cacti at night
Printed From: Pixel Joint
Category: Pixel Art
Forum Name: WIP (Work In Progress)
Forum Discription: Get crits and comments on your pixel WIPs and other art too!
URL: https://pixeljoint.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=12479
Printed Date: 09 June 2026 at 3:55pm
Topic: Cacti at night
Posted By: Loonybin
Subject: Cacti at night
Date Posted: 07 July 2011 at 2:02pm
 This is my first go at pixel art... any comments are greatly appreciated. In the end I want a cloudy sky (clouds are HARD) and another cactus up close, with good sand too. |
Replies:
Posted By: Loonybin
Date Posted: 07 July 2011 at 3:30pm
 shadow and better cactus arms... |
Posted By: Psychotic_Carp
Date Posted: 07 July 2011 at 9:11pm
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Decrease the dither a bit and the sand needs a bit more detail maybe some bumps ? -------------  got game?
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Posted By: Tart
Date Posted: 07 July 2011 at 10:42pm
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The angle of your shadow is not in line with your light source. At the angle you have shown, you'd expect the moon to be further to our right in order for it to work (I think the composition may look better that way as well). Draw a line from the center of the moon to the center of the cactus, and that line should give you the proper angle of the shadow.
Your dithering doesn't follow any pattern, so right now it just looks like noise around the moon. You could use some more depth to the image with more shadows and tones to the landscape. The night sky has a natural gradient to it, and the hill of sand should indicate its shape through shadows and highlights. The color of your sand looks like it should be daylight. Adjust your color to fit the proper ambiance of the environment. |
Posted By: Loonybin
Date Posted: 07 July 2011 at 11:10pm
| Thank you sooba. I hadn't worked on the sky or sand yet. I'll try to clean up dithering and fix the shadow. Is there a specific pattern that would go well around the moon? |
Posted By: Loonybin
Date Posted: 08 July 2011 at 11:08pm
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Posted By: CELS
Date Posted: 09 July 2011 at 10:29am
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Personally, I thought the colour of the sky was much better in the original. It matched the colour of the sand nicely. The shadow still doesn't look natural. It has approximately the right angle, but there are two problems: 1) The cactus casts a short shadow, which would imply that the light source is rather high above. If the light source is low, the shadow would be long. Imagine your own long shadow on the ground, as the sun sets. 2) The moon is on the far side of the hill (or dune), and very low. That would mean everything on this side of the hill would be covered in shadow, so there would be no separate shadow from the cactus. If the moon was high enough that the light covered this whole side of the hill (in which case the shadow would be really short), you would need to warp the shape of the shadow to account for the spherical shape of the hill. Right now, the shadow looks like it's on a flat surface. |
Posted By: Tart
Date Posted: 11 July 2011 at 10:10am
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http://www.pixeljoint.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=11299
Scroll down to "dithering" in order to see what I mean by patters. It's really up to you depending on how you want the light to gradiate. I imagine 50/50 is probably what you'll want to use. |