Challenge WIP
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=12907
Printed Date: 09 June 2026 at 12:03pm
Topic: Challenge WIP
Posted By: GreyScale
Subject: Challenge WIP
Date Posted: 06 September 2011 at 5:13pm
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So...Being new to pixeling and all, and wanting a change from failed tile attempts, I have decided to work on an entry for this weeks contest. The basic concept is that he will be lifting the fire from a candle, leaving the candle itself behind (via magics). SO through this I am practicing numerous things I have not done before: dramatic lighting, a pixel portrait, and avoiding the ridiculously large color count I've grown accustomed to in my normal digital art. ANY and ALL C&C will be welcomed and appreciated. Thank you. ^ ^ My current progress:  I've only used 6 colors so far, which may seem like a lot to all you pixel pros, but to me it's just...Astounding how much I've shaded with so few colors. |
Replies:
Posted By: jalonso
Date Posted: 06 September 2011 at 5:28pm
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Try to be clean and precise with the pixels. The less colors the cleaner you should be. Resist the urge to over dither/pattern because you think you need it. Cell-shading in pixelart can be quite effective. For this theme I suggest high-contrast/dramatic lighting. Turn of the light and take a picture of yourself lit as you'd like to see in your entry* with a candle/lighter for ref. *This is nitpicking and semantics but erase 'contest' from your mind. These are entries. Entries, designed to challenge everyone to improve and try new things and work with parameters you may not set for yourself. These should be an effort to improve your own habits and pixels. Also, good when creative juices stop flowing or one is giving their brain a break ;) Pixeljoint is not meant to be competitive. The competitive aspect that does exist is just a human condition beyond our control. We much prefer a community driven support/instructional haven. ------------- |
Posted By: GreyScale
Date Posted: 06 September 2011 at 5:55pm
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Mmkay. I was actually purposefully leaving the shadows a bit "rough" to attempt to give a bit more of the flickering/inconsistency of candle-light. I was indeed planning on dramatic lighting. In fact, it's already supposed to be. ;;._. I guess I'll go reference myself again. I also said "contest" because I did not know by what else to call it. I'm entirely doing it for improvement purposes, and by no means think I'll get first place or whatever with it. =u= Thank you for the comments. I think I'm going to go back over my colors and perhaps remove the second highlight color, as well as clean up my shadows. ^ ^ |
Posted By: GreyScale
Date Posted: 06 September 2011 at 9:52pm
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Changed the title to "Challenge" as I realized that's what it's officially called. xD *fails* Anywho, I redid the shading using the same colors. While not entirely accurate to where light falls, it looks better than being accurate (For instance: in reality, the space between the upper lip and the nose is shaded. In an image (even the reference pictures) that looks stupid (almost like a mustache xP). I kept the same color pallete in an attempt to keep from too ominous a feel (which adding another, darker shade gives). However, I did remove the lightest highlight color I had: it was unnecessary at that point, though I may bring it back as a color in the flame. I tried to get rid of the "sketchy" feel and dithering, while still keeping the inconsistent outlines to the shadows.  The hands are obviously not REALLY going to be that color, but I was blocking in where light and shadows go based on the hands and the placeholder flame. Just a little bit more work on the skin (including the shadows the arms cast, though surprisingly no shadows were cast on my face when I held a light in a similar fashion) and, unless anyone points out anything I need to fix, I'll move on to the hands. |
Posted By: CELS
Date Posted: 07 September 2011 at 4:26am
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Looks great so far. Very nice atmosphere. In terms of composition, I'm not sure why you want to position the hands directly in front of the face like that, with fingers spread and the candle pressed together between the palms. I don't know, I just find it a bit... distracting. The details of the face are distracting me from the details of the hands, if you know what I mean. Maybe it will be easier to look at once you shade the hands, I can't tell. Finally, the shadow on top of the collar bone looks a bit strange, unless the person is quite undernourished. After all, the light source is above the bone. |
Posted By: GreyScale
Date Posted: 08 September 2011 at 12:04pm
Thanks for the critique. The hands were originally intended to be in front of the face? I'm going to move the flame up slightly. Here's my current WIP: Does the shading help at all? And keeping the hands differentiated from the background face is an...interesting challenge. @_@ (I know I need to fix the knuckles, I was just roughing it out to see how something like that would look). I just don't have the patience for pixel art, though. I keep getting distracted and doing a ton of different Oekaki for anther thing, but I lack the patience to refine any of it. xD I WILL finish this thing, though. *will try to force herself* |
Posted By: GreyScale
Date Posted: 09 September 2011 at 9:50am
 Bleh. I want it to be sort of swirly/magic, while still being differentiated and stuff. :< It's really interesting comparing with and without the flame, as it adds a more blatant focal point. If I ACTUALLY manage to stay on task, I might be able to finish this today. I'm just bad at the whole "staying on task" thing. |
Posted By: CELS
Date Posted: 09 September 2011 at 11:50am
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Well, I think you did a great job with the hands. It's not as busy as I thought it would be. However, the flame isn't that bright, so it's hard to say where the flame ends and the glowing skin begins. As the scene is very dark, you'd think the flame would look much brighter. I'm also curious about the way you've highlighted the cheeks and the nose. As far as I can tell, the tip of the nose is brighter on top than underneath, and the orange spots on the cheek don't really make sense to me. |
Posted By: GreyScale
Date Posted: 09 September 2011 at 1:09pm
 I fixed the highlights slightly on the nose and lowered the brightness a bit on the highlights on the background. I attempted to have the highlights somewhat close to where light actually falls, and there were highlights on my cheekbones when I held a light similarly. I refined those a bit though. If it still looks off, I'll eliminate them, but the cheeks look a bit flat to me without it. I also brightened the flame, but kept the old color on the pallete for the swirls to hopefully be a tad more smooth and for the main brightened bit of the candle (with the new color as a small highlight on it). I've only done a bit of sketching it out, but I can already tell that shading the hair is going to be difficult. It's times like this where SAI's pretty blending on full size images really would be nice. But I shall persevere. And maybe do a quick mockup in SAI to examine more closely how I normally shade hair. Thank you for continuing to give feedback and for helping me with this piece. It's very helpful, and I'm sure it wouldn't have even gotten to this point without it. ^ ^ |
Posted By: CELS
Date Posted: 09 September 2011 at 5:54pm
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Likewise! :) Looking at the sketch you posted earlier, I think the hair will turn out great. Might take time to pixel it, but you've got the weekend. What are weekends for, if not pixel art? The highlights in the face look much better. Now, you have a bit of noise inside the palms, which I suppose was meant to simulate the flickering candle light. But really, it just gives unwanted texture to the hands, like he's smeared his hands with peanut butter and is now roasting it with magic fire. I think a smoother light would do wonders, since it's such a busy area. I'll see if I can do an edit to test it. |
Posted By: GreyScale
Date Posted: 09 September 2011 at 6:13pm
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I think you mean the reddish I have in there in an attempt to give it a slight reddish cast, like how light shines through skin. I can see how it would read as noise, though. Here it is with that removed.  If you mean the actual shape of the shadows, I'll play around with that in a bit. |
Posted By: jalonso
Date Posted: 09 September 2011 at 6:21pm
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You're doing really well. It may not be possible at this time, for this challenge and for this piece but in the future I'd like to see more clean and precise pixel work from you. ------------- |
Posted By: GreyScale
Date Posted: 09 September 2011 at 6:29pm
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Thank you. I actually need to do sprites for a thing (that I should actually be working on instead of this xD), so those would theoretically be clean and precise? I was going to do experimenting with patterned dithering on it, though, so I dunno if that qualifies. But thank you. ^ ^ Oh! CELS, I think I might have realized what you meant. That was meant to be a thin trail of smoke from the candle. xD Here's the piece without that.  |
Posted By: CELS
Date Posted: 09 September 2011 at 6:47pm
 Here's my edit. I did this before I saw your latest reply. You'll notice the orange question mark. I'm a beginner when it comes to using colors, so I'm wondering how you're using this color. Do you use a color ramp? I mean, it's sort of a middle brightness, with very high saturation. I'm just not sure what purpose it serves, though I'm sure it does serve a purpose. I noticed the trail of smoke as well, though I didn't see it before I started working on the edit :) I think your latest version is a big improvement, and now it just needs some crip highlights. Not sure if my edit helps, but it's just an alternative. |
Posted By: GreyScale
Date Posted: 09 September 2011 at 7:17pm
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That's definitely helpful. Originally, I intended the fire to be more going throughout the reddish to orange-white spectrum. That was going to be the darkest tone in it (as you can see if you look at the last WIP that I included my pallete in). I decided against that for the fire as the lighter color gives a more vibrant appearance. I'm new to any form of color control, though. ^ ^ So I should lighten my color further? Will do. ^ ^ I like the light-colored smoke you used. it's very pretty and a lot more visible. I'll add some of the lightest tone to the hands, too. Your edits definitely help. ^ ^ Thank you for taking the time to do that. |
Posted By: GreyScale
Date Posted: 10 September 2011 at 3:59pm
 Hair is meh. :\ I tried applying some dithering in order to have it fade into the darkness more. |
Posted By: CELS
Date Posted: 10 September 2011 at 6:05pm
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Great progress! Will you be drawing the rest of his shoulders, or a background? I like the hair and I think the dithering works quite well. An anime hair style, drawn in a realistic manner, which is cool :) Not sure if the face is still WIP, but unless you're restricted by the number of colours, you might want to try some AA to smooth out the area around the eyes. I would also try to smooth out the edge between the bright side and the dark side of the cheeks, instead of using that high saturation orange. (Looking back at my edit, the cheeks were way too puffy) Also, are the ears perhaps a wee bit large? Not abnormally so, but certainly a bit larger than http://www.google.no/search?q=male%20face&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbm=isch&source=og&sa=N&hl=no&tab=wi&biw=1920&bih=1008 - average , I would say. |
Posted By: GreyScale
Date Posted: 10 September 2011 at 6:29pm
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I was planning on not doing so, but instead working on the edges a bit (at the moment, it's only roughly blocked). @_@ That's good. Advice on what to do to make it look better? Hmm...I was planning on using as few colors as I was able to get away with. I definitely need to add some of the darker color into the face, but anti-aliasing would be a never-ending thing for me because it would never be smooth enough. ;n; Hmm. I haven't actually looked at references and stuff, so I'll fix that. 's an easy fix, though. ^ ^ On another note, because I'm so bad at staying on track and concentrating on one thing, I decided to practice bubble-y dithering (my first time attempting it) on what'll probably be the preview.  |
Posted By: CELS
Date Posted: 10 September 2011 at 6:39pm
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You continue to impress with your wide arsenal of text-smileys :) If you're asking me how to improve the hair, I would look at using solid fields of dark brown on the closest strands of hair, with sharper highlighted lines. This would make it look a bit crisper and silkier in the front. EDIT: Preview looks good. I love bubble dithering. http://www.pixeljoint.com/pixelart/53379.htm# - Here 's my favourite example, which I always use as inspiration. |
Posted By: GreyScale
Date Posted: 10 September 2011 at 6:45pm
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xD Really? I mean...I know I use them quite a bit (and generally attempt to avoid ACTUAL smileys, but...It's sorta a subconscious thing. xP By "dark brown" which do you mean? Therein lies the problem of a piece based primarily on variants of a single ramp That's a very pretty example. *u* I've always been astounded at what pixel artists can do. |
Posted By: CELS
Date Posted: 10 September 2011 at 6:53pm
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I mean the darkest brown, the main colour you've been using for the hair. I'd try creating some solid strands of that colour, outlined by the background colour, and highlighted with some of your brights. I'd also look at making the hairline a bit more even. After all, most people's hairlines are fairly straight. |
Posted By: GreyScale
Date Posted: 10 September 2011 at 7:16pm
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Mmkay. With all the thing you've mentioned that I totally should have realized and could have found in a reference (aka the ears and hairline especially, though I'll probably do some work on the cheek shape too) I'm going to actually pull up some references, and may redo the hair entirely. ^ ^;; I hope I have enough time. |
Posted By: GreyScale
Date Posted: 11 September 2011 at 11:41am
 I reworked the shape of the hair, making it a bit shorter and (hopefully) somewhat more realistic. That'll probably be more obvious when I work the highlights in. I plan on adding more of the darkest not-background color to the skin after I add the highlights to the hair, because if I added them at the moment you wouldn't be able to differentiate them. I also made the ears smaller. |
Posted By: GreyScale
Date Posted: 11 September 2011 at 1:53pm
 Developed the hair a bit more. @__@ So short on time now. :< |
Posted By: CELS
Date Posted: 11 September 2011 at 1:59pm
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The new hair looks better than I would have thought. As do the ears. I see you've changed the highlights on the cheek, but I don't understand why the edges of the highlight are so rough. Unless his skin has a rough texture, they should be smooth, surely? I also really like that you've highlighted the areas above the eyes, it makes the eyes pop a lot more than before. The eyes are symmetrical, but I guess you're planning some clean-up there and on the bridge of the nose. Great work, keep going. Drink some coffee, put Eye of the Tiger on your playlist and finish strong :) |
Posted By: GreyScale
Date Posted: 11 September 2011 at 2:45pm
 Better? @_@ I'll look into the eyes. Coffee sounds good. I'll probably go do that. |
Posted By: GreyScale
Date Posted: 11 September 2011 at 3:48pm
 I think I'll be sorta done unless anything specifically is pointed out. @__@ I don't know what else to do with it. |
Posted By: Delicious
Date Posted: 11 September 2011 at 3:59pm
| It looks still pretty rough, you should consider smoothing out the jagged lines and make the pixel clusters more attractive. Regardless, this is really well done. Keep it up! |
Posted By: GreyScale
Date Posted: 11 September 2011 at 4:13pm
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Thank you for the comments. I would, but I don't quite feel up to redoing the whole thing to be smoother, and I'm not quite sure what you mean/how to go about making pixel clusters more attractive. @___@ *is new to pixel art* |