Surfer girl
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=13393
Printed Date: 19 May 2026 at 9:20pm
Topic: Surfer girl
Posted By: btwLei
Subject: Surfer girl
Date Posted: 20 November 2011 at 4:49pm
 Hi fellas! I'm still new to pixeling and haven't pixeled at all since my last post so I decided to try again. I'm pretty much 'just OK' with this outcome but I'm sure it can still be improved upon. Some general tips (esp with color choice) or edits would be great. Please? and thank you in advance. Have a good day! EDIT: Removed 'newbie' from the title cos I somehow thought it was putting people off from taking a peek. xP |
Replies:
Posted By: btwLei
Date Posted: 21 November 2011 at 3:15am
Anyone? :(  |
Posted By: Gecimen
Date Posted: 21 November 2011 at 6:21am
| Water is fine but your lightsource seems to be on the right. And the girl is getting the light from all directions. Stay loyal to your lightsource and it will be a lot better. Some AA wouldn't hurt. |
Posted By: btwLei
Date Posted: 21 November 2011 at 7:49am
Thank you for replying, Gecimen. I tried adjusting the shading according to the light source, but I don't seem to know what to do with her left leg. :/ And about AA, I really have no idea how to do it properly (I've read about it, though). Maybe it'll come naturally someday. xD |
Posted By: CELS
Date Posted: 21 November 2011 at 9:57am
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Great work, but I think it's a bit hard to read this. The bright skin against the bright background. Could you make it pop a bit more, perhaps? The skin tone looks great against the blue ocean and purple board, but not so great against the bright horizon, in my opinion. I also think that there are some anatomical issues, although I'm no authority on that matter. Her right arm (on the left side of the picture) is very straight, as if her upper arm and lower arm are perfectly straight cylinders. Her left arm looks a bit short, if it's pointing towards us it should probably not be so straight, as it would be foreshortened. If it's pointing down, it should probably be longer. The angle of the shoulders is a bit strange compared to the position of the head. From the shoulders, she looks hunched over, but the head is still quite high. Might be wrong about that too. Her ear seems a bit high up. The top of the ear should probably be in line with her eyes. In regards to the legs, just swap the side of the light source. The light is coming from the right, but right now her legs are brighter on the left side. The face is rather flat, but I guess you're having difficulty adding shade on such a small surface. As a tiny nitpick, perhaps the water dripping from her wetsuit should not be falling in such a straight line, as it takes away from the sense of motion. I'm just throwing this stuff out there. I could not draw something as pretty myself. |
Posted By: btwLei
Date Posted: 21 November 2011 at 10:10am
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Originally posted by CELS snip Thank you! I've been waiting for a proper full critique. It means a lot to beginners such as myself. I didn't even notice the ear height, can't believe I missed it. Thanks a lot! I'm going to explore your idea of the left arm pointing towards the viewer, didn't even think of that! hope I can pull it off. As for the issue about the overall anatomy, I hope I can get some additional insight from others here as well. I did not even do the dripping water thing on purpose. xD Thanks a lot for your reply. Now I'm not stuck anymore. Would love your thoughts on her skin tone against the background and the water, as I'm having trouble with that as well. :/ Moved a bit of stuff around. Eyes, water drip (xD).  Edit: Please ignore the stray pixel on her hair, lol.  |
Posted By: cure
Date Posted: 21 November 2011 at 12:27pm
| the waves look like fire licking up at the sky. waves generally approach the shore... in waves. this looks more like choppy water that trails a motorboat. maybe look for closer references? also feel the feet should be farther apart. |
Posted By: milleja46
Date Posted: 21 November 2011 at 12:28pm
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1.) her back leg looks disconnected from the foot 2.) what's with the random disconnected wave behind her? |
Posted By: btwLei
Date Posted: 21 November 2011 at 12:32pm
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Yeah cure, that's actually what I was going for with the waves. I figured I can't nail close-to-realism pixels at this early stage so I just went crazy. :/ As for the feet, particularly the left foot, do you think it should follow the surfboard lengthwise or crosswise? I'm not so sure about the perspective. Thank you for your input! :) |
Posted By: btwLei
Date Posted: 21 November 2011 at 3:07pm
I tried messing with the right foot as well as adjusting the left,
please tell me what you think. I resorted to adding a darker shade
because I just couldn't pull this off without it. :/ Please tell me what you think. :? |
Posted By: btwLei
Date Posted: 22 November 2011 at 8:40am
Changed the left sleeve around a bit, reduced the back by a few pixels, played around with the hair... seems a little bit sexier to me. hmm... |
Posted By: jambox_josh
Date Posted: 22 November 2011 at 3:58pm
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Originally posted by btwLei Changed the left sleeve around a bit, reduced the back by a few pixels, played around with the hair... seems a little bit sexier to me. hmm... definitely sexy lol! |
Posted By: Gecimen
Date Posted: 24 November 2011 at 4:31am
Hmm lemme make some edits for AA and some corrections: Edit: originally I've put the animated GIF too but it doesn't animate somehow, can it be because of imageshack? |
Posted By: btwLei
Date Posted: 24 November 2011 at 5:17am
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Wow, thanks a lot for that! Skin looks much better. Right arm looks a bit thin next to the hand, but that's okay. I guess I have to study up on AA. It just looks so difficult - it appears so random to the untrained compared to just adding basic shading. :/ EDIT: I've been using imgur.com ever since imageshack became a hassle (long time imageshack fan before the fact). |
Posted By: Gecimen
Date Posted: 24 November 2011 at 6:51am
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AA is not hard at all, since it's very open to experimenting. You search for unneeded jagginesses between 2 clusters and soften them with a color that would be a midtone for that 2 clusters. If you don't have that tone in your palette you just pick the nearest color (or add a new one if very necessary). Now the trick is, some people say a more interesting way to AA is using colors that has hue and saturation a bit outside of that middle tone. |
Posted By: Christoballs
Date Posted: 24 November 2011 at 10:58am
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Between you and me btwLei, I don't think applying anti-alias to the surfer is a good idea: I'd reduce the contrast of the elements in the background (I'd say the surfer is closer to the foreground), and perhaps apply anti-alias on them instead, which will give the impression that the focus is on the surfer. You have to watch out with the shades you use to AA, because if they're noisy they'll become too distracting: I'd suggest using more neutral colours to buffer outlines if needed. For example: if you use a colour to AA that's a different hue to that of the colour it's applied in, the chances are it'll stand out. You can also reduce the contrast between the surfer and the sky to make the head's outline less sharp against the lighter blue, which consequently means that AA isn't "needed" as much. I'll show you soon via an edit! Edit:  Sorry this is so unrefined and rushed, but I mostly wanted to find a more harmonic contrast. You may notice in your version that the skin has low contrast, and the hair too, but it is much darker next to the skin: that's why I added some more shades for the skin (darker) and replaced a couple of the hair shades by lighter versions. I put in some colours with more red in, to convey the idea of flesh more effectively; previously it looked quite plasticky. Something else I observed was your use of really dark colours in the background, which by their sparsity make it very distracting. I didn't notice the little man at first. I tried to find a solution to the sky and the sea, hopefully it should feel a bit more balanced. I think you could also change the composition so it makes more sense for the girl surfing. I added a wave, for example:  I hope it helps you! :) |