Synthwave-Esque
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=24676
Printed Date: 08 September 2025 at 11:40pm
Topic: Synthwave-Esque
Posted By: wishuponapixel
Subject: Synthwave-Esque
Date Posted: 03 November 2015 at 5:50pm
  I've had the sketch for this sitting around for awhile and now I've decided to complete it. Colors aren't final and I haven't kept track of my color ramp yet. A few weeks ago I showed my portfolio around at a convention and one of the feedbacks I got was that I need to work on lighting and branching out with my colors (a lot in the portfolio were mono-toned apparently). I'm hoping to work on that in this piece and future stuff. http://fav.me/d3hnqab - Reference Image Color Scheme Inspiration from Moonbeam City Episode 2:  |
Replies:
Posted By: Iscalio
Date Posted: 03 November 2015 at 6:39pm
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Not sure what you're looking for in terms of feedback so I'm just going to start talking...
Looking at your gallery your stuff doesn't look monochrome at all to me. It's great and has a lot of color variety! If you want to work on being like the reference image, where the light seems to glow out of the objects, then it'll be a bit different from what you have now. I'd say...your coat would be much brighter and the lines on it would be much lighter. They have a subtle gradient pink > purple at the bottom of the guy's coat/pants there that you could encorporate (but with green > blue or something). Any of their undershirts are black, but you're doing the opposite with a lighter color. Your skin tone is much darker than what they use and your background is much darker than theirs. I think in their background there's a bit of lingering glow in the air that brightens it a bit. Your hair treatment doesn't seem like it'll match theirs. They have a flat sort of bright color with a few white lines and nice volume defining silhouettes. Also note that the woman has a chunk of hair that is in "shadow" that's a dark orange. In your gallery you seem to have a good technique for normal hair down fine. Why not try to push yourself by doing their flat, neon style? Right now it feels like you're taking this halfway. Also they have light hit the very edge of specific skin areas, while you're using volumes of light. Also you said you were showing your portfolio. What do you want to do with your pixel art? Are you making art to make art? Do you want to advertise? Make games? etc? |
Posted By: wishuponapixel
Date Posted: 03 November 2015 at 7:31pm
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Iscalio, thank you for the post. I don't plan on following the shading style of Moonbeam City, but I do like how they handle color in the series. My work is still very early WIP and I haven't touched the coat yet other than lay down flats. This has been an on and off project for the past two months. Also you said you were showing your portfolio. What do you want to do
with your pixel art? Are you making art to make art? Do you want to
advertise? Make games? etc? I'm not sure about going into gaming with pixel art, unless it was background related. I do not like animating or spriting. I did get a few pixel pieces printed out successfully for the portfolio though and I'm going to test print a few in poster sizes. Being able to market pixel art at artist alley in conventions would be pretty sweet and something I'm considering starting next year. In general though, I do want to go into gaming. I've been studying 3D stuff at uni and I'm getting close to getting my B.A.S. Trying to find a focal point and making my portfolio reflect that is going to be difficult, especially since I still need an internship. One of the people at the convention said that I had two portfolios going on, even though they were in the same folder. I had my pixel art in the beginning and they said that was very strong, but my digital paintings/3d/other illustrations was lackluster. |
Posted By: wishuponapixel
Date Posted: 05 November 2015 at 12:55pm
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Posted By: jalonso
Date Posted: 05 November 2015 at 2:10pm
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The neck looks quite off to me both the bend in the back side and the slope to the chin. It looks fine I'm just saying those lines could flow better. ------------- |
Posted By: wishuponapixel
Date Posted: 15 November 2015 at 9:39pm
 Reduced the colors, but I'm not sure about how it looks in the hair now : / |
Posted By: StoneStephenT
Date Posted: 16 November 2015 at 2:11am
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The hair looks great to me—much better than the prior version, in fact. A slight loss in detail to some parts of an image can do wonders in enhancing the details you really want to “pop”. And BTW, I love the overall vibe you’ve got going on with this pic. 
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Posted By: eishiya
Date Posted: 16 November 2015 at 7:52am
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I also think this version is better, but the three purples in the hair all blend together, probably because the darkest orange contrasts too much with them. Try tweaking one or both of those colours? Who knows, maybe it'll make the other areas look better too! |
Posted By: wishuponapixel
Date Posted: 19 November 2015 at 12:14pm
   Started to add some rim-light. I don't know which color to go with. Might test out more colors after I complete it. Also think I'm adding too much aa-ing around it too. |
Posted By: eishiya
Date Posted: 19 November 2015 at 2:03pm
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The hair colours look beter! I don't feel the rimlight is necessary, I think it looked more interesting and more 3D fading into "black". But, it doesn't look bad. There is a bit much AA in some spots, and not enough in others, I think the problem is that you're AAing too much with the lighter colours, creating overly-smooth light areas that have blocky edges with the dark colours, because you're not using the darker colours for AA enough. Shifting the colours dark-ward starting with the skin-only purple helps. Since that probably made no sense, here's a visual:  I took your existing AA (on the jacket only, I didn't touch the hair) and your existing colours, there are only a couple of small spots where I did any pixel work to eliminate gaps created by the colour shift. The end result has the same overall shape, but fading more smoothly because it's using more of the dark colours instead of devoting most of the pixels to lighter colours. The bottom-most area of the rimlight could use some #2f044d around it to smooth it more. Edit: Made the image animate between the two versions. |
Posted By: wishuponapixel
Date Posted: 19 November 2015 at 9:14pm
 Thanks for the feedback Eishiya and taking the time to do that quick edit : ) |
Posted By: eishiya
Date Posted: 20 November 2015 at 6:52am
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I don't think the hair needs highlights. If you do add them, keep them very small, perhaps make them sparkles like on the skin. The jaw shouldn't have that rimlight, unless you really like the look of it. If the jaw has that light, that would mean most of the back should be lit, but it has a rimlight, which means that light is coming from an angle that would not hit the jaw. Similarly, the shirt collar shouldn't have a rimlight running down its entire length because the jacket collar would be blocking it. I feel that a background is not needed, it would just take away from the character. |
Posted By: wishuponapixel
Date Posted: 20 November 2015 at 6:54pm
As long as the bg is done minimally, it shouldn't take away from the character, but add to it. Just a little bit of story-telling. This work that I did previously didn't need a bg, but just simple silhouettes tells a little more about the character and location. For the highlights, I did some testing and you are right to keep it small. I might end up removing the brightest yellow in the turtle neck, that might help out tone down that area (since it's the brightest part and not the face/hair). I might keep the light on the jaw since I do like it there, but tone down the light on the neck area a bit. |
Posted By: wishuponapixel
Date Posted: 19 February 2016 at 8:12pm
 Debating if I should put an earring on her or not. Also hope that the BG doesn't distract too much. |
Posted By: RebeaLeion
Date Posted: 20 February 2016 at 6:50am
| bg is ok and I would add earring personally, this is very professional. |
Posted By: bluedxca93
Date Posted: 20 February 2016 at 8:39am
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wow.
looks very good. no i wouldnt add an earring. |