11 Color Palette Comp
Printed From: Pixel Joint
Category: Pixel Art
Forum Name: Collaborations/Challenges
Forum Discription: Submit pixel art project ideas/templates or contribute to an existing pixel art collaboration.
URL: https://pixeljoint.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=25051
Printed Date: 07 September 2025 at 12:41pm
Topic: 11 Color Palette Comp
Posted By: jalonso
Subject: 11 Color Palette Comp
Date Posted: 06 April 2016 at 7:47am
Pixeljoint is holding another pallette competition which is open to everyone and is quite simple.
Comp closes in 2 weeks, April 26, 2016. (CLOSED!)
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Replies:
Posted By: jalonso
Date Posted: 06 April 2016 at 7:47am
Posted By: Iscalio
Date Posted: 12 April 2016 at 10:00am
Not used to making palettes but I'll give it a shot. Tried it out on a piece of armor I made earlier and I liked it pretty well.
ps. if there's somewhere else I should submit this please let me know.
pps. Is there a pixel font tool you used for your codes or some other source? Making each letter for these was a bit time consuming and might discourage multiple entries.
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Posted By: jalonso
Date Posted: 12 April 2016 at 11:04am
Originally posted by IscalioNot used to making palettes but I'll give it a shot. Tried it out on a piece of armor I made earlier and I liked it pretty well.
ps. if there's somewhere else I should submit this please let me know.
pps. Is there a pixel font tool you used for your codes or some other source? Making each letter for these was a bit time consuming and might discourage multiple entries.
You're good. Posting here is all that's needed.
Font is 'silkscreen' and available for download from the links 'fonts' section of the gallery and is generically considered the basic 5px font.
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Posted By: Eggy
Date Posted: 12 April 2016 at 12:08pm
Here's my take and a test:
I just hope it's not too close to an existing palette. I initially saw it was a tad bit similar to the Fun16 palette (the one from the ISOtopes collab), at least to me, so I tried to alter it and not make it too similar.
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Posted By: rklesmit
Date Posted: 12 April 2016 at 12:56pm
Here's my attempt:
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Posted By: andrae
Date Posted: 12 April 2016 at 1:52pm
Posted By: pavanz
Date Posted: 12 April 2016 at 5:06pm
Posted By: Crimso
Date Posted: 12 April 2016 at 8:23pm
Posted By: Drazile
Date Posted: 12 April 2016 at 11:10pm
DRZ11A
 I'll probably make a couple more...
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Posted By: Crimso
Date Posted: 13 April 2016 at 12:16am
Another one.
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Posted By: sjhwi1a
Date Posted: 13 April 2016 at 5:17am
Posted By: jalonso
Date Posted: 13 April 2016 at 10:17am
Palletes above are recorded in post2
Advise of any changes or edits.
Please keep your palettes in your imagehost until judging comes around.
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Posted By: BigPotato
Date Posted: 13 April 2016 at 4:03pm
Here's my take. Using the palette analyzer for Grafx2 in DB's Toolbox, here's an analysis:
Pros: You can get an okay greyscale using the blues and green, it's got a good red ramp, a decent blue ramp, a green ramp with the blue and yellow, a purple and a skin tone.
Cons: Only one green, no pink (though this can be simulated using the red and darker orange) and no straight greys.
Finally, here are remaps of other people's work in this palette.
(Some Pocket Monsters by cure, the preview for Super Mario Bros HD by Jinn, Into The Deep by a3um, Vierbit's avatar, some Star Wars characters by ElectroNico, Fool's Find Waldo, NES Megaman Redo Mockup by Snake and The Legend of Iya Mockup 01 by DarkfalzX)
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Posted By: andrae
Date Posted: 13 April 2016 at 6:33pm
Updated mine:
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Posted By: philippejugnet
Date Posted: 13 April 2016 at 7:10pm
Some experiment on my own stuff:
edit: Thanks man! v(below)
Quick sketches with the palette to show how colors can be used in different ways.
The really thing here and about things I do as well is to use lots of black.
1)
2)
3)
4)
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Posted By: SpeedyCube
Date Posted: 13 April 2016 at 7:14pm
You can use the image specs tool to get the hex codes :)
http://wouterpleizier.nl/pj/
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Posted By: Calippo
Date Posted: 13 April 2016 at 8:22pm
The "Turtle's Mouth" palette
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Posted By: sanguzara
Date Posted: 13 April 2016 at 10:48pm
EDIT 1:
Looking at this and trying to use it while I'm actually awake has me saying What was I thinking?
Edits to come!
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Posted By: Crimso
Date Posted: 14 April 2016 at 5:15am
Edit of my second palette:
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Posted By: Veksell
Date Posted: 14 April 2016 at 11:03am
My palette.
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Posted By: saulc12
Date Posted: 14 April 2016 at 2:29pm
Here is my simple effort, inspired by late Autumn and Winter. A darker but hopefully well balanced and versatile little number with a pastel finish...
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Posted By: jalonso
Date Posted: 14 April 2016 at 3:46pm
Originally posted by saulc12Here is my simple effort, inspired by late Autumn and Winter. A darker but hopefully well balanced and versatile little number with a pastel finish...

As stated in the rules for the comp these palettes (or any palette) is not added to the gallery as standalone art because they are more of a tool/resource than pixelart.
That's why it was sent back ;).
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Posted By: saulc12
Date Posted: 14 April 2016 at 4:53pm
Sorry for that, I have deleted the gallery entry, but can I assume my palette will be submitted here for the competition?
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Posted By: BigPotato
Date Posted: 14 April 2016 at 6:05pm
This one's a little experimental. It has two four-color ramps, one warm, one cold, with the remaining three colors used to bridge the two. This makes for some interesting shading/lighting possibilities.
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Posted By: sanguzara
Date Posted: 14 April 2016 at 6:22pm
Nice entry, BigPotato!
Similar to the concept I was shooting for but more deftly executed. Will have to toy around with this, looks versatile, if not a bit lacking in blues.
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Posted By: jalonso
Date Posted: 14 April 2016 at 7:45pm
Originally posted by saulc12
Sorry for that, I have deleted the gallery entry, but can I assume my palette will be submitted here for the competition?
Of course! Posting here is how one enters,
Did you read the rules >.<
You did a nice job it seems without testing.
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Posted By: slaughterism
Date Posted: 14 April 2016 at 10:33pm
Posted By: Mantichore
Date Posted: 15 April 2016 at 4:32am
Making the palette was both fun and difficult, I should try to do this more often.
A quick sketch to test the palette:
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Posted By: PIXELNACHO
Date Posted: 15 April 2016 at 4:38am
Posted By: Finlal
Date Posted: 15 April 2016 at 4:54am
Work in progress. Will (probably) update it and make some pictures after Ludum Dare.
Also, funny thing. Last palette challenge was right after last year's april Ludum. So it's approximately one year since then.
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Posted By: jalonso
Date Posted: 15 April 2016 at 6:20am
All palettes thru this post have been entered and added to post2
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Posted By: Aztarium
Date Posted: 15 April 2016 at 1:16pm
My palette: i'm bad at choosing colors, but anyways... also, i couldn't use the font silkscreen properly with 5 pixels on Graphics Gale, it just looked strange, but maybe that's just me
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Posted By: jalonso
Date Posted: 15 April 2016 at 1:40pm
Originally posted by Aztarium
... i couldn't use the font silkscreen properly with 5 pixels on Graphics Gale, it just looked strange, but maybe that's just me
5px = 8pt
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Posted By: pavanz
Date Posted: 15 April 2016 at 4:18pm
I'm updating mine:
Some sketching and remaps
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Posted By: Aztarium
Date Posted: 15 April 2016 at 4:36pm
ahhh, now it makes sense, thanks Jal. guess i'll be reworking that palette, though, not quite satisfied with the result...
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Posted By: Swallowtail
Date Posted: 16 April 2016 at 9:12am
Here's mine!

I might update it in the future.
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Posted By: Nevercreature
Date Posted: 16 April 2016 at 11:10am
My own palette:

Using it in some pictures:

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Posted By: mordfikosz
Date Posted: 16 April 2016 at 2:02pm
My attempt:
Some PJ material remaps using the palette:
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Posted By: BertMi
Date Posted: 16 April 2016 at 3:32pm
My palette (:
 I used it + 5 other colors in this pixel:

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Posted By: Aztarium
Date Posted: 16 April 2016 at 6:41pm
fixed my palette to ramp better and changed a green tone for a brown
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Posted By: Drazile
Date Posted: 16 April 2016 at 11:04pm
DRZ11B, a more mellow, desaturated palette to cover the potential collab themes that my first palette doesn't cover :P
 The blue ramp can double as a grey ramp if some of the warmer colours are mixed well.
Also, an update for DRZ11A:
 (I just made the yellow darker)
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Posted By: BigPotato
Date Posted: 17 April 2016 at 4:43pm
Think this'll be my last one. I was going for balance here. It's got a purple-blue-cyan ramp, a red-orange-yellow ramp, a green ramp that can double as a greyscale, a deep purple-brown, and a black.
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Posted By: jalonso
Date Posted: 18 April 2016 at 6:59am
All palettes added and updated thru this post.
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Posted By: sanguzara
Date Posted: 18 April 2016 at 4:07pm
Updating my previous submission:
Inspired by City in the Sky from Twilight Princess.
Run through DB's analyzer (old version, so BG not excluded), mostly useful for colorspace metric and dithering examples. This palette is pretty versatile for its range, but that range is somewhat limited in application. Lack of reds, mostly; I've been having trouble altering the palette to include these while maintaining the verdant feeling of the palette as a whole.
I'm curious of your impressions... Critique very welcome.
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Posted By: jalonso
Date Posted: 18 April 2016 at 4:17pm
Originally posted by sanguzaraUpdating my previous submission:
 ...
Fyi, you can enter more than once.
Both are nice pallettes why not just enter both?
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Posted By: TZero
Date Posted: 18 April 2016 at 4:19pm
My attempt! When I was browsing the ones that were already submitted I was wondering why they all seemed kinda similar. Turns out with 11 colors there are only so many things you can do to make the palette work.
I aimed for a brighter more friendly palette, as lots of dark/low-sat ones have already been submitted. I built it up around three ramps.
It ended up feeling (imo) somewhat similar to Dawnbringers palettes, which I guess is a good and a bad thing.
Some quick sketches.
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Posted By: sanguzara
Date Posted: 18 April 2016 at 6:18pm
Originally posted by jalonso
Fyi, you can enter more than once.
Both are nice pallettes why not just enter both?
I wasn't a huge fan of the first one... But I also gave up on it prematurely, and they are significantly different. No harm in keeping it around, so we can leave it up.
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Posted By: Drazile
Date Posted: 19 April 2016 at 4:42am
DRZ11C

We don't have to show all of those palette testing charts and stuff, right?
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Posted By: jalonso
Date Posted: 19 April 2016 at 4:55am
Originally posted by Drazile
DRZ11C  We don't have to show all of those palette testing charts and stuff, right?
No...
but we sure do love them and they are so helpful come judging time.
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Posted By: Mandrill
Date Posted: 19 April 2016 at 5:16am
All palettes added and updated thru this post.
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Posted By: Night
Date Posted: 19 April 2016 at 10:11am
I love these, I couldn't not join!
Here's my palette:
I tried to make a palette that includes all colours and is still usable, I just wish I could add an extra colour, specifically another green.
I heavily based the order of shades based on this one:
Blue, Red, Magenta, Grey, Green, Cyan, Yellow
1 and 2: Chose the darkest and lightest colours in the palette, with a dark blue and a light yellow being the colours chosen. The darkest colour being slightly blue to accommodate for the fact blue is the darkest colour visible, and yellow the lightest colour visible.
3: an in-between colour for the yellow and blue - grey.
4 and 5: The closest colours to colour no. 3 are purple and green, with purple being the darker one, and green the lighter one. I shifted the third colour a bit towards the purple (could be done for the green as well, just felt it might be a better choice).
6 and 7: Red and Cyan, with red being darker and cyan lighter.
At this point I decided to create a colour wheel in order to see how all the colours work together.
8 and 9:The greatest transition differences were between blue and cyan, and red and yellow, as such I decided to add a mid-tone blue and orange.
10 and 11: Considering the fact that brown is perhaps the most used colour in nature, I decided to add two shades of brown.
The "After Changes" part is simply after rebalancing and correcting the colours a bit.
A small test:
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Posted By: Limes
Date Posted: 19 April 2016 at 11:59am
Might as well... I did a bit of testing but I didn't run it through any samplers... I think Its good to go.
It has a very versatile blue ramp.
------------- I use GraphicsGale
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Posted By: Drazile
Date Posted: 19 April 2016 at 1:57pm
Well here are some simple perceptive hand-drawn ramps and charts of my three palettes, as well as some sloppy spheres.
 DRZ11A, B and C, respectively.
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Posted By: Mirre
Date Posted: 19 April 2016 at 3:30pm
Gave it a shot! It's a little inspired by the palette from Hexquisite Corpse III and Fun16 by DawnBringer. I wanted to try and make a palette without any blues...
Some tests...
Remapped a few of my old pieces with it to try it out.
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Posted By: PIXELNACHO
Date Posted: 20 April 2016 at 8:46pm
Posted By: Mandrill
Date Posted: 21 April 2016 at 6:18am
Originally posted by Mandrill
All palettes added and updated thru this post.
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Posted By: Mirre
Date Posted: 21 April 2016 at 9:38am

This was so much fun that I made a second palette too. :)


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Posted By: aeveis
Date Posted: 21 April 2016 at 9:11pm
Here's something I put together. Some color tests:
added palette analyze:
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Posted By: Ima B. Strong
Date Posted: 21 April 2016 at 11:30pm
Posted By: ||||
Date Posted: 22 April 2016 at 12:42am
 'gray days'
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Posted By: Mandrill
Date Posted: 22 April 2016 at 7:28am
Posted By: mordfikosz
Date Posted: 23 April 2016 at 2:38am
My second submission:
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Posted By: Iscalio
Date Posted: 23 April 2016 at 12:48pm
"No...
but we sure do love them and they are so helpful come judging time."
What exactly are they and where would they be found?
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Posted By: jalonso
Date Posted: 23 April 2016 at 1:27pm
Originally posted by Iscalio
"No...
but we sure do love them and they are so helpful come judging time."
What exactly are they and where would they be found?
Anything at all that shows examples of the palette at work. Technical, artistic, whatever.
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Posted By: DawnBringer
Date Posted: 23 April 2016 at 1:31pm
Well, I had to make a palette... :)
Palette codename: Elva11 ("elva" is eleven in swedish :p)
The starting point for this palette was a backbone of a 5 color grayscale. Not much trickery in this one, it's a pretty straightforward set of colors.
Analyzis:
Study:
Halfshades is a crucial aspect of light and color. It's a simple and powerful tool to make functional palettes. Every color in one's palette should have at least one decent halfshade. And if color A has a good halfshade in color B and color B has a halfshade in color C (and the level of contrast is somewhat similar)..well, then A-B-C is a good ramp...and so on.
Hue & Brightness map:
Isometric test (shades & ramps):
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Posted By: SpeedyCube
Date Posted: 24 April 2016 at 10:04am
Calling it "Xx_SwaggyMLGNoscope2k16_YT_OVER9000_xX11"
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Posted By: jalonso
Date Posted: 24 April 2016 at 11:06am
Originally posted by SpeedyCube
Calling it "Xx_SwaggyMLGNoscope2k16_YT_OVER9000_xX11"
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Posted By: JerryPie
Date Posted: 25 April 2016 at 10:44am
Posted By: atprises
Date Posted: 25 April 2016 at 10:50am
Hello!
I decided to make a palette that reminds me of a vintage postcard.
It was fun to make it : )
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Posted By: Mandrill
Date Posted: 25 April 2016 at 11:34am
Originally posted by Mandrill
Post 2 has been updated.
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Posted By: delicatone
Date Posted: 25 April 2016 at 1:15pm
MD+-
MDplusMinus is based on the plumage of the male Mandarin Duck. I wanted to create a palette that would help push me to use colors in a way that I wasn't before:
- Move away from earth tone palettes
- Use brighter colors and more hues
- Focus on hue shifting
- Using palette to encourage creativity, instead of making individual palettes to fit specific ideas.
MD+- is derived from the hue shifting that occurs through various clumpings of feathers, with the exception of the pink color which is from the beak.
The overall hue-shift from hot to cold is based on the general direction of the body, from beak to tail, left to right respectively.
Different ramps can be used to traverse the palette. The ones I found useful I marked in this diagram.
For lighting, I found that the best bgs are the offWhite, Black, and gray-purple. I pixeled this abstract sculpture for the use of testing shading, lighting and hue shifting. Only allowing myself five colors each, I managed to get decent results even when starting as low as the Red for highlights.
I jumped a little out of my territory and tried some mini iso-blocks specifically designed using MD+-
I think they make for prettily pixeled palette propaganda posters. heh
Lastly, I wanted to show what the palette looks like on some pieces more congruent with what I normally pixel. The mountain/cloud landscape on the left (also in my pj gallery) was specifically designed using this palette.
The lion-dancers, junk boat, and moon-mountain are simply palette swaps of previous works.
Lastly lastly, if you read this far, thanks :) I thought I might explain the name a bit.
MD+-, Mandarin Duck Plus Minus
In Chinese, the character for Ten looks like a plus sign +
and the character for One looks like a -
so +- (pronounced shi yi) means Eleven. Also, Mandarin ducks are a very significant bird in Chinese culture. They are used to describe romantic stories between a couple, often times a mismatched-romance between two people who are very opposite from each other.
I think that fits this palette which blends so many distant colors, and plus minus or "positive negative," is a fitting way to express such.
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Posted By: Veksell
Date Posted: 25 April 2016 at 3:08pm
My second palette "Pearl".
And little examples.
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Posted By: Gecimen
Date Posted: 25 April 2016 at 5:43pm
Last day everyone, awesome results so far :)
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Posted By: JerryPie
Date Posted: 25 April 2016 at 10:15pm
last palette for me! thanks.
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Posted By: sanguzara
Date Posted: 26 April 2016 at 5:16pm
My third and final submission. This was actually an attempt to improve my first submission, but it ended up being quite a bit less saturated, so I figured I'd just submit as a third:
Here's a palette analysis chart:
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Posted By: jalonso
Date Posted: 27 April 2016 at 7:22am
The palette comp is now closed no more entries will be included.
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Posted By: Mandrill
Date Posted: 27 April 2016 at 7:45am
Post 2 had its final update. Thank you all for participating.
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Posted By: jalonso
Date Posted: 02 May 2016 at 7:06pm
Judging is in progress :)
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Posted By: jalonso
Date Posted: 06 May 2016 at 6:27am
Announcing the winners of the 11 color palette contest.
First Place - http://pixeljoint.com/p/67405.htm - mordfikosz
Second Place - http://pixeljoint.com/p/44577.htm - SpeedyCube
Third Place - http://pixeljoint.com/p/36467.htm - Nevercreature
Honorable Mention - http://pixeljoint.com/p/26118.htm - Night & http://pixeljoint.com/p/45404.htm - Finlal
Congratulations to all who http://pixeljoint.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=25051&PN=1 - contributed a palette . Excellent and deserving good palettes by all. Anyone using a palette for their work remember its nice to credit the creator.
Winners were chosen by your Mod staff and invited PJers http://pixeljoint.com/p/47822.htm - rhlstudios , http://pixeljoint.com/p/17621.htm - Jinn and http://pixeljoint.com/p/46978.htm - ArcadeHero
by ballot, most palettes were tested. The most votes moved to Round
2 for points based on all judges 1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc. Then another round
of just the top 5 vote getters to determine the top 3 order.
Thanks to everyone for submitting such great palettes (46), we were
honestly very surprised at the overall quality of the palettes and as
such it was incredibly difficult to select a winner.
Winning palettes: http://pixeljoint.com/p/67405.htm - mordfikosz

http://pixeljoint.com/p/44577.htm - SpeedyCube

http://pixeljoint.com/p/36467.htm - Nevercreature

http://pixeljoint.com/p/26118.htm - Night

http://pixeljoint.com/p/45404.htm - Finlal

This comp was to pick the palette for the next PJ forum iso collaboration, which will be posted in a few days.
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Posted By: jalonso
Date Posted: 20 May 2016 at 8:18am
Sorry, for the delay in running the comp pixel people...especially Eggy :p
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Posted By: Eggy
Date Posted: 20 May 2016 at 9:40am
No problem Jal :) I've taken my mind off the comp pixel for the time being by doing (nightmare fuel of) an entry for this week's challenge.
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