Self-Portret WIP (Critique needed)
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=26146
Printed Date: 12 September 2025 at 11:36am
Topic: Self-Portret WIP (Critique needed)
Posted By: timothyw
Subject: Self-Portret WIP (Critique needed)
Date Posted: 09 February 2018 at 1:10pm
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Hey all!
New here on the forums, but have been a longtime fan of the art on PixelJoint. Recently I got inspired to make a self-portret to use as an avatar. This is my first real attempt at making something with pixels. I'm not very good at drawing so I lack the skills to properly work with lighting, but I'm pretty happy with my attempt. I'm trying to go for a minimalist pixel art look, but I'm not sure if what I have now qualifies as pixel art... (I did tediously make it using only pixel tools (pen, line without aliasing, brush without aliasing) with some help from my laptop touch screen) This is the WIP: 
I'm quite happy with: - The shape of the head, beard and hair - Some of the shading in the face and beard I still need to work on: - The ear - The hair I'm not happy with: - The eyeballs - The eyesockets - The lips (can't find any colours that work out for me and have no idea how to show some of the skin that surrounds my lips without it looking bad) And I really haven't found a way yet to make 'em look better... If you've got any comments on any part of this piece I'd be glad to hear it! Any good guides or links are also much appreciated. |
Replies:
Posted By: Hapiel
Date Posted: 10 February 2018 at 9:35am
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Welcome, glad you finally joined for real :D Do you have a reference picture that you're working from? It would be nice to see :) It looks alright for the most part. The thing that stands out most to me are the shape of the lips, which seem to be very diagonal to me. Why do you work with such low contrast? Have you tried more contrast between all of the colors? What's going on with the interlaced dithering on the top of his forehead? In general I often discourage much dithering, as it also gives an unintended sense of texture... As for the eyes.. you seem to give so much attention of detail in some parts (very specific colors on the eyeballs and irises) but fail to include some basic stuff such as eyelids on top and bottom. Also with some Anti Aliasing you could make those irises a lot rounder! Good luck |
Posted By: timothyw
Date Posted: 10 February 2018 at 3:09pm
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Originally posted by Hapiel
Welcome, glad you finally joined for real :D Thanks! Happy to be here :) Originally posted by Hapiel
Do you have a reference picture that you're working from? It would be nice to see :) I'm using several pictures, but for privacy concerns I'd rather not share those. When I get more comfortable with folks here on the forums I'll reconsider. Originally posted by Hapiel
It looks alright for the most part. The thing that stands out most to me are the shape of the lips, which seem to be very diagonal to me. Good point, I've been staring at this picture for so long I didn't even see that it was looking so diagonal. I'll have a go at correcting them. Originally posted by Hapiel
Why do you work with such low contrast? Have you tried more contrast between all of the colors? I'm not sure why I did it. I just kind of stuck with these colours since they looked good to me and I didn't want to screw up, but I'll fiddle around a bit with the contrast. Originally posted by Hapiel
What's going on with the interlaced dithering on the top of his forehead? In general I often discourage much dithering, as it also gives an unintended sense of texture... If you want an honest answer: because I had no idea why people used it in pixel art and I thought in that place it looked alright and made it more *pixely* 
I'll see if I can make it look nice without the dithering. Originally posted by Hapiel
As for the eyes.. you seem to give so much attention of detail in some parts (very specific colors on the eyeballs and irises) but fail to include some basic stuff such as eyelids on top and bottom. Also with some Anti Aliasing you could make those irises a lot rounder!Good luck Thanks, I'll try some anti-aliasing and maybe cut the detail a bit in the eyeballs a bit. Also I struggled with making the eyelids look good so I undid those changes. I'll have another go at them with some different reference pictures. Thanks for all the feedback! |
Posted By: eishiya
Date Posted: 10 February 2018 at 3:39pm
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You've got a lot of (very faint) noisy textures in the hair, especially the eyebrows. Noise does not look like hair. Instead of trying to suggest individual hair, try to focus on locks and other larger-scale features made up of many hairs. You can suggest "hairiness" by having the shadows and lights have irregular shapes instead of drawing individual hairs or noise. Beards usually have a couple of gaps under the lip, and moustaches are either long enough to cover up a part of the upper lip or short enough that the gap between the lip and where the hair starts to grow is visible. In both cases, the facial hair isn't very likely to line up so perfectly with the lips, so it looks rather unnatural as-is. |
Posted By: timothyw
Date Posted: 10 February 2018 at 4:58pm
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Yeah I have really been struggling with making the hair look good, I'll get rid of all the noise and go for shadows and highlights.
Also you are very right about the beard-free area surrounding the lips, though that is challenging for me as well. Ill have another go at it next week and post an update when I've made sufficient progress. Thanks for the feedback! |
Posted By: Hapiel
Date Posted: 11 February 2018 at 3:54am
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I wanted to make a quick edit to show what can be done with the contrast, but it got a bit out of hand and I sketched some random bits too, such as the eyes. Also, I noticed that the palette is all over the place, which makes it harder to org anise. Check this analysis here If you use about 16 colors for this it will be much easier to manage, alter, and turn into something coherent. For this edit I automatically reduced it to 32 colors.  |