How can I improve this portrait
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=26932
Printed Date: 10 September 2025 at 3:52pm
Topic: How can I improve this portrait
Posted By: PixelAdro
Subject: How can I improve this portrait
Date Posted: 22 June 2020 at 3:35pm
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Hello!
This is a self portrait I made for my social media. I used the Megaman Battle Network style for it. My question is simple, how can I improve it? Anything goes. I'm particularly unconvinced with the shadow on the top of the head. Also, I tried adding a ponytail but I couldn't manage to make it look right (hence the bump of hair behind the head). Any advice is welcome. Thank you! 
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Replies:
Posted By: SeDiceBisonte
Date Posted: 24 June 2020 at 2:41am
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I'm not familiar with the Megaman Battle Network style, so this critique may need to be adapted a bit to fit it. I really like what you have here already and the face particularly is great, with a lot of personality evident. Since
ponytails go in at the point where the rest of the hair joins the tail
part, I added more volume above and below that transition to suggest
that the hair is being tucked in and is then expanding out again below
the bobble. The specific shading may need to be adapted to fit the
style.  You asked about the shadow on top and I agree that it seems
unnatural. I know what you were going for since the light is coming from
the left side of the image, but it also seemed a bit higher up to me
based on the rest of your shading. It made the top of the head look a
little plasticy rather than like hair. I've just removed it completely and added a shadow underneath the bit of fringe/bangs that come down on the right hand side of the picture. |
Posted By: Limes
Date Posted: 24 June 2020 at 6:04am
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Everything looks good, that hair edit I would take some pointers from and work on those eyes. Other then that I don't see much that isn't sound :D ------------- |
Posted By: PixelAdro
Date Posted: 24 June 2020 at 11:04am
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Thank you for your compliments and suggestions!
The hair on the sides is meant to be some hair that isn't on the ponytail. This is the hairstyle I wanted to do: 
I couldn't find a way to make it clear this was the hairstyle in the portrait when drawing it. |
Posted By: PixelAdro
Date Posted: 24 June 2020 at 2:25pm
Hey again! I managed to put the ponytail like I wanted. I added some hair on the side and erased the shadows and modified the highlights as you showed me. I Also took some of the hair on the left side of the head. What do you think? 
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Posted By: Limes
Date Posted: 24 June 2020 at 5:13pm
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I made an edit but imgur wont let me upload it :(
Basically. I would keep playing around with ideas on the hair, but my main concern here is the eyes. they make her look like a zombie, more contrast in there, add a brown dot in the left one and work on the shape of the right side(dark side), in my edit I touched up on this but It won't upload. Got it! 
Edit: Did a bit more, gunna stop here though. Good luck! 
try to avoid that pillow shading on the neck ------------- |
Posted By: PixelAdro
Date Posted: 24 June 2020 at 6:11pm
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Thanks for the help!
I saw what you pointed out and made a few adjustments. I fixed the eyes a little bit and changed their size and the shape of the head so he looks more like the real person (me). I think any more will be beyond my understanding and capabilities so I'm gonna sleep on it and see if anything comes up tomorrow. Thanks again! 
edit: I just saw your new edit, thank you so much! I'll keep working on it |
Posted By: Limes
Date Posted: 24 June 2020 at 6:29pm
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I don't actually see a difference? did you post the wrong one? ------------- |
Posted By: PixelAdro
Date Posted: 25 June 2020 at 10:56am
| Oops I did post the worng one. I'll brb with the new corrections you made in mind and show you what I ended up with. |
Posted By: PixelAdro
Date Posted: 25 June 2020 at 11:32am
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Ok here it is.
I loved the new dark shade you added on the hair so I went for it. I adjusted the shading on the neck and added the new strands of hair on the forehead which I loved. I have a few questions though. First, what is the point of the AA round the shape of the head? I understand when it comes from the darkest sides like bellow the ear but the ones near the chin seem arbitrary so I wanted to know your thought process. Also, what is that shading you added on the left side of the face? 
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Posted By: Hapiel
Date Posted: 26 June 2020 at 1:50am
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If you want the hairstyle from the picture, the hair on the top of his head should be pulled to the back. Right now it looks like it is draping donw from the top. If you rotate the highlights and pull the hair away from his eyes, that should fix it. Does that make sense?
Also, the ponytail is not coming from the center of his head. Try and imagine where the centerline is on the backside of his head!! |
Posted By: Limes
Date Posted: 26 June 2020 at 6:34am
The purpose of all that stuff I did on the right side is too make a the shape more feminine, You might have noticed that I moved the shape inward 1 pixel right around the cheek-line. Makes the shape more anatomically correct. Another thing I did was add a shadow from the hair on the left side, and got rid of the 1 lone light skin tone arond the right eye. I also would recommend not using the whitest white for the right eye, It can be distracting. Another note, the collar on the neck shouldn't be that dark , maybe make the collar light and the shirt dark.. Up to you. The newst version is looking great. Hapiel also brings up a great point. Great improvement so far! So the point of destroying the outline there is making a stronger form, with just an outline it can come across as very rigid. which a females face generally is not :). I mean, there isn't much improvement you can make beyond hapiel's crit, to me the piece looks Complete. Of course nothing is truly perfect and you could spend hours just changing 1 pixel's at a time, but it looks like a very good pixel, even the starting one could have been considered complete. The new face look's more realistic, which is good. I met a guy in a character design class once. In this class the teacher seemed to take a more classical approach to the class and it almost felt like a Portrait class. Where as a lot of the students who enrolled were looking more for a cartoony style. He would after every project, which was usually studies on another drawing of a character that spoke to the student. Say that his drawing isn't good and he is more of a cartoonist, and after this for awhile I remember the teacher telling him that drawing is drawing, no matter what. a good artist can draw what they envision in their mind with accuracy cartoon or not. The kid seemed demotivated by this but he was one of the only kid's who expected a less classical art approach who actually stayed to the end. And he improved greatly which I respect him for. ------------- |
Posted By: PixelAdro
Date Posted: 27 June 2020 at 2:22pm
| Thanks a lot for all you help. I made a mistake by not telling you the person in the portrait is a man (he has some feminine qualities). But thanks to you I improved it a lot and learned so much. Thanks again for all the effort! |
Posted By: Limes
Date Posted: 27 June 2020 at 3:42pm
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man-women, who cares the pixel art looks great gj. ------------- |
Posted By: SeDiceBisonte
Date Posted: 28 June 2020 at 1:22am
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Looking good. This may be finished, but I wanted to do a quick edit on the hair because I was badly misunderstanding what the hair was meant to be doing in my first edit. Having seen a photo, you could maybe go for something like this. I literally did what Hapiel said and rotated my original highlight and then just worked it in. I left the hair hanging down at the front because I assumed it was intentionally not pulled back into the ponytail, but you could easily change that.  It's not perfect, but hopefully it's useful! |
Posted By: Hapiel
Date Posted: 28 June 2020 at 7:42am
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Well done on changing the direction of the hair! I think more highlight can go on the top and less on the side of the head, but that is also a style choice. More importantly, I don't think the bun should be visible from this angle, like I tried to explain in my previous post. Here is a demo of the back center line:  |