A post of my very own!
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=6373
Printed Date: 14 September 2025 at 2:12am
Topic: A post of my very own!
Posted By: cracked lcd
Subject: A post of my very own!
Date Posted: 18 April 2008 at 11:24am
This is my first attempt at doing pixel art  - I wound up finding a couple of tutorials online and went from there. I just stumbled across this forum and I'm really glad - there's so much that I didn't know when I started these 2 projects.The first is a top down city with a battle being waged between tiny little soldiers and resistance fighters. I'm still working on the buildings and the little crashed vehicles as well as doing an interior to the library.  The second is an isometric dungeon that I'm working on. I'm not really sure about the contrast in the tiles. Everything seems a little too similar.  Thanks for taking a look!  |
Replies:
Posted By: Sabata
Date Posted: 18 April 2008 at 4:41pm
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Did you say first time? Are you an art student or artist of some other type or what? Because this is definitely not a noobs work. There are two possibilities, one> you ripped it from somewhere Two> You are really gifted, if thats the case I would love to see your work. And hey dont take this personally, I am just surprised by the work quality for a person who says first time.  ------------- We fall to rise again. |
Posted By: Blad
Date Posted: 18 April 2008 at 5:01pm
Something must be fishy here  , did you mean that you practiced before and this is your first time posting it?But if it really is then great.  You are better than me.  |
Posted By: Pixel_Outlaw
Date Posted: 18 April 2008 at 7:47pm
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top scene:
the edge on the tips of the tank muzzles would not be seen in this projection. The elliptical borders on the fan vents on the buildings are very irregular. Go ahead and use the ellipse tool. The sidewalk tiles are out of perspective with the fan vents. I would decide to make everything square (like tiles) half as tall as they are wide. This would really help.
isometric pictures:
Looks really good. The only thing I see that is mathematically incorrect is the gold star on the isometric carpet. Assuming that all points are the same length it should be twice as wide as tall. I mean the horizontal spikes should be twice as long as the vertical ones. The star shape if uniform could be inscribed within a circle. Since an isometric ground circle is twice as wide as it is tall, the same holds for any shape on a surface that is parallel to the ground.
------------- http://www.shmup-dev.com/forum/"> 
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Posted By: M.E.
Date Posted: 18 April 2008 at 10:34pm
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Hi Cracked Lcd, Welcome to PJ This is really good, looking forward to next pieces ! On the dungeon you wrote that you felt that everything is too similar. Actually that is not a bad thing. For instance, if the goal of the game is to find those treasure chests than it is kind of cool that the chests are not very visible. So you have to find them. Some parts don't really match the style of the others. For instance the status bar feels really out of place. It is too big and too simple for the quality of the other parts. I would be extremely happy of you could show us some little 'work in progress' pictures. I want to learn from your first steps Best regards from M.E. ------------- http://www.kunststukken.nl - KunstStukken.nl M.E. Art |
Posted By: cracked lcd
Date Posted: 19 April 2008 at 8:28am
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Thanks for replying everybody. Sabata - I attended the Art Institute of Pittsburgh and majored in Media arts and Animation. My Website is http://www.tyreetoons.com/ - www.tyreetoons.com . I've been doing a little freelance graphic design stuff and holding down a crappy day job. A friend urged me on to try and get a job doing something I really like and I thought "why not games?" I'm really slow at 3D modeling so I thought that trying to get a job for one of the smaller companies doing mobile games might be an option. I worked on and off on these for a month and then I stumbled across this place and thought I'd see what people that do this kind of work all the time thought about them. My friends kept saying "looks cool", but they say that about everything I do. Blad - These really are my first attempts at this kind of art. There was a lot of trial and error until I got things to fit together. I almost quit until I found couple of tutorials that helped me solve my tiling problem. Pixel_Outlaw - Thanks for the constructive criticism - This is exactly what I was looking for. Sometimes when I get to working on a large piece, whatever the style I miss stuff like that. M.E. - Thanks for the kind words. The HUD stuff is definitely very rough. I have to say I hadn't put much thought into it at this point and will be doing some sketches to plan things out before I go back into photoshop. And now for works in progress. Here's an earlier version of the dungeon. Note all the little jagged edges around the perimeter - I was one little pixel off and couldn't see it for the longest time.  I'm not sure how shadows are done in these tile based game engines. For the sake of creating a complete looking picture I made a copy of some of my floor and wall tiles in my dungeon and adjusted the colors until it registered as "shadow". I'm assuming that you can do some kind of "filter" in a game engine these days to create shadowed areas. Or not. That's why I joined up here - to try and learn about stuff like that. Next is my last version of my dungeon tiles.  Here is an earlier version of my city with the library interior exposed.  This one was my first attempt and I have to admit I had pokemon running on my GBA and tried to mimic the bookshelves and information desk as a study. After I had some fun with that it sort of just kept expanding. And here is the latest version of the tiles.  Again thanks everyone who posted a reply! Much appreciated.
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Posted By: Hatch
Date Posted: 19 April 2008 at 9:19am
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The main thing that bugs me on both pieces is the inconsistent outlining. For example, you've got strong black (or very dark) outlines on the sandbags, the smoke, and the vehicles on the city scene, but no outline on the characters. I think it might be worthwhile to find a single outline style and stick to it. ------------- |
Posted By: M.E.
Date Posted: 19 April 2008 at 9:49am
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Hey Cracked LCD, How glad I am that you found this site and gave me an opportunity to see your art. There are a lot of different styles which shows me that you attempt different things. Really COOL! Especially the fairy tale pictures made me smile! I think you will do well if you would join one of the challenges. Your humor has kind of a winning element  Your ability to do different kind of things is your strongest point I think, but there may be a risk involved as well. Making a piece or a game requires a bit of keeping a certain style. I am not an expert on how to become a succesful professional artist. What I did read was that you have to be able to produce sprites / backgrounds and especially animations in a short time in a certain style. You could check out the Job Offerings forum on this board and show your portfolio to the pay-related threads. That will get you started on your freelance work and if you have a nice hourly rate you can quit your dayjob Anyhow, I am glad you joined and hopefully we will see more work from you! Best regards from M.E. ------------- http://www.kunststukken.nl - KunstStukken.nl M.E. Art |
Posted By: Blad
Date Posted: 19 April 2008 at 1:24pm
| I want to attend an art institute also, what did you do to get in? what are the requirements? i'm interested. |
Posted By: Blueberry_pie
Date Posted: 19 April 2008 at 2:07pm
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Some very impressive first pixels! Just goes to show how far you can get with prior non-pixel art experience. I love the first scene! It reminds me of Earthbound. I think the road tiles could use some work as they don't tile very well. Either make some more tiles to break up the monotony or make the tiling less noticable. |