i just love it! + fav

Wow, this is awesome! It reminds me of the boss on Kingdom Hearts when you reach Alice in Wonderland.

Thats great stuff!!

Ugh, yeah, don't remind me. Purely coincidental.

This is awesome, but it reminds me of that terrible game 'Kingdom Hearts'

wow i love this so much it is AMAZING
*thumbs up*

i love the originality in the picture. i mean when is the last time you have ever seen an instrument as a bad guy?

so aweseom nice job

You continue surprising me with your style. Carry on!!

Looks good...

K, I'll do some research and try em out. Thanks for the help guys!

I fully agree with what Helm said and i like the design of this, but yes, you could use some more pixelspecific techniques, why not give it a try? Here are two better examples of stuff that Made did. [url]http://gfxzone.org/personal/made/02/made-sure_shot.png[/url] [url]http://gfxzone.org/personal/made/02/made-propaganda_5.png[/url]

sorry for triple post, but kube pic is mostly 3d render and then reduced to 256 colors. Pretty obvious.

And the second made pic is very dirtytooled, possibly photoshop+cleaning.

Generally not the best examples of demoscene.

oh also, only 4 notes on that little keyboard? Not even a full octave? also, Fa, Fa#, Sol, Sol#, La, La# Si (or F,F#,G,G#,A,A#,B for the americans) are an unusual selection :P

The Black Market the center of controversy again! Hehe dude, first of all, don't worry too much about this. In my opinion this piece has pixel art techniques used. Color conservation, some dithering, some AA. This is I guess then, pixel art, of the spriteart/gameart type, but pretty big. However, it is very light on the pixel techniques. This is your artistic choice and I don't think anyone can tell you what you SHOULD do, but personally I feel you could AA a lot more than you have. dither in other patterns than classic 50% and work in lower resolutions. Why do I suggest lower resolutions? Because the pixel art tricks, subpixelling with AA, smart colors and dithering and and and all benefit from up to 640x480 pics, with lots of localized detail. I don't think you should work smaller because people will agree your art is 'pixel art' more then, I think you should do it because you'll learn wonderful things in smaller sizes that will help you grow as an artist generally.

Pixel art is anything that has pixel-level attention to detail and the processes included in the making of a piece are pixelpushing, antialiasing, dithering, colour conservation and the like. If a piece is light on techniques, it's still pixel art, but it's just light. Personally I feel an artist that does pixel art light on tech is underusing the medium, but that's not a crime, is it?

jalonso, nice going with saying Made didn't do pixel art.

Awesome looks very cool. As many have said, it looks like a heartles from Kingdom Hearts.

This is really neat.  Looks almost like something from KH and Mario mated Cool idea and well done!

nice I like it

lol he reminds me of some KH's heartless, very nice : )

I love this, the character itself looks great, and very interesting indeed. I love the turquoise backlighting and the smooth reflections, especially on the black part above the keys; that looks amazing!

As for the topic of pixel art; it's a medium and anyone can do any style/genre they like in a particular medium. For example, throughout history, oil painters have done abstract, fauvism, realism etc. all in oils, and none of them were wrong. And when it comes to pixel art, I love fresh new style like TBM's. Great work man.

thanks blick.
you managed to say what i was trying in perhaps a better way

I would like to say the comments on the picture are a great read, I already gave my views on the image itself. It's obviously pixelart :p. The lovely thing about pixelart is there's no right way to make it, everyone seems to do it their way, whether it's completely random, from other art styles, from stylse they've seen in other media, or even pixel art. That's what makes pixel art rock so much, it's not like you just stuck fifty people in a room and told them draw a model, you're telling people to draw whatever they want, however they want, just with pixels, the way you've been running around denouncing things as being pixelart can greatly discourage someone who may have something great to give to a community.

My views :p. Didn't expect that to come out so long, I apologize if I seem offensive in any way.

I just went through a few ways to type out this comment and came to a conclusion.

Jalonso: The 128/256 rule is retarded. I can pull a number out of my ass "Oh look, a 174!" and keep my color count to that exact number if I wanted to. Those examples Flaber showed are to those massive color counts because, to put it simply, they' demoscene. They need to impress. They pixel for weeks on a single picture with a set palette restriction to win contests, and when you have weeks to beat another team then you're going to take advantage of everything you have. Including the amount of colors given.

The easiest way I could imagine to explain pixel art was brought to me by Helm, I think it was. When he coined the term "dirty tools", for me. The filters, color reducing, automatically anti-aliasing brushes etcetera are these said dirty tools. They lack manual attention to detail. Something that this piece certainly has. So, in my mind this is pixel art and I don't see why it shouldn't be consered such.

Sometimes its best to agree to disagree, and we should leave it there. But my last word on the matter is "When you see "pixelart" with exactly 128 and especially 256 colors used... its not pixelart."

those three examples most definatly ARE pixelart.
the first uses 128 colours, the second 238,  third 256.
those are demo scene pieces.  all hand done.. all pixelled.

zoom in. actually look at the picture. you can find patterns in the colours.. everything is not AA into each other. there is colour re-use
what you call as the *pixel-art* look is the grainy look to a picture. where you can see the individual dots.  but that does not disclude other stuff
pixelart is working under limitations. a colour count.. a bitcount.. size.. tiles.. etc
CG and vector really have no limitation. vector can be resized to anyting... CG has no cap to colours..

again.. its the process through which the product is made that defines the type. you cant knock off something because of quality... just because it doesnt have a grainy look can still mean its pixelart.. you have to actually look at the picture to be able to tell. a gameboy game and a super nintendo game.. both loook different.. different tile sizes, different colour amounts.  yet both are pixelart. your tiny display pic, and say the exampe you showed me. different again. yet both pixelart.

you could argue my display pic could be vector. yet its not.

you cant base the style off of quality. some go for a smooth look, some go realistic, some go cartoony, some go grainy. thats what makes the differences in this. otherwise we would be looking at exactly the same images over and over again.
its the process...

Those three examples are most definetely NOT pixelart. Check this one out for comparison. All duck talk aside. The 3 samples you show might as well be made in oil on canvas, photographed and scanned, no one would see a diff. The one I show clearly shows its created  using *pixels*, even to the non- pixel art enthusiast. The reason I won't really call *accordion man* pixelart its because it looks like vector art. It does not have the *pixel art* look/style. I suppose you would call another recent addition "xD" is pixelart because it made with pixels and the look pixelly, yet notice that all posted comments say its oekaki.

http://www.gfxzone.org/personal/made/01/made-enola_guy.png
http://www.gfxzone.org/personal/made/07/made-yoriko.png
http://www.gfxzone.org/theme/8_bit/11/kube-temporal.png

check those out jalonso
they all technically, according to you wouldnt be classified as pixelart.
why? because you think it would look better as a CG

you can use acrylic paints to paint a duck.. you can make a duck out of clay, you can carve a duck out of wood.. you can draw a duck with pencils.
you produce all the same 'finished product'
could you tell any of those artists that they are wrong in making their version of the duck because they didnt do as you plesaed?
no.
i paint with oils. you draw with pastel.
there is no wrong. he choose his medium to be pixels and produced a finished product. he decided upon every pixel.
pixelart is done pixel by pixel.. by patterns, and repetitions.
CG and vector is using blocks of colour in any way. if you look closely.. there is no set pattern for AA, there is no specific dither pattern. there is no set colour count, therefore nearly everypixel could be a different colour.
what do you define as a technique. i noticed that you did not have an answer for it before, but since u are accusing people of being wrong.. do tell what you understand.
it is the process through which you create the image.. not necesarrily the final product that defines..
... my thoughts

You are partially correct Flaber. But, what's the point if you create an oil painting to look like a watercolor? A "style" is characterized by the technique used since all else in art is subjective. If I submit to PJ the most amazing dithergasmic, aa'd selouted animated magical fighting dragon sprite in .jpg format it would be declined because I did not adhere to proper pixelart TECHNIQUE.

TheBlackMarket you are very much part of the pixelart loop, and a seeing your work is always a delight for me.

well said. i dont see how it wouldnt be pixel art myself.

???
of course this is pixelart.
you cant disqualify a piece due to size. obviously youv never researched farther into the art form than these few forums.
pixelart is based on techniques such as dithering, AA, selout, etc all hand done. colours are hand picked.
you cant rule out a piece because you think it would look better as a vector or someother art form. its not like you look at an oil painting and say 'thats not an oil painting because it would be better as a water colour'.
vectors, and CGs all use thousands of colours. he used 26.

--
anyways
--
interesting design.
my only bit with it, would be to clean your lines more. some of your curves in your lines and shades arnt smooth and follow form such as on the head.. the shadow doesnt follow the curve of the ball well.
throw some ambient on the top part of the body too

@jalonso
No, no, I'm not insulted or anything, I'm just trying to make discussion and find out some things. I always have the feeling that I'm out of the loop in any community I join, art or not. Yeah, this could have been vector, and probably should have been. I tend to try to get my pixels to emulate my other types of work, and I principally work in vector. Thanks!

I meant selout not AA. I love AA. Xcuse dbl post

I've never had nor seen an issue in which your art was disqualified as being pixel art dude.

You've got a different style and that's refreshing. I like it! Thick black outlines give it a cartoony definition. Good job bucko!

Pixelart like porn is hard to define, cept you know one when you see it. I suppose size does have an influence when I say something is not pixelart (not always tho, see Big Brother's Orks). However when my first impression on viewing any piece have a *could/should be vector* kind of impression then I feel that it is not pixel art. I think pixel art is about technique first and foremost and regardless of subject matter that *pixel* look must be prominent if we are to preserve this unique style.
Also take into account that I detest AA as general rule since I feel that its an lazy excuse to hide bad lineart.
This is meant as discussion on the subject of pixelart, and in no way refers to your creativity, sensibilities and abilities which I find exceptional and admire very much.

@Jalonso
Is it the size that makes it not pixel art? Number of colors? I did everything the instructions asked of me; I placed the pixels carefully and carefully thought out each color I placed down ( for instance, I lowered the saturation on colors I intended to use as reflections... I did it in three steps. First, I'd move the hue slider to a more red spot. Then I'd place the color, move the hue slider a bit more blue and lower saturation. The reflections are just tiny changes in saturation and hue of the same shadow color...) I made sure everything was as neat as I could make it, in case sloppiness disqualified a piece as pixel art... I even did a lot of AA this time! Sure, I like to dither a lot, as it cuts down on the number of colors needed to do something, but what should I do to make this pixel art? Make it smaller? Don't make an outermost outline? Draw a sprite? This unwritten rule set of pixel art is so frustrating... I think I'm following the rules to the letter, and BAM, I've broken some other rule I don't know about...

@Ar.
It will be a special enemy, but I'm not sure what will make it special yet.
@B.O.B
Thanks, I'll fix up the pillow shading.

Good! Idea is great, this guy will be boss or common enemy?

I love the look and composition...however, I won't call this pixelart. TBM seems to have a split personality with pixelart. One thing that's always consistent tho is beauty and quality.

I love it. I don't care if it isn't pixel art or not. The style is to awsome to pass by. The thick lines give it a special style, and the shading of thing's sleeves is great. The only thing I would recommend to touch up would be the piano keys. The borders that separate each of them look kind of choppy right now(nothing a lil' AA couldn't fix), and plus the keys seem to be pillow shaded through dithering. Other than that, it looks great! Kick arse job...

Hehe, yeah, I had some troubles with the head. One of the main troubles I had was laziness. Otherwise, I couldn't decide how to shade it and eventually settled for how it is now. Thanks for the critique!

I vote win =]. though in some parts [head most noticably] the shading seems off. AA all over could be better, but overall not bad.

omg thats so good , looks like a painting

It's the eyes that make it seem like Kingdom Hearts.

reminds me of kingdom hearts

Looks nice, good concept. Thought it was an heartless firstly, but I'm quite obsessed with KH lately, so...