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Pixel Art Details

user
Title: Tree 001
Pixel Artist: JeffSturm4nn  (Level 3 Chief :: 2634 points)
Posted: 4/5/2017 13:39
Palette: 15 colors
Statistics:  2 comments    0 faves    0 avatars

A big tree.

Time spent: 8 hours.

Discussion

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user
JeffSturm4nn (Level 3 Chief) @ 5/8/2017 21:35

Oh, thank you very much for the detailed analysis and suggestions, sir. I'll apply it in the next tree. Sorry, it took so long until i finally got time to read your comment 


user
Beaker (Level 3 Corporate Drone) @ 4/13/2017 22:18

I'll add some suggestions for improvement.  Firstly, the palette is good - it's adding yellow to the highlights and blue to the shadows like natural sunlight from a blue sky would do.  The two big issues are shading and the proportions of the leaves.  

 
In terms of proportions, it looks like this is an extreme view of a tree from looking up from the base, but the scale at which things closer  (the roots) are more detailed while things further away are less detailed (the leave on the very top) is not convincing to that perspective and may not be intended.  Assuming this is a typical standing height or higher few of a tree, the amount of vertical space taken up with the leaves is very small compared to the size of the trunk.  The issue with the shading is that it is not giving the viewer a strong impression of what the shape of the tree is - it's kind of a blob with the light coming from the top right of the image.  Most of the time, the shading for a tree is appoximated by a cylinder with a bunch of balls on top, and that gives the overall shape for a tree of this type (other types would be different, for example, an evergreen would be approximated by a bunch of cones).  Use this shading of the basic 3d shapes to guide your shading of the texture you're using for tree trunk as well as the leaves.
 
A good source of reference for this would be various "low-poly" trees you can find when you do a search for low poly tree tutorials.  For example:
 
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/45/12/47/4512474104225df99e024c0ca10fa614.jpg
 
 
With this image you can imaging taking one of these trees, exaggerating the shadows to give a more interesting shading, and then using that as a guide to shade the rest of the tree.  Likewise, you can get some ideas for shading other items by looking at polygon examples or building the rough shape of these objects out of cubes, balls, cones, and cylinders, and shading those building blocks appropriately for where the light source is coming from.
 
Finally, another good idea is to reduce the amount of detail you show for things that are in deep shadows.  For instance, the dark area between the tree trunk and the leaves cane be left clean instead of dithered/gritted.
 
Happy pixelling!
 

Related & Tags


tree, bush, forest, green, brown, grass, Tree 001 avatars, Tree 001 icons, Tree 001 pixel art, Tree 001 forum avatars, Tree 001 AOL Buddy Icons

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