Hey I made another atempt at an islander. With a little animation. Tell me what you think! it's called Fisherman Islander
Don't understimate the power of procrastination. /sarc ; ) I do feel bad that you're stuck with me giving you advice rather than the old pros who should really be doing it. I think they could help a lot better and more.
You're welcome.
omG! thanks for the amazing feedback! i wasnt expecting anyone to say anything! but thanks a bunch. My pixel art is flat i would agree. I will watch those tutorials asap!. Oh my. Im just awe struck that someone would write something this long and descriptive for positive critisism. you are amazing! and yeah her body language is so weird and akward. I think it reflects mine. Thanks a million I think ill retry this one with your feedback when i have the time!
Hi, greyjan,
(Disclaimer, I'm not very talented nor a veteran at art much less pixel art.)
This pixel art reminds me of the educational games I used to play on the pc when I was in early gradeschool, circa 1998. Don't misunderstand, that's not a dig at your art here. I say that, because I'm not sure what the goal of your artwork is here. Personally, that kind of very simple pixel artwork is not the most appealing to me (later console and arcade pixel art is much more appealing), but I could definitely see someone making a nostalgic game for instance with this kind of artwork.
If your goal to make more detailed and elegant pixel artwork, I give you the following feedback:
Your artwork looks very "flat". Shades of your colors are very important to address this. For instance, I see you did this on a couple of pixels on the edges of her breasts, but if you wanted to give your Islander more well-defined breasts, you'd might try giving some darker shades to indicate that curvature for her chest. It would help them standout, same for the neck area under the chin, and other areas (low lights in hair, etc.).
I forgot for a second that this was a suriving islander and thought she was wearing formal closed-toed shoes that had the pixels shaded the wrong color on the tips, but now I think (at least it would make more sense) that she's wearing sandals or ragged shoes. It's not clear that's what are. From what I've noticed about pixel art, espeically the more restrictive, smaller canvases you have to either get really creative about how to convey things, or let the restrictions drive the content, like perhaps going with barefeet. Again, this could be due to my lack of experience.
When you're drawing your pixel art, make sure to keep an eye on the size you actually intend to show it at either in realtime or check it often by resizing. This really helps you gain perspective and differing uses of thickness and color come across differently at the different sizes. For example, in this piece the eyes really come out in a zoomed in view, but really seem to fade at the initial resolution. Also, the inverse is true. Undefined "eyes" in the large version can really pop when scaled down to the intended viewing size. The same is true for just about anything (not just eyes) in pixel art, I have found. It's really quite amazing. I'd study how other artists address their characters' eyes. I think you'll pick up what I'm talking about pretty quickly.
dyanmic poses = more interest.
Somewhere on this website you'll find a rule saying the background has to have a purpose for the art piece, you just have a dark purple for this one. Now, for this one, I might break with what PixelJoint suggests as the dark puple does provide some contrast to your piece, but its just too close to the hair color at the smallest resolution and case could be made for the pants as well. Right now, I just use a transparent background for mine. A simple beach scene could provide some interest for this one though. I know, you're starting off small to focus on the character first before the backdrop. I get it, I understand; it's just something to work toward. A backdrop could also provide context. I'm assuming her hair is blowing in the wind, but can't be sure. I don't see a band holding it up or anything.
The legs look like they may be a little too thick on the bottom.
Her "thigh gap" may be a little to wide.
I'd watch some pixel art tutorials in "Features" section.
Your avatar image (the blob) looks good and fun! Nice use of dithering.
Veteran pixel artists, if my advice is BS say "Shut up, Ed!"
Lastly, I give this piece two tiki totems out of five!
I did see it. I liked it. I'm keeping your message as a reminder to get some more detailed feedback when I have more time.