Thanks Helm. I`ll see if I can dig out the original. I`ve got a 16 colour version somewhere which we produced before 256 colouring it. If I can find that I`ll send it on to you.

No worries. I apologize too, for being too forward with the accusation that it wasn't pixelled, as we see a *lot* of photoshop-stuff jobs around and I've taken on to myself - perhaps wrongly - to weed out that sort of thing from pixelopolis and pixeljoint as best I can.

While I still find it improbable, your explaination of the process you used pretty much is enough to accept this as quite possible handpixelled, and quite possibly is good enough. Still a copy, sadly. If you find the original non-3x-zoomed version, and you could perhaps supply the reference used (I googled, I couldn't find anything) I can put in a good word to get the piece approved here, seeing how I probably were the biggest reason it wasn't in the first place.

Your two other pieces you uploaded I restate that I don't think they should have been denied in the first place.

Okay I've read through this discussion thread again, and you are right Helm, you haven't been personal in you opinions, so  I'll eat a chunk of humble pie and appologise for being rude.

It has been asked on numerous occassions on this website if the picture is indeed hand pixel painted, and if so how on earth was achieved. Well I'm only too happy to enlighten you.

1) The original picture was gridded up (that's on paper not the computer, no scanners then)

2) we then recreated the grid in DPaint and copied the outline

3) With the outline we then set about creating a standard 16 colour pallette.

4) We then blocked in the colours for this picture the best we could with the 16 colours

5) We now had a picture that was blocked in.

6) Two options then sprung to mind. We can do this in 16 colours and stipple it, OR we could use the new power of the 1200 and increase the shades from 16 colours to 256! Wohhoo! What a treat this was then! :P
 
7) So how do you work with painfully similar shades? This was achieved with a neat little trick. You adjust the subtle shades to a bright distinctive colour and paint with these knowing where they are going. When you've finished you reset those colours back to their proper shade. You do it once. Then divide again, and then again. It's a long process.

8) 24 hours later the job is done.

If you tilt your head to one side you'll see a bit of a glaring error with the picture. The mouth and nose are out of kelter. To fix that in DPaint would have been a nightmare, so we left it.

I don't need to be worshipped thanks, I'm learning as much as you are. I asked for respect, respect for me as a person and a fellow artist, as I'm sure you do to.

The only thing that bothered me was your insistence that a piece of work myself and Andy drew wasn't pixel painted, which it was. I have no gripe other than that. It's not about me thinking I'm better than you, I don't know you! I've only got the few pictures you've posted on this noticeboard as any idea of your art work.

 People who know myself and Andy, and have worked with us in the past know us as a nice easy going people. I'm proud of that fact. If I were a big headed git knowone would employ me, it's a very small industry after all. I'm very open to critism (how else can you expect to learn anything) and I've spent a lot of my career teaching people what I know who've then gone on to carve a really good career.

I want this thread to lighten up now. I've not joined it to be caught up in some flame war. I like your work, you've got the pixel art look of perfectly. I'll be posting some of my stuff on here soon. I'm working on my own version of a Metal Slug game at the moment set in the Dickensian era. Haven't done any pixel work for about a year (not so much work in it as their once was unfortunately.)

So can we forgive and forget this because us pixel artists we need to stick together, theirs a horrible 3D world out their trying to take us down :)

Helm. I love your C64 gfx and would love to have a go at an 8 bit image myself at some point. Can you recommend a good package for this type of pixel art?

Hey guys. Let's chill this now eh. You're both great artists and, if we all got on, we could turn it to our advantage and share our knowledge between ourselves and the rest of the forum.
I`m in the process of writing up a tutorial at the moment and I`d like your opinions on it once I`ve written it before I post it up on the forum.

Now, let's cool it guys!

're upset I don't worship you as an idol, then I find this unreasonable.

I have not once, talked down to you. If you please will read this thread again, you will see that.

I don't know your art in games, or your demoscene art because I don't know who you are!! All I know is that you and your brother used to work for Team 17. I don't recognize the 'necky' handle, have you gone through the demoscene in another handle? Can you link me to your games or your demoscene artwork so I may know if I have in the past seen your artwork? How is it stabbing you in the back that I cannot say you're amazing for art that I haven't seen or I don't know you made? You're being unreasonable. Most people in this website don't even know what the demoscene IS. You're talking to a person that has put siginificant time into praising old school art for the new people, to tell them to not forget how good the demoscene occasionally was. Seriously, it might be best before you burn bridges with me, to be FAIR about it and consider where I'm coming from, here.

The new school is different more in terms or attitude (especially about 'graphics' vs 'graphic art', and about copying practises) as opposed to strictly technical skills. The skills are the same. AA, dithering, palette management, how could these things change? How is it an insult to say things have changed since 1992? Since Made and Lazur and Danny and Ra? This is a different time.

Of course my art is influenced by old school stuff, why wouldn't it be? I love pixel art, I've given significant portions of my life up to studying it, to keeping http://pixel-arts.org/pixelopolis afloat. I've tried to help many people with critique and edits  and I am one of the most vocal advocates of pixel art as an art form that is deserving of respect and in which innovation can occur. I don't expect you to know these things, but I'd like it if you realized I'm not just some young punk trying to bring down the old artists. I hold IMMENSE respect for demoscene artists of old, I just *don't know you*. It's very probable you're awesome as an artist, but how can I know this before I've seen your art? You'll easily earn my respect or anyone elses with good art! That is all!

If that's your tolerance for rudeness, then what can I say? I'm sad that you feel that way. I wasn't rude to you once. I didn't talk down to you once. I brought issues into your attention and I discussed them in as civil a manner as I poosibly could. If yo>*** Message has been truncated ***

You're right that copying another person photo isn't a great thing to do. This was just an example of a technical accomplishment. You talk about 'New School' all I can see is it's a direct inspiration of the 'Old School' pixel work, there's nothing New about it I'm afraid.

The thing is I do kinda expect a bit of respect, I don't need to post my work on this noticeboard, my work is already well known and well recieved. Infact talk to me on a friendly level and I'll talk nicely to you in response, it's this talking down to me that's got me narked.

You've probably owned a big selection of my past work without even realising it and probably been inspired by it. To date I've had 5 number 1 games under my belt, over 20 publish titles, and that's excluding all the unpublished work and demo scene art I've produced. What more do I need to do to gain your respect? It's like being stabbed in the back.

You say you're respectful of the old school work, but I've not seen any sign of that here. All you've done is tell me how to do the one thing you've learnt from my generation. It all seems a bit odd to me and I'm afraid you are coming across as a bit arrogant.

I've looked at your other work, it's okay, but there are numerous influences from old school work. Calling it New School, is an insult to all of us that have created this genre.

 Sorry I've tried to be friendly, but you're just rude.

Please don't blow this out of proportion. I understand how this can make you sad. It's true a lot of the pixel artists that inspire me and whom I love have been copiers, like Lazur, Cyclone and others. But copying shouldn't be encouraged anymore, regardless of the technical skill. It's a different era for the artform. It's not all technical skill now, you have to do your own original work, always.

I'd be glad to hear what you have to say about pixels any time, I'm sure many would, but just that you're from that generation of artists and you know a lot of them doesn't make you immune to criticism.

About my avatar, it's not a direct inspiration of anything. I've picked up bits and pieces of technique and design from many artists, most of them not digital. Why don't you look at the rest of my stuff before you tell me about my 'direct inspirations'? There's one thing to realize the history of the medium and be respectful to it (I am. EXTREMELY.) and make art that is influenced by past artists and another to copy from photographs.

You can't demand more respect that will be given to you for your actions. I liked your other artwork you posted here, I really can't respect a copy picture. Why should I apologize for this? You are not my Pink Floyd equivallent. You're from that era, you might have known Pink Floyd, but you're not them. You'll have to prove your legendary status like anyone else: through posting good work.

It’s a real shame because you’re all on here with artwork inspired by the innovators of this artform, and I pride myself on being one of them.

To set the record straight (for the thousandth time) this picture WAS drawn pixel for pixel, there’s a real natty technique to doing it, and I’d share it with you if you give me 1 iota of space to talk and you actually listen for a change.

Why did we bother to paint this picture? It was a challenge, a pointless challenge at that, how much like a photograph can we achieve just using pixel pushing. Well obviously from the knee jerk reaction on this site, a pretty damn good job, probably TOO good.

We are all inspired by others, you yourself have a picture (I’m assuming) you drew as your tag picture, which is a direct inspiration of Dan Malone’s work. I can flick through the pages of this webpage and see inspiration from just about every piece of artwork. I know most of the 2D artists you’re all inspired by.

Just have a little respect that’s all I’m asking. If I were a musician and I met someone who had worked with The Beatles and Pink Floyd, I’d listen to what they had to say, I certainly wouldn’t talk down to them.

In light of this being a copy, whether it's pixelled 100% by hand or not for me isn't as important anymore. Copying is a good way to build skills, but prefferably keep the results in your hard disk, not on the internet. The graphics scene has / is trying to change/d and not resort to copying for the impression factor. Original stuff is always preffered. You guys seem capable. Focus on that.

Hopefully the batch I have sitting on my desk will have them, about 50 Amiga disks altogether.  You'd think we'd of given up by now if this was all a scam, I would of.

What's making me laugh is the shear weight of compliments coming from this page, jeepers!!  You can't pixel place 256 colours? I wish I'd have known that before I started working on the picture with Andy. LOL! Of course you can, give it a whirl. It's tricky to see the brighter shades, but the darker shades aren't so tough to distinguish between. 

Myself and Andy are real purist when it comes to do pixel work, I can't stand any of those fangled tools in DPaint, we always prefered to do things by hand, pixel for pixel. Just mentioning the word Smudge gives me the shivers.

All I can say it's a real shame the original picture has been lost. There were a few, in-progress pictures too, they may still exist somewhere, I'll try and hunt them down.

Oh and by the way a word of warning generally: while the demoscene still suffers majorly, the new school scene around pixel art on the internet doesn't tolerate ripping or editing. So it's a very good idea to post your references ALONG with your art, not mention them only when asked. It is not presupposed anymore that a highly realistic picture done in pixels is the result of referencing.

Besides scale issues, I don't think your two other pieces required denial. But I am very happy to see you take this in stride and turn them into positive inspiration.

As it is. I`ve had this and my other two pictures denied
This is a clear indication that I need to supply anything I create in the correct format and, if needed, supported work-in-progress images to validate the authenticy of my work.

Oh well, hard lesson learnt and I`m off with a new zest to produce something new for the first time in quite a while.

Yes, I hadn't realised you could zoom into the picture so I enlarged it so you could see the pixel work.

The reference was the poster campaign for the old Voltswagon Passat advert.

Any future pictures I post will be in the correct format and scale.

Also please link to true resolution version as this x3 one has suffered corruption.

i believe that this may have been done by hand, but not pixel by pixel.  some of the colors changes are far to subtle to be picked by hand

One last question: was any reference used? Picture, person, somebody else's art?

I think we've come to an end with this thread.
I , and the people who know mike and I, know we drew this using conventional pixel art techniques and this is good enough for me.
If anyone else doubts it was drawn using any other method then, to be honest, it's the ultimate compliment.

i didn't say they used AIRBRUSH and BLUR for this specific version. they painted the original, and then went over it pixel by pixel using only the ONE tool. im sorry, pros or not, i just dont believe this is pixelart and was done from scratch without any painted layer underneath from which you can choose every colour and just place it on top. then again, i might be wrong. zooming in on this, this doesn't look pixelled. the 2 other pics you just submitted is completely different from this (and one can see its pixellated). it doesn't really prove anything. again, i might be wrong. if you had absolutely no painting/photo underneath from which you traced/picked colours and actually started the pic from scratch (from a empty canvas) using ONLY a pencil tool, then i apologise. as of now, i dont believe it.

Hence the tool I mentioned on my list was moving up and down the palette [ and ] for filling in block areas with more detail, tedious but well worth it.  They worked practically solid for 24 hours taking turns, if I remember correctly, they weren't a pretty site LOL

I seem to recall them doin this years and years back, think it was like a challange that they set themselves and it took them a FULL 24 hours. They ARE geniuses Ive seen and grew up with a lot of TEAM 17 work back in the old Amiga 500 days. I know it seems hard to belive but what more can I say, other than I belive them because I can vaugly remember them doing it. Im only 23 soo its a lil blury in my memory  tho. I for one would love to see some of your other 16/32 colour works. And if any of you had anything to do with the likes of Alien Breed, Superfrog and especially project X (pos my fav sidescroller of all time) then I applause you. Im glad youve joined this site and cant wait to see your works.

near identical color drawing is a very simple method. You block in the shading using a 16 colour gradient palette and then increase the gradient and repaint between the 16 colour gradients with the extra colours. This is easy using the keyboard shortcuts for moving up and down through the palette.
Have you used the different DPaint modes. They REALLY suck. Hardcore pixel-for-pixel everytime for me. There is no substitute for pixel art pictures like this.

Anyway, as far as I am concerned this is over from my side since at least the discussion has occured and any reader can read the comments and make up their minds for themselves.

No your not attacking, we know that, we are also sticking up because we witnessed the work in question, we observed every stage of each work in progress.  It's hard to believe I know.  Alas I'm tired of this now, need to get thier other pieces of work up.  I'm hoping to get hold of some of mine at some point.

Photshop was only really a big thing for texturing models, we didn't really like using it when it first come into the industry, seemed like, and I remember it well 'Cheating'  I'm sure they will post thier Stunner graphics soon.

Basically, we are being slated for being good at what we do.  None of us are trying to be big heads if that's what you guys think, we are just proud of what we acheived in the past.  I admit I think those guys were MAD for doing that pic, but it was a one off.  There was NO BLUR, NO AIRBRUSH.  It simply wasn't around then!!!  Look at all of our portfollios, we are professional artists who have worked for some of the largest developers in the world. google Andy Oakley Moby Games Alan Weaver Moby Games. DONE.

The stipple you speak of is probably what the new school probably uniformly calls dither.

I don't understand why verfum and AlanDryhair speak in behalf of the artist himself. Realize that I am not attacking anyone here, I am sure AndyOaks and his brother are excellent artists, this picture clearly shows skill, and while I haven't played Assassin, I know Team 17 never hired any slouches. I am well-versed in the goings of the demoscene, and that's a whole different can of worms right there, so let's leave it alone. Just saying I wasn't born yesterday.

I am sure I will enjoy your 16/32 pixel art pieces, which you should upload for our pleasure indeed. However on this piece, I stand by my statement that you didn't make it without the use of Deluxe paint modes - and yes AlanDryhair, Dpaint 4, 3 and 2 (never used 1) had Smude modes, Tint modes, lighten, darken modes, smears... the works -.

Why? It's pretty simple. you have a lot of near-identical colors. If one zooms in on a what at 1x zoom seems like a uniformly colored surface, they'll note a lot of near-same colors shifting about. How does this happen in a pixel art piece? By using large brushes that smear. How do I know this? Because I just did it one post below this to explain my point.

How probable is it that the artist just went there with a solid 1 pixel brush and placed series of rows out of the 256, abstracting how many he'll need for every gradiation? Not very. Impossible? No.

Since you enjoy the demoscene, go to gfxzone.org and ask them to make you a gallery there for this sort of stuff, I'm sure many will enjoy it in it's proper context.

I'm not sure what pixel art is even, as I'm relatively new to it. I'm sure you guys being from Team 17 know a lot more than me. But according to my understanding this explains it nicely:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pixel_art

I'm not sure if brushing is allowed. As this may be useful in games etc, for foing pixel art purely for artistic value it doesn't quite fit. Since then it isn't really pixel art anymore. So mostly the pencil (1xpixel) tool is the way to go.

It would be really awesome if you guys could join pixel joint with your experience and work you've done. Please, show us some of your work.

this is not pixelart. there is no way you didn't use tools like blur, airbrush, etc. painting something with all these wonderful tools, and then going over it pixel by pixel is not pixelart.  and the right iris/pupil (whatever you call it) is much larger than the left one.

Actually stipple fill was just a brush fill, real handy for doing stippling.

Let's call a truce on this before it escillates into a full blown flame thread

I can appriciate you point of view but where we beg to differ is the methods used to create it and what constitutes as pixel art.

The sole tool used to create this picture was the single pixel brush tool in deluxe paint on the Amiga 1200.
This means, no photoshopping, no deluxe paint filters, no gradients, no other tools fullstop

I`ve drawn in Deluxe paint for well over a decade and studied the artwork of the  Amiga demo scene where the level of quality was extremely high (and still, arguably, unchampioned).
I`ve also drawn pixel art professionally (see Team 17's Assassin for the Amiga) and there is absolutely no difference between the drawing of a character sprite and this picture. The exact same methods were used.

I dont think Dpaint 4 had a blur tool, did it?  Been so long since we used it.  Literally the only tools we used were colour pick, slide up and down the pallete, fill, draw, line draw and stipple fill.  That's it.  Just the basic tools.  We are talking about 9-10 years ago, there wasn't anything else, just your basic Dpaint.

Helm - I can understand that you think that each pixel was not individually placed, but believe me - I've seen the Oakley's work and every pixel of that image was individually placed. The problem you have is that you can see no evidence of indidual pixel pushing - like stippleing, but why stipple if you have 256 shades of grey on a A1200? Hopefully they (and I) will post some more images that come from the pre-A1200 days and only use 16/32 colour pallettes and you can see how good their work is. Why pretend, or lie about the work? They've already proven their abilities outside this forum in the many computer games they have worked on.

I NEVER SAID THIS WAS A PHOTO. I am sure you worked in Dpaint. Please try to understand my point. The tools used are the issue, not the drawing package.

http://www.locustleaves.com/rock.png

In the short time between my two posts, I pixelled this crude picture of a rocky surface using Pro Motion ( PC equivalent to Dpaint) using a 256 gray ramp, Lighten, Darken, leaving auto-AA on, and the blur tool.

There was absolutely no pixelling involved in this procedure. This might be an interesting picture or not, but it's not pixel art.

I think this is a great picture, really awesome. Maybe there is a misunderstanding, how exactly was this made? What tools in dpaint did you use?

Then they are both living GODS my friend because 24 hours WAS the deadline and D-paint WAS the package no other.  Because we have been in the industry for over 10 years and been doing this since we were 14 why scan a photo in and say we drew it??  Look up Moby Games, what pleasure would we be obtaining by lieing?

So I`m a fraud, I don't know what pixel art is and this is just a drawing done using the dirty tool.

Please to meet you too. What a friendly forum this is turning out to be.

If that was hand pixelled you are a living GOD and it would have taken longer than 24 hours. I agree with Helm and he knows his stuff. But proove me wrong, I am waiting . This is the third one this week, what is happening to pixel joint?

I am not sure what your proof will be. As I said, I believe this was made on an amiga, on an 8bit palette of 256 grays, in Deluxe Paint. I am not contesting this at all. I am contesting that there is hand-pixelling (deliberate manual pixel placement, as opposed to Blur tool) in this pic. The only things I can see are the eyebulb speculars, seriously.

I have, manually drawn pictures using an 8bit pallete, I admit I never finished anything, the Oakleys are the only guys I know who have.  We are at the moment trying to proove it, we have a load of old Amiga disks just need to pull them over to the PC.  But I'm afraid my friend you are very wrong, we just need the proof it, just a matter of time.

I agree it was drawn in Deluxe Paint, AndyOaks! And deluxe paint has very powerful 'dirty' tools such as the ones mentioned that can be used to basically INDEX PAINT, as in photoshop, only difference from it being the 256 colors per image as opposed to 16bit colors in photoshop. Just using Dpaint doesn't make it pixel art.

It's not about me being a purist as much as places like pixeljoint retaining their focus as pixel art sites. This isn't drawn pixel by pixel. Because you don't manually place 250 different shades of gray on a picture. This was drawn with blur mode, lighten, darken, auto-AA, all of that stuff, to such a degree that it just as well might be a photoshop picture. It's a very good picture in my opinion, but it doesn't belong here.
Every time a picture such as this pops up, we have the same discussion. I guess it can't be helped.

I fully understand your reaction to our picture but, hand on heart, this WAS drawn in Deluxe Paint.
In my eyes, if it's been drawn pixel for pixel on an Amiga 1200 (256 grey shades avaliable) using only deluxe paint then that is 100% classed as pixel art.
I can understand you might have your doubts but, sadly, unless I can find the original on some old amiga disk somewhere in my attic there's no way I`m ever going to give you any prove it was drawn in dpaint.

What I will do shortly though is post up a few other examples of dpaint work and let you use your professional eye to make up your own conclusions.

>But there's 252 colors here, nothing handpixelled. This belongs in deviant art or wherever >you want, not on a pixel art site.

I can understand if you were a purist, you'd prefer the pixel art to be a max 16 shades of grey, but surely as long as the image was drawn pixel-by-pixel that's all that it needs to qualify on this site? Are there rules for number of colours allowed?