Pixel Art Details

Title:	SOTB4 mockup
Pixel Artist:	sharprm (Level 4 Deputy :: 4071 points)
Posted:	2/5/2009 04:56
Palette:	32 colors
Statistics:	22 comments 3 faves 0 avatars
http://gamesarentnumbers.com/archive/what-are-merits-pixel-art.html In the above link I outlined what was wrong with the current pixel joint definition. Ptoing said: "And yes, I think if I would make a picture in photoshop, scale it down, colourreduce, tweak the colours and tweak every little thing so that in the end I had full control over the thing, then yes, it would still be pixelart. " He's been doing this a while and knows what he's talking about. Hence I thought I could post this piece. Its a shadow of the beast 4 mockup. It was drawn in painter, color reduced (note I pick the pallete before remapping), then extensively cleaned up. Here it looked before cleaning up: http://i39.photobucket.com/albums/e199/sharprm/sotb.png Note the spider and plant is from the painter image, the girl and purple thing are taken from a pixel mockup I did. The reason for doing this mockup relates to this thread: http://eab.abime.net/showthread.php?t=41907 Gist is that it's easier to say "I could do better" in regards to a game's graphics but until you did a mockup (ideally, redo every piece of gfx) you haven't proved you could do better. SOTB2 had great atmosphere, I'm not saying I could do better, especially if I followed the same restrictions. Thats not what I set out to do. The important thing is I learnt alot in terms of design and fantasy art. References include SOTB2 and SOTB1. The purple thing is based on memory of "cave troll" from Warhammer. Closely follows these Roger Dean pics. There are other Dean pics that may have influenced it but I forget. http://www.mystics.nl/forums/uploads/links/1190587528-Roger_Dean___floating_islands.jpg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Magician%27s_Birthday If you want to say how you think this mockup could look more pixelled post here. If you want to discuss definitions of pixel art and why painter should or shouldn't be used, post in the pixel joint forum, otherwise it would whore up the piece as metaru says.

Discussion

If you would like to comment you will need to be logged in. Register now. It only takes a moment and it's free.

sharprm (Level 4 Deputy) @ 1/1/2010 17:09

i might change the background so it is just one color in future versions.

http://i39.photobucket.com/albums/e199/sharprm/mockup3.png

thx for compliments guys. yrizoud i think i should do a prison level or something to get the SOTB mood.

x-death (Level 6 Serial Killer) @ 1/1/2010 05:21

i like this. i wouldn't mind seeing another game mockup like this in the future. however not a big fan of the background, simply because with the branch and everything else it seems as if you simply forgot to color and shade the rest of the peice. however i know thi isn't the case but thats what it looks like, just a heads up :)

great job cleaning the peice up!

susuwataris (Level 6 Yonkyu) @ 9/18/2009 17:55

me like.

w-o-l-f-e (Level 1 Thug) @ 7/3/2009 18:48

love the colour, and detail

yrizoud (Level 6 Aquamarine) @ 4/29/2009 06:14

I agree it's good videogame graphics (readable playfield, unobstrusive backgrounds), exactly what was used in the last Disney platformers for example. I immediately recognized the hero's stance, as well. As for a SOTB comparison: Technically, typical games of this era reserved a color index for raster effects, allowing a different hue on each horizontal line, in addition to the normal remaining colors (15, 31 or 63). It's clearly visible in SOTB2 with its giant blue "sunset" background, though to follow up on the limitations, you generally don't have the right colors to antialias things that touch the raster. As for the drawing style, I kinda remember all SOTB games use more contrast for shading (including saturated black), and often "dark" things with gritty textures, mutated creatured, twisting roots, spikes... Your mockup could be of a more airy place, but only if down the tree is a steel gate, with a giant skeleton with horns.

Danelock (Level 1 Private) @ 3/21/2009 10:09

Looks way too cartoony for Shadow of the Beast, but it's still awesome.

A.B. Lazer (Level 3 Private Eye) @ 2/25/2009 05:29

Maybe there is some mathematics if someone would explore (things like golden ratio http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_ratio) them but I think that as great painter he draws it basing on his feeling.

sharprm (Level 4 Deputy) @ 2/24/2009 22:01

Cool pic. I get it now. Thx for pointing it out. Here is a dean example:

http://i201.photobucket.com/albums/aa241/Greeneyesmexico/arches_morning_12801.jpg

Is it just curves intersecting or is there some mathematics behind how he selects the curves? What I mean is, is it just pretty or is it like Escher's stuff.

A.B. Lazer (Level 3 Private Eye) @ 2/24/2009 19:06

>intersecting sinusoids'

Crossing curves. I think Dean has flow similar to Mucha's:

http://agaudi.files.wordpress.com/2008/01/mucha_dance.jpg

It was a feature in the magazine. Not big, but gave the idea of his art.

sharprm (Level 4 Deputy) @ 2/24/2009 17:39

Reduced paintings are okay. Reduced photo of faces are not okay to me because i find them unappealing, though technically could be made to look like pixel art. Reduced photo of statue - could be okay if the piece is supposed to be the thing that the statue is of but not a picture of a statue, if that makes any sense.

What are 'intersecting sinusoids'? Was the article for school?

I'm sure it would take a lot more time to properly ape Dean's style - I only looked a bit at his stuff.

A.B. Lazer (Level 3 Private Eye) @ 2/24/2009 17:04

To me pixelart is mainly retro-looking graphics, but I think I have that puristic visions on means by which it created. I had somewhere one picture which originally was clay model taken by mobile phone camera and I never considered submitting it here - maybe I thought it was not enough pure, while there left no pixel which I didn't change.

I drew some Dean-esque lines by watercolors while writing an article on him a pair months ago - It's not an easy task, keeping pace of intersecting sinusoids and picking colors which are unusual. Honestly, I failed.

You catched it in some parts (like branches on the left and black background kliff on the right) and got the texture well. Characters are also look tasty. There is a long way to go in matching his rhythm and shapes, but you got something here.

Also: did you knew one of his paintings was adapted for a NES game?

http://www.mobygames.com/game/nes/black-onyx/screenshots/gameShotId,121660/

ProgZmax (Level 1 Depressed) @ 2/12/2009 18:43

I guess it depends on which game you wanted to match visually, since all three have differences. One thing that 2 and 3 did was to have (inconsistent) black outlines on the enemy sprites, and all three made significant use of dithering with messy trees and such. Personally, I think what you've done here looks better than the series you're emulating :).

sharprm (Level 4 Deputy) @ 2/9/2009 04:05

I agree that arm needs to be lowered. Fireball needs work ... thx for crit guys.

PrgoZmax - I'm not trying to mimick a style but definitely interested in getting a beast vibe. I probably won't change it but interested what would make this mockup more like shadow of the beast to you? Would a plain black background work better?

edit: changed arm and fireball. Also added fog but this is just a rough one, need to experiment with shapes in painter...

She has brown hair now. She is the sister in the intro to beast 2 (note Maletoth gave her a prosthetic arm).

ProgZmax (Level 1 Depressed) @ 2/9/2009 02:36

This is very nice and I especially like the colors and shading approach you used with the tree and plant. It doesn't really evoke a 'Shadow of the Beast' vibe for me, though, which is alright as long as you're more interested in asserting your art style than mimicking another. One thing that does look odd to me is the placement of her left arm. The fact that it's a different color than her right, combined with not being able to see her left shoulder makes it look like it's jutting out of her chest. I would recommend either angling her just enough to show the shoulder or lowering the left arm enough to see it bending out from below her cleavage. I like the overall presentation and would certainly play something like this, so well done!

Stickman (Level 7 Sheriff) @ 2/7/2009 05:47

That's looking a lot nicer:) The only thing I feel that could be touched up is the fireball as it seems to have a heavy shadow around it, which makes it look more liquid/gloopy than firey.

sharprm (Level 4 Deputy) @ 2/6/2009 16:17

Cleaned up the sky so it is just a gradient, no-longer suggesting clouds. Fog clouds is a good idea Bob ... I'll experiment in painter ... going to take a short break though. thx for crit.

The B.O.B. (Level 11 Master Assassin) @ 2/6/2009 14:27

Background shadows look much better now. I didn't really think the rock tree looked phallic, to be honest. Just the rock part looked like someone's bare ass mooning us, heh. I guess the last thing that could be changed up a bit is the sky. It looks like it was the last thing done in the past, and just kinda' slapped together at the last minute. Normally, if the viewer is going up to tree tops, and there's not much land mass to take in, dull skies make for less interest. I guess if you're still wanting to go for the gradient effect, I'd squish the gradients to the top of the screen a little more, and use the closest lightest shades to add a bit of fog and swirls, if that's the true atmosphere of the level. Also, don't think AA'ing of the darkest part of the sky is helping either...oh wellz, dem's mah' 2 cents...

sharprm (Level 4 Deputy) @ 2/5/2009 20:22

I've darkened the image because it seems my callibration may be out ... have to look into that.

Added some more detail to the background and shifted the purple guy. Also added fireball from plant.

People thought the rock trees looked phalic so I added another crack to hopefully reduce that.

Darth Mandarb (Level 10 Operative) @ 2/5/2009 13:48

Now THAT'S a description!

I like the foreground elements quite a bit!

The background elements could use some work though. The sky banding and the shading (as the B.O.B. pointed out) don't match the quality of the foreground work.

sharprm (Level 4 Deputy) @ 2/5/2009 13:47

The rant I thought was necessary. I was told that color reducing would somehow inherently affect the result in this topic: http://www.pixeljoint.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=7285&KW= Probably should have waited for second opinion ... thanks for agreeing its okay. Didn't know bulought did that. Should mention this ref: http://www.aumania.it/fa/matthews/021.jpg Also here it is before color reducing: http://i39.photobucket.com/albums/e199/sharprm/sotb-1.gif The plant will fire something - its an enemy. I'll work on banding and maybe change purple guys position.

Stickman (Level 7 Sheriff) @ 2/5/2009 13:07

I like the tree design, but the alien sitting on the tree doesn't feel like it's placed on properly. It feels like it's hovering or floating above it (or maybe it's a flying creature?).

What does the plant/rock in the lower right corner do?

The B.O.B. (Level 11 Master Assassin) @ 2/5/2009 12:52

Long as you had full control over pixeling the piece, and you made EVERYTHING yourself, I don't see the reason to go off on a rant about things such as this. I know Buloght does the same, where she will sometimes draw something on paper, scan it, and pixel over it, to a fine detail that pixel art warrants.
As far as the mock up goes, the background does seem a bit bland. Seems to be a bit of banding going on with the shadows, making it look a bit choppy and unrefined. I would also say something about the rocks and trees seeming a bit strange, but this looks to be in an alien type settings, so I guess it should be that way. Like the girl sprite though.

Related & Tags

SOTB4 mockup avatars, SOTB4 mockup icons, SOTB4 mockup pixel art, SOTB4 mockup forum avatars, SOTB4 mockup AOL Buddy Icons

Donate

Want to give some dough back to all those amazing pixel artists? Donations provide prize money for contests, help cover hosting costs and support new initiatives.

Support the arts!

Pixel Art Details

Discussion

Related & Tags

Sponsored Products

Donate

Report Problem

Register

Already Registered?