Well, your puzzle does rock...tho I can't figure it out...still trying ;)

Blot out the parts that aren't pixel art. That's a simple solution, right?

I understand that... I haven't taken any of this personally at all. I'm just explaining why these policies make the site less useful to me, as a member of the community. Presumably, you're trying to make the site as useful as possible, and the current policies are in place because you believe that's the way the majority of the users like it. In order to make informed policy decisions, you need to hear people's opinions, so I'm just putting in my two cents in favor of a more lenient definition of "pixel art."

Unfortunately, I don't have the time to make special pieces just to adhere to these policies - since my work doesn't fit the site's policies, I just won't submit it, and remain mostly a lurker except for the crypto pieces. Again, that's not me taking it personally - it would be fun to do some fine art pixel pieces, I just don't have the time, seeing as I need to spend my artistic hours doing the things that pay the rent.

I am not the sole decider here, Pixeljoint has a team of Moderators. Decisions are based on consensus we all try to follow to keep the gallery as good as possible.

You and your art are welcome here, this is not personal.

Fair enough. I understand your point, and I agree that fundamentals are important, especially for beginners. It's just annoying for me, because it's a nice community you've got here, and I'd like to contribute, but the policy excludes the vast majority of my work.

We also have differing philosophies on professionalism, it seems. I consider efficiency to be paramount - I'm certainly capable of giving attention to a piece at the pixel level, but I couldn't, in good conscience, recommend to a client that I draw a flat concrete texture pixel by pixel, when that time would be better spent working on the focal areas of the piece. Whatever the budget is, it equates to a certain amount of time, and time spent on one thing is time not spent on something else.

Anyway, it's certainly your right to implement whatever policies you want. It's just sad for me, because aside from my cryptopixel pieces (which, as I've said elsewhere, are not even close to my best work, artistically), I'm not going to be able to contribute much.

We all understand that pixelart in the real world has variations, exceptions and all sorts of hybrid techniques. We are a community of pixel artists of all level of skill. We feel that allowing members to use these 'dirty' tools is actually detrimental to those who are new to the medium and the art. We feel that encouraging purism makes us all better and we teach ourselves and each other how to come up with solutions using stricter limitations than needed.

Its a bit harsh, this is clearly understood by most. The biggest reason not to allow this is because if someone new to the art form sees this is allowed then instead of challneging themselves they'll just resort to "generate 1-bit textures from photos, using Threshold, then layer several of them". You call this 'masochism/stupidity', we call it challenging ourselves to achieve the most with the least.

Pixel placement precision is a thing of beauty and highly respected for most of us here. Many members have difficulty with this at first and I hope you can accept this... You'll be a far better artist for it.

*ps: Indeed many here make pure pixelart professionally, me included, and I have yet to find where a budget was an issue when the client requires quality. You get what you pay for, I guess.

To be honest, it was long enough ago that I'm not entirely sure what techniques I used for everything. I definitely wouldn't have been using Photoshop brushes, as they lose sharpness. The bricks were definitely done pixel by pixel (though obviously there's a lot of copy/paste there... these are game graphics, after all).

The grey areas would not have been done 100% by hand, though. That would just be masochism/stupidity. For stuff like that, I generally generate 1-bit textures from photos, using Threshold, then layer several of them.

So, if those are the rules of this site, I imagine this image doesn't abide by them and should be taken down. In my opinion, that's a pretty silly policy, however. A lot of people on this site express an interest in making game art, and you have forums for help wanted/freelancers looking for work... why ban the sorts of techniques that are required in order to make art in the real world on a realistic budget?

I have a question, or two.

While acceptable in real world situations, PJ does not allow the use of brushes in the gallery. Is the texture (particularly the grey areas, all hand pixel work that did not use a pattern brush? I can see the bricks being true PA so I'm confused. Another statement and not really a question is the use of auto/CG AA on the text (also not coo here)

You are new to PJ so these type of 'hybrids' techniques are used irl but for the purposes of the gallery and to keep all on the same level we don't allow anything but pure PA to keep things under control. Hope you understand and if not the forum is there for further discussion on these or any other matter.

jal

I think you guys misunderstand what this is. It's a mockup to show the tileset for a game, not a stand-alone piece of art. The sky is a placeholder, likewise there would eventually be a city skyline in the background to create some depth. Still, it's a 2D game, and functionality is paramount... things are flat by necessity, because it's a Worms-like 2D game; the illusion of depth would be distracting to the player when trying to aim shots. 

I also can't go too heavy on the shadows, because the environment is destructible at the pixel level, like Worms. If I created strong shadows in the tiles themselves, they'd look very wrong after the part of the tile that was casting the shadow got destroyed.

Also, in the actual games, buildings can overlap, and the front ones cast shadows (procedurally) on the ones behind. So that also adds depth that you don't have in this mockup.

But thank you for the comments.

i totally agree with manu, also this lacks of depth, add shadows. the sky is way too simpel 

This is far too big, you're losing control at the pixel level. PA is about suggesting, for instance bricks can be done with 2 pixels. I know you can do it (Unemphatic Worlds)!

Colors and light might improve too.