Pixel Art Details

Title:	Anubis (2003-2005)
Pixel Artist:	neota (Level 8 Shodan :: 9009 points)
Posted:	9/6/2005 08:28
Palette:	24 colors
Statistics:	212 comments 447 faves 0 avatars
This is my favorite of my pixel pieces. just.. everything works. Lineart by Archer (Mike Nash[1]), 37 hours of coloring by me. If you crit i'll fix it. If it's not the dithering. [1] http://pixeljoint.com/p/21027.htm Thanks to Ptoing for color-optimization suggestions, and a number of people on the old Pixelation boards. EDIT: dithering partially improved

Top Pixel Art - September 2005 (#1)

Discussion

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-Mart- (Level 1 Rookie) @ 8/7/2006 12:31

Love it. Especially the stairs look realistic. The dith is nice, on his body, and the color selection is ideal for an egyptian god

rabidbaboy (Level 4 Shichikyu) @ 7/27/2006 23:00

I believe Nobleclock meant he fainted. Which is a gay way of saying your pixel art rocks.
Frankly, your pixel art rocks.

neota (Level 8 Shodan) @ 7/14/2006 17:14

NobleClock: Faint? as in 'indistinct'? I wouldn't expect that unless you have your monitor's contrast set very low -- I've certainly tried it with various monitor settings, and that's the only way i can get it to look faint.
(or, viewing it after I've just turned on my monitor.. though that makes everything look faint.)

Maybe this is a misunderstanding and you meant something other than faint?

NobleClock (Level 2 Corporal) @ 7/14/2006 07:53

oh god, this is faint gahhh

pixel-pork (Level 2 Stalker) @ 7/11/2006 13:44

it looks so real....your'e the master

ZZZkodi (Level 7 Mass Murderer) @ 7/6/2006 12:16

I say... WOW THIS IS AMAZING!

MichaS (Level 1 Depressed) @ 7/6/2006 11:23

[b]LOVE IT[/b]

Opacus (Level 7 Ichikyu) @ 6/17/2006 04:19

Didn't I fav this?
What the hell?
Well, it's faved now!

lordcrazy22 (Level 1 Hired Gun) @ 6/16/2006 20:48

that is totally amazing. it is better than the original one from egypt.

BlackDragon (Level 11 Godfather) @ 6/15/2006 17:55

Anubis is my favorite! This is absolutely stunning!!!

+ Fav

magic1111 (Level 1 Rookie) @ 6/9/2006 05:52

I like it :D

neota (Level 8 Shodan) @ 6/7/2006 00:28

Big brother and Adarias:
I'll make the simplest change (the hand needs to look more like it's gripping at the right angle, which should help significantly). I might try a more ambitious change later.

Adarias:
Nahh, not gonna change the colorscheme that much. I've tried various schemes and like the absence of blue (and carefully limited contrast) in this case.

big brother (Level 11 Admiral) @ 6/6/2006 14:41

I second Adarias' point about the colors and the position of the weapon hand/arm. It does appear that the axe he's holding has a long handle (mostly hidden by his arm). The angle of it is a bit visually confusing, especially the way it lines up perfectly with his arm.

Good job on the interesting lighting.

buloght (Level 6 Centaur) @ 6/6/2006 14:02

This thing is amazing

Timper (Level 1 Quiet One) @ 4/23/2006 21:48

That is one badass pixel art.

Dio Weaver (Level 1 White Belt) @ 4/7/2006 15:50

Shark (Level 1 Jukyu) @ 3/24/2006 11:15

OMG just found this again, moved my rating up to 7*, and i am really confused as to why this was not in my favs. once again this is stunning XD

PedroAGontijo (Level 1 White Belt) @ 3/24/2006 09:22

Any comments needed? This looks like a real painting! I would fav it twice if I could.

TheBlackMarket (Level 4 Button Man) @ 3/24/2006 08:59

It's so painterly.. The golden looking color scheme is also quite attractive. Needless to say, I'm impressed.

Adarias (Level 11 Bonsai) @ 3/21/2006 15:41

This is a very nice piece, and it is striking though im not particularly fond of the colors (i think some blue in the sadows and yellow in the highlights would help, but people have accused me of 'rainbow' coloring in the past, so perhaps its best you not listen :P)

Beyond that, there is only a single problem i have with this (some things could be more realistic like the anatomy, but they do not detract form the piece.) The problem i have is not with the technical skill or the presentation, but with the raw form of the axe and axehand. The haft does not follow the shape that the hand is gripping (the shape contained within the palm goes back away form the viewer and bend downwards in realtion to the axe-haft). Also, the hand has twisted such that the wrist looks broken, which is a little bit strange and it fails to compensate for the position of the axehaft which still is not aligned with the hand. Lastly, there is a word for people who wield and axe from the end of the haft, and that word is "unarmed." If he intends to have any control over the weapon for fight or for show, the handle either needs to be lengthened or he needs to move his hand up. Here is an example of how the hand might be better shown, forgive the .jpeg format i just hit the wrong button in paint:
http://img219.imageshack.us/img219/4537/anubis9kq.jpg

lunarknight (Level 2 Quiet One) @ 3/21/2006 07:02

WOW! This piece is absolutely amazing. Definately adding this one to my favourites!

Psiweapon (Level 4 Gas Giant) @ 3/7/2006 02:16

Holy shit! Holy shit! Holy shit!

(retarded messagelimit XD)

~Med-Evil~ (Level 1 Rookie) @ 3/6/2006 14:48

wow that is perfect

fil_razorback (Level 5 Lieutenant) @ 1/30/2006 12:07

Wah...Can't believe it.
The whole piece is so...perfect

Blood_wave (Level 2 Mercenary) @ 1/27/2006 21:02

this is purdyfull

Ghost (Level 1 Seaman) @ 1/26/2006 14:15

This thing is godly

Soyvoyage (Level 5 Detective) @ 1/20/2006 00:53

nice, the lighting is bootiful

$-Maniac-$ (Level 1 Hired Gun) @ 1/5/2006 09:46

good reflection of shadows

Nomade (Level 3 Private Eye) @ 12/29/2005 14:07

Awesome =D. I love the colors, and the character itself =D

neota (Level 8 Shodan) @ 12/15/2005 21:39

Given some of my recent work, I judge a tablet could have quartered the time I spent on this and improved quality too.
I have just gotten my tablet working, and i recommend it; a tablet is a very good investment for both CGing and pixeling.

The work in question has not been posted yet (not complete).

lase_s5 (Level 1 Rookie) @ 12/13/2005 04:26

thats quality, the shear amount of time and effort gone into that piece is emence. very detailed shading and character. deff a fav :)

neota (Level 8 Shodan) @ 12/10/2005 07:04

Salutacions.

Updated for color-truth (meaning you are more likely to see the image in the colors i saw it when drawing... is a monitor-calibration concern. hit refresh if you're seeing a washed out image.)

Selene.p (Level 1 Rookie) @ 10/8/2005 12:49

Out of all the Egyptian Gods, Anubis has always been one of my favorites and this depiction of him is excellent. I give it 5 thumbs up (too bad i only have two thumbs though... *looks at both hands*)

neota (Level 8 Shodan) @ 10/2/2005 00:20

Think the problem was my monitor adjustment. anyway several of my pieces look bad on this new monitor but most other pixeled stuff still looks good; ergo my colors were adjusted for a unusually low gamma level (0.9?).

Should be fixed now; you might have to force a refresh to see the new version.

neota (Level 8 Shodan) @ 10/1/2005 04:26

"retry, ignore, or fail?"

ptoing (Level 7 Cuttlefish) @ 9/30/2005 19:00

"l cd viewed from wrong angle gives excessive-color-similarity and/or hue rotation."

That is exactly what you have atm. There is this saturated red/brown going on and then tons of supersimilar blurry grey colours.

Honestly, either you are colourblind in a very strange way (valueblind ????) or you monitor is fubared. Everybody i showed this too said something along the lines "huh what's going on there with the colours/ this makes me wanna adjust my monitor/ the values are completely whack"

Honestly, check your monitor.

neota (Level 8 Shodan) @ 9/26/2005 10:18

ptoing, if you're giving a crit, i totally am not seeing it.
lcd viewed from wrong angle gives excessive-color-similarity and/or hue rotation.
(do you mean the absence of black (near color on stair is about the darkest color now)?)
I have actually forgotten what change i made here, cept i made a color more saturated.

faktablad -- i can't fix this 'wierd effect' cause i am not detecting any weird effect. this is something associated with the palette change?

Faktablad (Level 6 SWAT) @ 9/20/2005 19:37

I think it looks pretty odd now. I didn't see any real reason for you to change it, and the weird effect only distracts from the truly spectacular lighting. Nonetheless, this is better than anything I could do. ****

ptoing (Level 7 Cuttlefish) @ 9/15/2005 13:53

Awesome looking-at-an-lcd-screen-from-the-wrong-angle-effect.

neota (Level 8 Shodan) @ 9/14/2005 16:01

Final update for now.
Ptoing, the version that you viewed most recently was different from the one B.O.B commented on.

*I didn't see any problems more than a few pixels with the dark end, those are fixed now.

*cleaned up the steps more

*color tweaks

ptoing (Level 7 Cuttlefish) @ 9/14/2005 02:03

I agree with B.O.B here. The darks are completely mangled now and that saturated brown/red clashes really bad.

neota (Level 8 Shodan) @ 9/13/2005 21:35

seems to be some sort of caching problem (maybe incorrect file dates) occurring.
If you're not seeing anything new, drag the image into a new tab and hit ctrl+F5.

* Colors down to 29,
* FINALLY fixed the right (Anubis' left) knee.

The B.O.B. (Level 11 Master Assassin) @ 9/13/2005 21:19

no offense, but to me, it looked better the way it was...sometimes you just gotta let it be...

neota (Level 8 Shodan) @ 9/13/2005 19:57

* hah, I didn't even notice that, you must have your contrast set really high to notice a small change like that in the dark end. fixed.

* Is this mainly a matter of shading? i noticed i went overboard on the highlights and placed some where they weren't strictly plausible (like much amiga demoscene stuff.. Don't recall whether i was going for that sort of appearance or not). I've fixed some of it now.

*fixed the lip

*just colouring is no excuse; most of the linearts i colored were tweaked significantly in the process.

Yeah, it is true if i had colored it more recently i would have made it more contrasty.

Knocked down to 32 colors, cause i don't like the detail loss in the lowlevels. I can see why you would use purple, however i reckon that detracts from the egyptian theme.

I also cleaned up the stairs a bit.

Thanks for the detailed crits :)

ptoing (Level 7 Cuttlefish) @ 9/13/2005 13:08

It is an ok piece I would say, prolly the best in your gallery, but still there is quite a bit room for improvement.

- The end of the shadow is brighter than the surface it is cast on, which is not possible and looks really strange.

- Right foot (on our right) is the wrong way round. The biggest toe should be inside.

- Torso is bent a bit strange and is skewed on the left (our left).

- The tip of the upper lip seems to be at a different angle than the rest of the head.

It prolly has some other anatomy wonkyness going on, but i am no anatomy pro myself, so i will leave it at that, plus you just coloured it, and i guess tweaked a bit.

Colourwise I think it lacks contrast and when i first saw it i thought it was like 20 or so colours. 35 colours is a bit overkill. I took a closer look and many of the colours are way to close to even distinguish if they are not next to another and still if that is the case.

I made 2 edits and put all 2 files into an animated gif. The first is the original, then my first edit, which is 20 colours and has virtually no drop off detail and the second edit is 16 colours which loses some shades, but also resolves the shadow issue (it being to bright where it hits the darkest part of the wall.

http://www.ptoing.net/anubis_edit.gif

neota (Level 8 Shodan) @ 9/11/2005 06:21

HAH! Another reason to avoid GIF, it has no colormanagement!
I noticed that the image in browser was substantially darker, and it amounts to the fact that GIMP has colormanagement and GIF doesn't.
Saved as png -> solved! It should look the same brightness for you as it does for me editing it.

The shading was completely fup duck on his left leg, fixed it. Cleaned up the shadow and steps,
Made the credits visible and name change (should be last name change, since it is in my own language now.)

neota (Level 8 Shodan) @ 9/10/2005 00:52

Thanks :)
Yeah; I expect to surpass the quality of this once my skill at lineart surpasses the skill that Archer had with lineart at the time.
My lineart is still a bit lacking in expressiveness. I expect that to quickly change once I have this tablet working.

Time to redo the dithering on the wall, now.

Blick (Level 7 Captain) @ 9/9/2005 20:57

Ah, I thought it was you that made this. I remember the lineart exchange when you posted this and blew everyone's mind. Usually when I go back to see someone's art that I remembered as being really good, I'm disappointed when I see it. This, however, has stayed as top quality stuff throughout all that time that I kept improving. The amount of time and effort put into it definitely shows.

Badassbill (Level 11 Big Foot) @ 9/8/2005 13:25

Humna humna humna humna TEACH ME.

Commodore (Level 2 Flatfoot) @ 9/8/2005 10:49

It looks very painted. Good job.

neota (Level 8 Shodan) @ 9/7/2005 23:20

.. Wanting to improve my skills is completely selfish. In future, use 'unselfish' only if you want to insult me, because that's what it is to me.

For this one time, I'll interpret what you said as praising my willingness to accept and act on criticism.

The B.O.B. (Level 11 Master Assassin) @ 9/7/2005 22:07

yeah, Anubis's shadow I think is the one I'm talking about...But honestly, you must be the only pixel artist here who actually cares and takes action with someone's critique or opinion...And for that I hail you, guy...and Thats why I'm fixing to Fav' the piece, not for the art, but for your non-selfish personality, guy...keep it up...

neota (Level 8 Shodan) @ 9/7/2005 21:08

B.O.B : you mean the shadow of the door?
or is there some glitch with Anubis' shadow?

re broken shin: by the time you read this the pic will be updated. The new version is not fixed, it is just better. I will change it again once i figure out how to make it better again.
thanks for a challenging critique.

The B.O.B. (Level 11 Master Assassin) @ 9/7/2005 14:32

wow, this is very good...the stairs look as if they were drawn on an oil painting...too cool for words...the only thing that is bothering me is the weird shadow on the wall, and that his left shin looks like it has been broken...other than that, this thing is probably one of the top ten pieces I've seen...

neota (Level 8 Shodan) @ 9/7/2005 11:05

inkspot: thanks for the crit, that probably remaind from my removal of the second lightsource. fixed (along with minor color tweak.)
Painting-style was exactly what i was going for :)

Sensei; Yes a pixel art picture can be better :

http://www.gfxzone.org/personal/cougar/01/cougar-dragon_sun.html
http://www.gfxzone.org/personal/cougar/01/cougar-snake.html
http://www.gfxzone.org/personal/dr_zulu/01/dr_zulu-the_war_of_the_ring.html

DarkAuron: would you believe me if I said that that texture was made by scribbling left to right repeatedly in a few different colors? :) cause it was. super amounts of touchup of course, but that's a given in my pixel art.

DarkAuron (Level 2 Quiet One) @ 9/7/2005 10:12

In all honesty, the texture on the steps makes my jaw drop :O

inkspot (Level 4 Button Man) @ 9/7/2005 10:05

Now I am wondering. This is very old piece, right? Because I have seen that shape somewhere in really old pixelation days like 2-3 years ago. Is it re-make, same work or just a coincidence or I have bad memory and I imagine things?

And I am still stunned. Yes, it really looks like painting, its the colors (onhis left knee, there is some black contrasty spot but..).

Sensei (Level 1 Hired Gun) @ 9/7/2005 06:44

This is soo good that it looks like a painting.

The dithering is great, the colors are great everithyng is great. A pixel art picture cant be any better.

inkspot (Level 4 Button Man) @ 9/7/2005 05:20

Stunned.

Shadow is fantastic.

Zoomrix (Level 1 Intern) @ 9/6/2005 19:00

Such character work! Wow. Very nicely done, the textures are just remarkable.

finite (Level 6 Serial Killer) @ 9/6/2005 18:23

In my opinion this piece looked better in the old version I archived. The darker shades don't blend as well in this version (although I prefer the slightly washed-out look you have going here).

Either way, still a fine piece of pixellin'. :)

neota (Level 8 Shodan) @ 9/6/2005 18:01

pmprog: That smiley is so funny. Fixied -> boosted entire brightness,
added the shadow of the tassel on the end of the polearm shaft.

Aiko (Level 1 Quiet One) @ 9/6/2005 17:27

nice work. critique? what critique? seems perfect to me. :)

pmprog (Level 4 Murderer) @ 9/6/2005 14:05

Also noticed that the lock of hair between the ears is not mimicked in the shadow

Luminae (Level 1 Hired Gun) @ 9/6/2005 14:02

the rest of the awesomeness might have flown over my head... but i love those steps. shutting up now.

pmprog (Level 4 Murderer) @ 9/6/2005 13:58

OMG! WTF! This is awesome.

One thing I think is that the black bits are far to dark, and don't blend well. If you lighten them up, this would be a godly piece of work! I tweaked the palette on my computer, if you set the black to R:28, G:24, B:24, it looks that little bit smoother...

neota (Level 8 Shodan) @ 9/6/2005 11:42

... fixed :). I archive my art, so, any given artwork of mine that's more than a few months old has been tweaked hundreds of times cause i saw it again and some way to improve it. the second lightsource was an deliberately strange experiment, like me. I was unsure as to it's success, but now with a second opinion I'll remove it.

sedgemonkey (Level 11 Coelacanth) @ 9/6/2005 10:42

This is my favorite as well. Just an insane level of detail. I'm not digging the light coming in from the left side on the wall, but other than that it's just about freaking perfect. Definite fave.

Shark (Level 1 Jukyu) @ 9/6/2005 09:39

wow i love this, cool shading on the steps

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