real pixel art <3

 

i think its damn good the way it is :)

I tihnk you should actually keep it this way, it looks like a very dry painting on canvas (even if the texture isnt quite the same as canvas would be).....

Thanks for all the feed back guys, Monsoon 2D that is brilliant and really helpful, I reckon that I'll learn a good bit from that, thanks. There is a lot I need to learn about AA and dithering. And Big Brother, I think that you have a very good point there, I think I'll do something about that before I show it to her, lol.

Thanks Guys, I'll try the forum next time.
Max

Try the forum max

funny you should mention ''surreal colors'' =P
check my gall. to see what i've been working on

anyways.. erm. yeah. true about learning. try higher restrictions first. its weird. i made a portrait about a year ago with over 100 colours, but the new ones (with under 10) look better =P

The palette is still stolen from the original color-reduced image, but for the sake of practicing, I see nothing wrong with using them. If the image were to remain at 64 colors, I'd throw a huge fit. You can't really learn proper pixel art techniques from a color-reduction where 64 of the original colors remain. And yeah, it still would have been nice if the palette were created from scratch and with more surreal colors in mind, but whatever.

Yup.                  

now thats what i call helpfull

nice call on that 'soon. though the palette is quite.. well its obvious..

Here's an edit for you. Dropped the palette to 16 colors. (Viewed your 64 color palette and hand selected 16 colors.) Then, to show you what the palette is capable of, I edited her chin. Take it and run with it if you want. Oh. And remember to anti-alias any hard lines.

http://www.monsoon2d.com/images/thedump/girlface-16.gif

With a palette of 64 colors, there's no excuse for rough dithering. I suggest examining your palette and try knocking it down to a versatile 16 colors.

The differing definetly needs to be smoothed and less noticeable.

dont get me wrong i generally like stuff like this - those little dots everywhere just make me nervous.

I would not use dither in this case, since it gives the surface a rough texture. Even if your gf's face looks like kitchen pumice, you might want to depict her in a more complimentary way.

dither's good. but only if used well... that is, not overdithering with the simplest 50/50 pattern and not using all colours to the fullest and cleaning up after.

oh yeah. picking your own palette instead of eyedropping, make the basic shapes less polygonal(jaw / forehead are good examples) and properly aa-ing will help lots too

god how i hate dither