"Retro vs Modern"

I think there are very good reasons for traditionalists to exist. Without people keeping tradition alive, with all of the rules and regulations, we wouldn't have a lot of the basic techniques that create the foundation for most art today.

Personally, I like to take the old principals of game design and combine them with more modern elements. My art is pixel art. I'm not living in the 80s, using old technology and I'm not limited to 8 colours. To me creating pixel art is about knowing the history: of palette shifting, limited palettes, dithering techniques, etc etc and respecting them while also bringing in new techniques and modern elements. Everything is hand placed, detailed with love and this means nothing to you, but I value my creativity. I don't see a lot of pixel artists like me and I figure'd it'd be cool to see that there are other styles that exist. When working with a very small canvas, I frequently say "well there's only so many ways pixels can make a ____" but it simply isn't true. The way that we can all use pixels to represent what's around us is as boundless as any other medium.

I'm very inspired by space and nebulas and so are other pixel artists! What I like most is that my style isn't similar to other space-based pixel artists. Where I could look at this and think "I don't fit in, I'm awful, my art is worthless, I'm worthless" (and I do), it's largely more productive to accept that we all see things through different lenses.

I know I haven't shared a lot of my art here. There's no way that you can tell anything about me, or my process or why I do the things I do but nothing about this shows me that anyone's interested in helping people be better. This reads like rules finicking and a reluctance to bring in new things.

And "processed" and "automated"? Man, that sucks. If you take a hot minute to look at the image, you can see the lines in the background and foreground only. The intention is to subtly draw your eye to the centre. It's the difference between crackle popcorn ceilings and plain white drywall. Both types of ceilings are perfectly legitimate and they're used in different situations. In this instance, the popcorn ceiling is to draw your eye to to the big black hole. You would see that the lines are used on two sections of the image and no where else. It just tells me that no one really looked if you can say that it looks automatically applied and that's not very fair at all.

(end)

 

I understand what you're saying here, let's talk

"Higher level artists go through this as well"

I'm by no means thinking that my art is better or lesser than anyone else. I'm also hugely into criticism and I love getting good feedback. Being told that (let's just call them what they really are:) the stripes I used to create subtle texture look automatically applied is beyond crazy to me though, and this "I understand that's a kind of subjective point of view, and I can't tell for sure if the scanlines were applied automatically or not. If you leave them on it might be a while before this gets approved for the gallery, or might not even get in at all" sounds incredibly gatekeepery. Perhaps this has more to do with monitor settings? I would have no problem changing my art if I thought there was a problem but having some incredibly subtle stripes disqualifies my art? Why?

My frustration lies mostly in the fact that there are no rules against stripes or against scanlines. I read through the rules carefully, as it's never been my intention to act outside of a community. I want to get involved, I want to support other people but heck man, it feels like coming up against a cliff face and some very confusing gatekeepers. It would be hugely different if I was breaking a rule, at least then I would understand.

(continued)

They're certainly intentional, used to provide texture to the background and foreground and attract your eye to the middle (the focal point) of the image.

I really don't understand pixeljoint. Months ago, I posted one of my first pieces of pixel art, and you replied back and told me about not using gradients. Since then, I've redoubled my effort and have come a long way, taking a special interest in the way that pixel art and game design meet and using retro elements in juxtaposition to more modern lines. Sure, it's subjective you say but man, it's ridiculously hard to feel even marginally welcome in this space. Thanks anyway. 
 

Sorry, I'm confused. What's "unclean" about scanlines?

Mm, yah, I can do that. I've been pretty busy over the last couple days. I didn't expect to come back and see all this about gradients. I don't recall seeing anything about them in the uploading section, but I guess it's something to note for the future.