	Beaker @ 4/15/2017 19:37 commented on Master Hand and Crazy Hand It looks unfinished, the darker blues can be used to add highlights to the underside of the stage. I mean, the hands have shading on them, so why not everything else?
	Beaker @ 4/13/2017 22:18 commented on Tree 001 I'll add some suggestions for improvement. Firstly, the palette is good - it's adding yellow to the highlights and blue to the shadows like natural sunlight from a blue sky would do. The two big issues are shading and the proportions of the leaves. In terms of proportions, it looks like this is an extreme view of a tree from looking up from the base, but the scale at which things closer (the roots) are more detailed while things further away are less detailed (the leave on the very top) is not convincing to that perspective and may not be intended. Assuming this is a typical standing height or higher few of a tree, the amount of vertical space taken up with the leaves is very small compared to the size of the trunk. The issue with the shading is that it is not giving the viewer a strong impression of what the shape of the tree is - it's kind of a blob with the light coming from the top right of the image. Most of the time, the shading for a tree is appoximated by a cylinder with a bunch of balls on top, and that gives the overall shape for a tree of this type (other types would be different, for example, an evergreen would be approximated by a bunch of cones). Use this shading of the basic 3d shapes to guide your shading of the texture you're using for tree trunk as well as the leaves. A good source of reference for this would be various "low-poly" trees you can find when you do a search for low poly tree tutorials. For example: https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/45/12/47/4512474104225df99e024c0ca10fa614.jpg With this image you can imaging taking one of these trees, exaggerating the shadows to give a more interesting shading, and then using that as a guide to shade the rest of the tree. Likewise, you can get some ideas for shading other items by looking at polygon examples or building the rough shape of these objects out of cubes, balls, cones, and cylinders, and shading those building blocks appropriately for where the light source is coming from. Finally, another good idea is to reduce the amount of detail you show for things that are in deep shadows. For instance, the dark area between the tree trunk and the leaves cane be left clean instead of dithered/gritted. Happy pixelling!
	Beaker @ 4/6/2017 22:31 commented on Internal Conflict Good work on the piece . However, after looking at this, as well as your other works on PJ, I think I can offer some advice that I've heard from some masters. You can cut down on the dithering. I takes a lot of time, and the effect, when overdone adds less than if you left most of the piece undithered. Most of the time pixel artists will leave large portions in a single color and use specific features to indiciate what the rest of the surface is, or use selective color around the areas where the shadows change to indicate a rough, smooth, round, or flat surface. If it's a flat surface, you shouldn't be dithering it, since the dither will indicate grit, or roughness. In the case of the theme, the left side of the image shouldn't really have any dither at all - it would look better if it had a very clean look, while the image on the right would have select dithering here and there to get across the idea of grit to contrast the clean. You can look at FrankieSmileShow here on PJ: http://pixeljoint.com/p/4628.htm?sec=icons&pg=1 . His earlier works had a lot of dither for a few years, but later on (about half-way through his gallery there), he learned to stop over dithering when someone showed him how much the image would be improved without it. Dithering, and even over dithering can have its uses as style choice. However, it's a costly choice, and the next time you look at a pixel art piece and think "wow that looks amazing," it's likely not going to have much dither in it.
	Beaker @ 6/11/2007 20:15 commented on A Beautiful Argument Lack of readability in the faces wasn't really intentional, though I try not to over exaggerate things if possible. An exception however is indeed the noses, I just like to make them large.
	Beaker @ 6/4/2007 08:03 commented on A Beautiful Argument Thanks for the c&c. Stickman: Yeah, my anatomy and general drawing skills isn't really up to par. Usually my pixeling is for tiles or spritesets at most 32x32, so I need more practice with larger pieces. Blackbeltdude: Yes, I think my stuff in general needs more character. I need to spend more time thinking and drawing better starting outlines with things that vary more. I forgot about using atmospheric perspective for the background, and you're right, it probably would have looked better.
	Beaker @ 5/27/2007 16:49 commented on fighting Sprite I remember seeing your stuff earlier this week and I figured you'd enter :). Great stuff.
	Beaker @ 5/26/2007 12:16 commented on Sumo: men in diapers Awesome stuff, but that usually goes without saying in your case. How much time did you end up using for it?
	Beaker @ 1/15/2007 13:31 commented on Attack Test Iso The two things that caught mine eye were the sword movement and the leg movement. For the legs, it seems like when the sword is fully extended the character's left shoulder is almost behind his head, implying that his torso is facing southeast and twists to the west for his legs, which is just too much twisting for the body to do. This may not be what was intended to be seen, but the fact that the shield's underside is shown seems to indicate to me that's what is happening. The more important thing I see is the sword's movement. With a fast movement like the downstroke of a sword, there is a lot of movement for an object in the animation between two successive frames, which you have shown, but after the swing there should be slower movement again, which doesn't appear to happen. After the final swing frame, the sword just appears back near the person's side, and only from there does it appear to move slowly again. As such, it gives an appearance that the sword is being swung and then snapped back which may not be what you want. Some tweaking may be done for that, but there would only be so much one can do with a limited frame count. Favy favy.
	Beaker @ 11/28/2006 10:55 commented on Jack Attack It's supposed to be a rabbit (hence, the ears), but since I made the nose a bit long, it does look more like a rat I guess.
	Beaker @ 9/3/2006 05:58 commented on Animation - Shira novice combo Awesome animation here, even more ambitious than your others. I everything comes together superbly, and I can tell that you even make the inbetweens look great. I think the animation is great like it is, but I have noticed a few imperfections in it: In the last sword attack before it gets stuck in the wall, her right arm has a few frames where there is a transparency pixel right in the middle of arm. Would be nice to fix this. In the idle stance there seems to be a few frames where the hair over left eye goes down in a straight line for a bit, then goes down to the right by one pixel, and then back down to the left and goes straight down again. I think the line should be straight as it seems to stand out as being a bit glicthy in the animation. Finally, I think the left boot in the idle stance shows too much sudden movement when the highlight colour moves one pixel to the left for a single frame. I would suggest to increase the number of frames it is over there to two (or maybe three since the animation is pretty fast) so it doesn't look like she is "flicking" her boot. There's also that one pixel in the bottom right part of her left boot in one of the idle animation that is there for only a single frame. Since that boot isn't moving much you can afford to either get rid of it, or extend it over a few frames so it isn't just suddenly appearing and disappearing. With that said, this is so faved.
	Beaker @ 8/30/2006 16:25 commented on OSL Idle The bottom of the coat indicated that the upward movement is sudden since it curls up over a few frames and then suddenly goes down to the straight frame, whereas the hair just curls up and down around the same both ways (but maybe more the opposite I guess). The amount of curling is also a bit too much, the reason why something curls like that is because the air resists its motion. Since the motion is only 'resisted' as it's falling it should not go higher than where it started. As such, I think it's too exaggerated right now. For the forehead hair, I would make the hair go from still to fully extended in one frame (to express its speed) and then one or two frames as a transition to the still frame. The hair left behind after the character's blowing should be removed since it makes the frame look too much like the previous one. That's what I can think of to improve it, but usually with animating I have to use a lot of trial and error.
	Beaker @ 8/30/2006 07:40 commented on Embodiment of Malintent I thought the darkest colour could haved used an increase in its contrast around the neck and the backside of the right arm, but I think that may be because of the background. In it's context it would probably look better to me. Other than that, I think the colours for the teeth and eyes could be tweeked. The teeth seem to be very close to being purely greyscale and could use a tinging in some direction (probably a little bit of blue to reduce the contrast with the hair colour). A reduction in the contrast to the eyes by using one of the darker shades of blue around it, maybe even dulling the eye colour a little, could be an improvement. There's also the ear that seems to lack definition. Not really sure what could be done about that. Love the textureing, really great stuff. Good luck with the animation!