*EARLY DISCLAIMER - NO POKEMON*

I am new to pixel art / I cant draw.
This is where I will spam my "works of art" in hope that I will get criticized, mocked, perhaps trolled terribly for using the forums seemingly as a garage disposal for useless pixel art. Although I hope in time my skills improve so myself as well as others don't feel like they just wasted what sometimes feels like a hellofalong time.

Here is my first attempt at a sword.


My bud replies back to me after looking at it:

carl: but that aint pixel art
carl: well it is
carl: but..

That's all he needed to say. So I put in some random shading/patterns because solid colours aren't "cool" to a vast majority of people.

V2 of my 1st sword.


... So it begins...

I don't understand grass, and I am having conflict between what is pixel art and what isn't. All these texture design tutorials on gimp/photoshop for grass... All this layering, clouds, noise, etc.. It doesn't seem like I'm doing it right.. I mean, it comes out with beautiful grass... How am I supposed to tile that?! Honestly it seems like it would be better off if I left my grass just plain green and added my own little shrubs that I make in paint. Hmph.. I'll glance around these forums a bit.



Mind the obvious pixelization feature, I like it.

Edited by underwood - 14 January 2013 at 6:19am

Honestly, I don't think a plain green for grass is a bad idea. Take a look at Zelda : A Link to the Past


There are two separate tiles for grass, one is just plain green and the other is a few stylized blades of grass. This gives us as a viewer the interpretation that all of the green is grass, but it is not cluttered with every blade.  I would suggest you give that a try.

Also, I don't think Gimp is ideal for pixelart.  I think Graphics gale is great, others use grafx2. I would give those a try.

Okay, So for your first post, I made a little edit.



What you need is a light source. Without a light source, the object is just shaded randomly and it is not convincing. Think of the sword as a 3d object, where would the light hit the most? Where would the light hardly hit? Drawing with a pencil and paper would help alot with this because it is much faster than pixelart and you do not have  to worry about color pallet.
A good rule of thumb for picking nice colors is to pick you base color, then as your vary from that color shift the hue values and brightness. Generally, as the brightness increases, you want to shift the hue towards a warm color, say yellow or orange, and as the brightness grows darker shift the hue to a darker color such as purple or blue. You don't want to make the shifting obvious, or else it will look like a rainbow sword. Just a tiny bit to give it a hint of extra color. Use my edit as an example, go in and look at each color and see how they change from each other. Good luck with you art man!



Edited by Adcrusher - 14 January 2013 at 1:52pm

A new beginning!

So... I decided to embrace Graals Editing software that comes with the game... I now have :
1. An organized tileset template, I figured out how to get a 32x32 grid over that also.

2. Game engine to test my maps afterwords, perhaps some more motivation to keep me eager after Topia Online is released and I actually go to bed.

3. 0.2% Pixel Crafting Skill Completed


(self reminder - that was a pain getting perfect)


Edited by underwood - 14 January 2013 at 3:47pm

I was making some rice krispies cerial and realized that I am getting political with a skill that needs to be earned. I don't need an editor, a tileset - grass, I don't need to revolve my urge to create pixelated things around the fact i want to make the video game I've never played, I just need to make things. And in time I'll be better... So forget all this previous nonsense. I'm going to make a cool sword with a lighting source.

Edited by underwood - 15 January 2013 at 11:59am

#2


#3


Dirt + Stone #1


Dirt + Stone #2 (constantly being edited)


Edited by underwood - 17 January 2013 at 5:14pm

Very nice! That does look nicer, more defined. Maybe the bits of green in mine were a bit much.. Thanks for the suggestions and glad I could give you some stuff to work off. Keep it up.

I've yet to figure out grass. And I think my dirt is fine for now, hm... I'd be adding separate tiles that would fit into the dirt and grass and stuff that would liven it up - although I get what you mean - grass is probably my next goal, then probably more detailed dirt lol.

Better version / more complete.


Edited by underwood - 17 January 2013 at 6:57pm

Wow Raf, thanks for that link. A sh*t load of text describing grass and lighting on it - I love it=). In a bit I'll give grass another re attempt... If I could get it to look kind of like this, i'd be happy.

Although - All these tiles are HUGE...
Bahh.. I was going for 32 x 32 tiles, i might have to split em up into 4 or something. *bahh.. this guys style/games style is so bulky, but looks soo pretty.

attempt #1




**Inserts rant**


Look at that, that is beautiful. He used 3 colours on the grass... I couldn't get it for the LIFE of me, so I just copied one of his markings/leafs w.e into mine just to see, and all his pixels are twice the size of mine!

Am I doing it all wrong?! Like, he has beautiful tiles and I do NOT notice he only has 3 colours - perhaps structure overrules colour in the pixel world.. I donno..

Edited by underwood - 18 January 2013 at 10:14am

The only reason the pixels are larger is because wherever you got that from increased the original image by 300x so it would be easier to view.
I think the biggest problem with your tile is saturation. Look at the reference grass tile. The two darkest colors are at roughly 25% saturation and the brightest color has a saturation of 65% (according to graphics gale.) Your grass tile has the same level of saturation the whole way across, 100 % which makes it hard to look at and read. High saturation also draws your eye towards the object, which you don't usually want in background tiles, as the main focus should be the character.
 Also you have a bunch of unnecessary colors in yours. Try to make a tile with just 2-4 colors, that's all you should need. Lots of colors makes it difficult to control the pallet and make quick changes. Generally you want to keep the color count low, the less unnecessary colors you have the easier it is to control the pallet and it gives the piece readability.



Edited by Adcrusher - 18 January 2013 at 11:49am