Slime Spider, C+C please
Printed From: Pixel Joint
Category: Pixel Art
Forum Name: WIP (Work In Progress)
Forum Discription: Get crits and comments on your pixel WIPs and other art too!
URL: https://pixeljoint.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=18797
Printed Date: 10 June 2026 at 2:48pm
Topic: Slime Spider, C+C please
Posted By: tibbycat
Subject: Slime Spider, C+C please
Date Posted: 30 April 2014 at 5:39am
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Hi. I'm making some spider characters for a platform game, one of which I want to be a slime spider (that when you kill it'll break up into smaller slime spiders).
Any feedback or tips are welcome! Thanks! This was my first attempt that I wasn't happy with: 
So I reduced the amount of colours used, added a think black outline, changed some of the detail, changed the eyes, and added the mouth area. 
(yeah I know, real spiders have 8 legs and 8 eyes usually, but eh, creative license) I think my second attempt is better but I'm not sure if it looks slimey or gooey enough though :/ |
Replies:
Posted By: Johasu
Date Posted: 30 April 2014 at 7:42am
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You aren't using shading and lighting to create a sense of depth beyond surface level. What i mean by that is that your spider looks very 2D like it's placed on a piece of paper and is flat. The legs all look like they come out at higher and lower points instead of further back along the body.
The first versions higher contrast ramp gave it a bit more depth. If I were analyzing the way you created this (and I am) I would assume you began at the face and then create the legs from front to back because of their placement. You should try it the other way and let the legs overlap as they come forward. This way they give a feeling of depth to the viewer. |
Posted By: CELS
Date Posted: 03 May 2014 at 3:06am
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What Johasu said.
Also: - Find a reference pic to study spider anatomy. Right now, your thing doesn't read like a spider at all. Some creative license is ok, but if it reminds people more of an alien face hugger more than a spider, then... well, either accept that you're drawing an alien face hugger, or make it look more like a spider. - Even if you're not drawing an actual creature from real life, you still need to use real life references for different parts of the anatomy, in order to make each part look realistic. Google Wayne Barlowe, who specialises in weird creatures. While his creatures look weird, they all use different pieces of real life anatomy to make them look realistic. For example, you need to decide if the legs are supposed to be legs or tentacles. Right now they look like tentacles, because they have no joints. Do you want them to be tentacles? - Use google images to look at slimy things and study how they reflect light. Your slime spider doesn't look slimey enough, it doesn't look shiny enough. My lightning speed edit: 
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Posted By: tibbycat
Date Posted: 03 May 2014 at 8:29am
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Yeah I see what you mean Johasu about the lack of depth.
And yep point taken CELS about spider anatomy. I just googled Wayne Barlowe and wow, his work is amazing. I'll check it out further. Thanks! I was thinking more limbs instead of tentacles, but semi-transparent as if made of jelly. Basically, the idea of a slime girl but on a spider. For example a slime girl pixel art of Paul Robertson that I just googled: 
but on a spider instead of a cute girl. I really like your edit of my spider CELS. The contrast between the colours is interesting. I made a couple of alternative designs for the slime spider, but I think they still only suggest the form of a spider and instead look more like insects or monsters (which isn't so bad, but is different to what I had in mind initially) 
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Posted By: tibbycat
Date Posted: 04 May 2014 at 3:30am
I made another attempt today. I think it's my favourite one so far.
I like the little baby spiders in its abdomen that could walk around when you kill the parent spider. I don't know if I should attempt to show those back legs being slightly visible through the body of the parent spider :/ |
Posted By: AshCrimson
Date Posted: 04 May 2014 at 7:54am
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There's quite a bit of banding on the legs, specifically the front, 2nd front, 3rd and second back. As well as that, there are quite alot of uneeded, redundant colours that don't add much to the piece. I'd recommend looking at DawnBringer's 16 bit palette and seeing how he varies the colours, especially the green (Palette here: http://www.pixeljoint.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=12795 - http://www.pixeljoint.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=12795 ) Here's my attempt at showing what i mean:  Mostly dealt with the colouring, left the body large intact in terms of structure. Reduced colours from 50+ to 5 (including black background). Reduced banding Wasn't sure how to deal with the baby spiders inside it, so just implied they were inside with a dark colour. |
Posted By: Ottbot
Date Posted: 04 May 2014 at 3:39pm
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This latest design is by far the best, and the addition of baby spiders visible in the abdomen is very interesting. |
Posted By: tibbycat
Date Posted: 05 May 2014 at 6:21am
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Originally posted by AshCrimson
There's quite a bit of banding on the legs, specifically the front, 2nd front, 3rd and second back. I'm trying to get my head around this concept of banding and why it's considered bad :/ I was looking http://www.pixel.schlet.net/#C2 - at this page and couldn't understand why it was saying the example of the pixel art from Spelunky that apparently uses banding is poor form. *confused* |
Posted By: king_bobston
Date Posted: 05 May 2014 at 1:42pm
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Banding is bad because it creates strong, secondary forms (you interpret these pixels as belonging to each other because they line up) that stand out in a way that they break the actual form of the subject in the image and disrupt the flow of the eye. There're cases where it's more strong and apparent and cases where it's more subtle. It's comparable with when spaces line up between multiple rows of text and create a vertical "line" which disrupts the horizontal reading and increases the chance to loose the row greatly. I hope this helped to relieve you from your confusion and not to increased it  I like the idea of the slime spider and the idea of visible little spiders in its abdomen is great. Also the improvement on your latest spider compared to the ones before is astounding! However, I'm a bit confused about the length of the legs or more precise where they end. Is the spider walking? |
Posted By: tibbycat
Date Posted: 09 May 2014 at 7:51am
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I think that makes sense about banding, but it's going to take me a lot more practice before I understand the concept completely :/
So I made walk cycle for it: 
I'm not totally happy with the spider yet. Maybe the abdomen should have some bounce to it, squishing in a bit as it walks? Kinda like how these slimes from Terraria bounce: 
I could probably improve the shading on the abdomen and animate it to make it shimmer a bit maybe. Dunno. |