Hi!

Until a few days ago, I've only been enjoying pixel art as a viewer, but I decided to try making some myself. In particular, Syosa's beautiful running horse () inspired me to make a horse of my own...

I tried to copy this horse at first (shows up as one of the first images of horses on Google): http://www.smokymountainparkarabians.com/

This animation shows approximately how I made it:


Just the final frame:


Before I knew that this WIP forum existed, I tried to post it to the gallery. I got a few comments, which I've tried to address now. I'm still not entirely happy with the back left leg. It looks a bit odd, but I can't get a firm grasp of what exactly is wrong.

The head also looks a bit clumsy.

What about the shading, is it too "flat"? (I tried dithering, but I can't do it without at the same time making a lot of single pixels jump out at me.)

Note: I will make the background transparent when it's finished.

Comments, tips, and improvement suggestions are very welcome!


Vegard

What Ninja said.

The second tuto seems like better advice in my opinion than the other 2: I think starting with stick horses (or people, or whatever) is probably better than starting from 'basic shapes'.
I'm not saying basic shapes are wrong, abstracting any object into shapes is actually something important all artists must learn to do. But it is not easy, and I don't think a beginner can really find those shapes - neither can I. On the other hand, the idea of sticks is easier to understand, and lays the foundation for the study of anatomy.

Also, it is necessary to study (and sketch from) lots of refs, not just one. Moving ones too. You can't properly understand how a horse looks like from one single still point of view. Only start to pixel when you can sketch an acceptable-looking horse (I'm not saying good!) without strictly copying a ref.

This being said, congrats for going for an animal on your first try!

Don't worry about dithering for now.

Program should be:
1 = good horse shape;
2 = clean lines;
3 = coloring and shading.
Anything else comes afterwards!

Onek that simple edit is amazing haha xD the simple doodle bkg is so lovely.

That is excellent! Thank you for the sketch, it was nice to see, and there's a lot of personality in that horse. I hope the practise was fun! I'd recommend keeping it up until you have a picture you feel comfortable with turning into a pixel art, and then posting the pixel outline here.
Can't wait to see it!

Thanks for the sketches, Vegard. I like horses a lot, and sharing them here was fun for me.

Did you enjoy sketching the horses? It may be called practise, but if you liked it, then it's more like play I hope!

If you like, I'll point out any areas on the sketches you show that I think need a little extra attention.

I hope to see more soon!

I enjoyed it!

And please do point out the areas that need extra attention. It won't demotivate me :-)



Thanks! :-)

The running one I think is supposed to be at the beginning of a jump. I suppose that I should look for photos of jumping horses before I attempt to draw one.

Thanks for the link, I will study the diagram (in fact, I think the silhouettes taught me something already, as they show the shape of the horse "without distractions", i.e. I now see better how the neck should be curved (or not) and connect to the head and that the top of the back leg should cut more sharply towards the rear instead of being curved when the horse is standing still).

Perhaps a little premature, but I couldn't help myself and went for a smaller pixel:



Hm, now that I see it here, do some of the single pixels of the mane stick out a bit too much? It's 64x64 and 4 colours + transparency.

I didn't make a sketch for this, just drew a pixel outline, then refined it.

But I liked it.

Thanks. Tried to edit according to your specification, and I think I got at least the right back leg correct, not entirely sure about the left legs (didn't touch them) or the right front leg.



I actually consulted my sketches, and I seem to have made legs in both directions (for example, the last/previous sketch in this thread, posted "Yesterday at 2:31pm", would have inverted joints, while the other sketches, I think, are correct).

But I think it was a very nice thing to be (made) aware of; I wasn't!

PS: Will this horse fall over on the side if I don't change the pose too? It just occurred to me that it looks a bit unbalanced (right legs touching the ground, left legs in the air).

What do you mean "too long"? I thought we were making a giraffe.



Now, jokes aside...



Thanks :-)

I tried to simply move the back leg, don't think it looked too bad:



I find it really hard to add the last leg, though. I made at least 5 attempts, and they all failed for some reason or another, usually it gets too close to the other back leg, so the pixels clash (if I try to hide it partially behind the other back leg, it looks either too thin (1px of brown) or too thick (2px of brown), and there's no middle ground!

Oh, and I'm not too fond of the shading of the back leg. But I suppose that the shading is not that important while the final shape is not done yet. (Actually, I wanted to follow Manupix's advice of finding a right outline before trying for the pixel, and so this smaller pixel is really just a side track on my way to Pixelating Horses.)



I really couldn't make the shoulder of the leg in an L shape (as per your previous post) unless I was putting the front leg in the air, and so I reverted and redid the leg after a photograph instead. If you think this is worse, I can try to do it again as you said, but then I need to know what sort of general configuration the leg should have too (e.g. in the air, diagonally forwards or backwards, bent, etc.).

Thanks a lot for your advice and patience. The skeleton is also very nice reference, it makes it very easy to know exactly what you're talking about.

Wow...

I like your edit. A lot.

I like especially the new shorter and straighter neck. It makes the horse a lot more horsey. Also the ears. And the new leg is very nice. I have no idea how you did that, though. I thought I'd tried this already.

Perhaps the only point I disagree with is the two short curves of dark-brown on the hip and shoulder. I didn't try to change (or remove) them, so I don't know if that would look better. I think what's wrong is that they distract somewhat from the rest of the drawing. Maybe it's just that my eyes land on those two curves automatically.

I'm not sure if I'll be able to improve this drawing any more, and it's hard to make those changes without simply copying your edit. Are collaborations allowed now? (I thought I read something about that.) In that case, we could put it up as a collaboration work. Otherwise, I think I will start a new one with a different pose.

I've learned a lot from both your comments and your edit. Thanks!


V