welcome to PJ! ^^

that looks quite nice already! especially for ur 2nd pixel...
but im not sure if ud rly dither it i think cell shading would be better, a lot of beginners tend to just use dithering for the sake of it....
but anyways... heres to ur questions:


1)

(quote: indigo @ pixelation)

.... here's a quick shortcut for dithering in photoshop.

I first defined an 8x256 canvas and applied a straight black-to-white gradient.


then indexed the image (via Image -> Mode -> Indexed Color) to 2 colors, black and white - and set it to pattern dither.

You then select portions from that image which you wish to use as gradient patterns (8x8 blocks), then define it as a pattern. PS will automatically optimize the pattern.


Once you're done defining all your patterns, you turn on "texture" in your brush settings, select the dither pattern which you wish to use, and set the mode to subtract.


Now you should be set to go! Just pick the pattern and paint. If you're picky about dither patterns, you can define your own by hand of course. This allows for painting broad areas of dither pretty dang fast.




2)

u can draw lines with the pen tool when u hold ALT while clicking


Edited by onek - 12 September 2010 at 1:41pm

hehe ur welcome... actually thanks to 'indigo'
i also was kinda happy when i found out about this, but now i actually never use it @_@

oh oops.... yeah... thats what i meant... 'shift'....