Pixel Joint Forum: Hello

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Raider_Judo
Seaman
Seaman

Joined: 05 May 2019
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 15

Topic: Hello
Posted: 18 May 2013 at 6:17pm

Hello everybody, I'm new here and English is not my first language.

I want to improve my pixel art a little, shouldn't be hard because I am bad. :)

I read two tutorials here and I tried to follow everything during the process of creating my sprite.
Two things I would like in the feedback of this topic would be any and all mistakes I made in my sprite (outlines / shading etc)

Also, I don't yet understand how to create a color pallet properly?

The way I went about it was, each new color I add;
25 luminosity, 25 hue,
50 luminosity, 50 hue,
75 luminosity, 75 hue, and so on.

Thank you all.

I think I should use pillow shading for smaller pixel art like these.

Edited by Raider_Judo - 19 May 2013 at 6:34pm

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jalonso
Admiral
Admiral

Joined: 29 November 2022
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 13537

Posted: 19 May 2013 at 5:45am

Hi and welcome to Pixeljoint and pixelling :)

It will be easier if you post images on the thread using the tree icon link when posting so all can zoom in and inspect so you can get good feedback. For now I'll move this to the WIP section. (Work In Progress)

PJs FAQ <•> Sticky Reads

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AtskaHeart
Commander

Joined: 06 June 2020
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 114

Posted: 19 May 2013 at 7:05am

The way to create a color pallet always depends, but I would trust more my eye than actual values. Besides, you aren't touching the saturation value and I believe that's also important when creating palettes.

The eye doesn't treat all colors the same way, neither appreciates them the same way when they are darker or brighter (for example, darker blues/pinks tend to be more saturated than darker yellows/oranges, because our eye notices those hues better when they are darker. And viceversa). There is no specific way to choose the colors for your pallet, but I'm sure you can't choose them properly by that method.

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Raider_Judo
Seaman
Seaman

Joined: 05 May 2019
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 15

Posted: 19 May 2013 at 9:11am

I don't understand the basics or anything of creating a color pallete, here I will paste an example and my thought process:

The colors to the bottom left are those I picked before starting to draw the flower, I picked four colors only because I read in a tutorial to start with small pictures and few as possible colors. I thought the colors would go well together and the luminosity of each was slightly higher than the other (I picked by eye, not numbers) The shading was impossible, looked terrible, didn't make sense in any way.

I ended up using one color and just going up in luminosity for the different shades and used that. They are the ones bottom right.

Should I just pick one color and have different luminosity / values of that color, like I ended up doing? I don't understand 'color ramps' or the 'color table' from: http://www.pixeljoint.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=11299

I thought I did.

Btw, I am proud of drawing that flower, much better than my other works!
Is the shading OK? The light source is top right.

Here is a horse I did, I'm starting to think I should pillow shade the 32x32 sprites. Many things to figure out still.

Why are my images blurring when I zoom in, is it the PNG file format or is photo bucket changing the format?

Here is me practicing my shading a little bit, the flower stem was the hard part. I don't care for the back ground, do ignore that, I was just doodling. :)

Edited by Raider_Judo - 19 May 2013 at 6:32pm

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Raider_Judo
Seaman
Seaman

Joined: 05 May 2019
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 15

Posted: 19 May 2013 at 6:22pm

Here is something a little bit bigger and advanced.

I am in a learning phase so I am just going to post my work here, if anyone has any future criticism, advice and tips, I'd be glad to hear it.

Oh yea! I used 4 shades of each color and a black outline, so that's 13 colors. The light source is top right, and the red light source is its mask comes from its middle. I tried it in plain black, grey and red. The grey didn't do it for me, the black looked really nice, but it was plain and I wanted to work on my shading, so I went with the red.

ALSO, I wanted to try and make a back ground for this piece, what programs can I use that are free and have layers?

Edited by Raider_Judo - 19 May 2013 at 6:58pm

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jalonso
Admiral
Admiral

Joined: 29 November 2022
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 13537

Posted: 19 May 2013 at 7:17pm

Generally speaking you are doing great and its all about practicing and experimenting. I'm glad to see someone new to pixelart being aware of color restrictions to begin with. This is a great habit.

On your last Roman warrior who looks more like a lizard :/... You have 4 ramps + black. This is good form but a better solution is to have 6 browns and just 2 reds, 3 greens and 2-3 greys. One of the browns may help in the reds and one of the greys can help in the greens.
Also, higher contrast within the ramps is better. You have very soft ramps here.

The resource section has a free app list.

Edited by jalonso - 19 May 2013 at 7:18pm

PJs FAQ <•> Sticky Reads

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ultimaodin
Commander

Joined: 04 May 2010
Location: Australia
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 162

Posted: 19 May 2013 at 7:21pm

If you're having trouble with colours, then try using colours not your own. Grab existing pallets and try using them. Or mess around with a colour generator like this:
http://www.pixelfor.me/crc/

The issue you have is colours are never just straight ramps from red to red or green to green. Green normally is seen as yellow to blue passing through green. Take this as an example: http://www.pixeljoint.com/pixelart/34404.htm#
See how the highlights of the grass and monster are yellow and the shadows are tinted blue. See how the browns move from yellow and orange through red and purple-ish for shadows. See how the yellow fur passes from the green highlights to the red shadows (creating a middle of yellow). Contrast effects how much each colour effects the other or stands out apart from the other. A lot of it's touch and go. Studying colour theory in general is good. People like Dawnbringer have done extensive research into colour and trying to optimize it for everyday use. It all takes practice.

The world is but a shadow of emotion, cast in shades of grey.

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Raider_Judo
Seaman
Seaman

Joined: 05 May 2019
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 15

Posted: 19 May 2013 at 7:33pm

That was awesome info by both of you, thank you! I will re color my Spartan Hoplite :P with this new found knowledge.

I will look through the applications, I just hope they have some descriptions.
I prefer to do the colors manually, I think I will learn more that way.

Here is the same piece, re colored with the new knowledge gained.

I really enjoyed playing with the red / brown / yellow. I love the helmet and breastplate colors and the shield came out much much better than the previous one. Only thing I don't like is the hair piece on the helmet, my color selection was a bit off with the red - brown combo. ( I even re-selected 2 reds) I also ended up using less colors.

This was done using a new program - GraphicsGale, which I enjoyed using, except that it seems that there are no hotkeys.

I re did the shading on the shield to better fit the source of the light:

Edited by Raider_Judo - 19 May 2013 at 11:02pm

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Raider_Judo
Seaman
Seaman

Joined: 05 May 2019
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 15

Posted: 19 May 2013 at 10:27pm

Here is my go at some Dithering, first time I tried it.
I used 5 colors, the helmet is facing towards the light source.

Messed around with dithering some more with my second attempt, over did it, little above my skill level as of yet, still I learn t and had fun.

Here I re did the helmet, with the mindset of 'less is more'
Originally a 8 color palette, I ended up using only the top 4 colors. I tried to apply better technique with my dithering, not sure if everything is 'good', but sure is better than the previous. I also used this for my colors:
http://www.pixelfor.me/crc/ but I prefer to stay on manual colors, I just wanted to see how it works etc.

I would like some feed back on the green helmet. Where should I add / remove dither. Where can I add some more shading etc. Any kind of constructive feedback on it! :)

Edited by Raider_Judo - 20 May 2013 at 10:43am

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Raider_Judo
Seaman
Seaman

Joined: 05 May 2019
Online Status: Offline
Posts: 15

Posted: 20 May 2013 at 6:41pm

This started off as a portrait / dither practise run. Some where in trying to figure out what to do with the hair, I started spamming dither everywhere. While I know this is considered as a bad practise, I got lost in it and I liked what it turned into. My first actual pixel art.

I used five colors. (Not too hard to see that)

GL trying to figure out who the portrait was supposed to be off! Haha.

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WIP (Work In Progress)
Pixel Joint Forum : Pixel Art : WIP (Work In Progress)

Author	Message
Raider_Judo Seaman Joined: 05 May 2019 Online Status: Offline Posts: 15	Topic: Hello Posted: 18 May 2013 at 6:17pm
	Hello everybody, I'm new here and English is not my first language. I want to improve my pixel art a little, shouldn't be hard because I am bad. :) I read two tutorials here and I tried to follow everything during the process of creating my sprite. Two things I would like in the feedback of this topic would be any and all mistakes I made in my sprite (outlines / shading etc) Also, I don't yet understand how to create a color pallet properly? The way I went about it was, each new color I add; 25 luminosity, 25 hue, 50 luminosity, 50 hue, 75 luminosity, 75 hue, and so on. Thank you all. I think I should use pillow shading for smaller pixel art like these. Edited by Raider_Judo - 19 May 2013 at 6:34pm
	IP Logged

jalonso Admiral Joined: 29 November 2022 Online Status: Offline Posts: 13537	Posted: 19 May 2013 at 5:45am
	Hi and welcome to Pixeljoint and pixelling :) It will be easier if you post images on the thread using the tree icon link when posting so all can zoom in and inspect so you can get good feedback. For now I'll move this to the WIP section. (Work In Progress)
	PJs FAQ <•> Sticky Reads
	IP Logged

AtskaHeart Commander Joined: 06 June 2020 Online Status: Offline Posts: 114	Posted: 19 May 2013 at 7:05am
	The way to create a color pallet always depends, but I would trust more my eye than actual values. Besides, you aren't touching the saturation value and I believe that's also important when creating palettes. The eye doesn't treat all colors the same way, neither appreciates them the same way when they are darker or brighter (for example, darker blues/pinks tend to be more saturated than darker yellows/oranges, because our eye notices those hues better when they are darker. And viceversa). There is no specific way to choose the colors for your pallet, but I'm sure you can't choose them properly by that method.
	IP Logged

Raider_Judo Seaman Joined: 05 May 2019 Online Status: Offline Posts: 15	Posted: 19 May 2013 at 9:11am
	I don't understand the basics or anything of creating a color pallete, here I will paste an example and my thought process: The colors to the bottom left are those I picked before starting to draw the flower, I picked four colors only because I read in a tutorial to start with small pictures and few as possible colors. I thought the colors would go well together and the luminosity of each was slightly higher than the other (I picked by eye, not numbers) The shading was impossible, looked terrible, didn't make sense in any way. I ended up using one color and just going up in luminosity for the different shades and used that. They are the ones bottom right. Should I just pick one color and have different luminosity / values of that color, like I ended up doing? I don't understand 'color ramps' or the 'color table' from: http://www.pixeljoint.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=11299 I thought I did. Btw, I am proud of drawing that flower, much better than my other works! Is the shading OK? The light source is top right. Here is a horse I did, I'm starting to think I should pillow shade the 32x32 sprites. Many things to figure out still. Why are my images blurring when I zoom in, is it the PNG file format or is photo bucket changing the format? Here is me practicing my shading a little bit, the flower stem was the hard part. I don't care for the back ground, do ignore that, I was just doodling. :) Edited by Raider_Judo - 19 May 2013 at 6:32pm
	IP Logged

Raider_Judo Seaman Joined: 05 May 2019 Online Status: Offline Posts: 15	Posted: 19 May 2013 at 6:22pm
	Here is something a little bit bigger and advanced. I am in a learning phase so I am just going to post my work here, if anyone has any future criticism, advice and tips, I'd be glad to hear it. Oh yea! I used 4 shades of each color and a black outline, so that's 13 colors. The light source is top right, and the red light source is its mask comes from its middle. I tried it in plain black, grey and red. The grey didn't do it for me, the black looked really nice, but it was plain and I wanted to work on my shading, so I went with the red. ALSO, I wanted to try and make a back ground for this piece, what programs can I use that are free and have layers? Edited by Raider_Judo - 19 May 2013 at 6:58pm
	IP Logged

jalonso Admiral Joined: 29 November 2022 Online Status: Offline Posts: 13537	Posted: 19 May 2013 at 7:17pm
	Generally speaking you are doing great and its all about practicing and experimenting. I'm glad to see someone new to pixelart being aware of color restrictions to begin with. This is a great habit. On your last Roman warrior who looks more like a lizard :/... You have 4 ramps + black. This is good form but a better solution is to have 6 browns and just 2 reds, 3 greens and 2-3 greys. One of the browns may help in the reds and one of the greys can help in the greens. Also, higher contrast within the ramps is better. You have very soft ramps here. The resource section has a free app list. Edited by jalonso - 19 May 2013 at 7:18pm
	PJs FAQ <•> Sticky Reads
	IP Logged

ultimaodin Commander Joined: 04 May 2010 Location: Australia Online Status: Offline Posts: 162	Posted: 19 May 2013 at 7:21pm
	If you're having trouble with colours, then try using colours not your own. Grab existing pallets and try using them. Or mess around with a colour generator like this: http://www.pixelfor.me/crc/ The issue you have is colours are never just straight ramps from red to red or green to green. Green normally is seen as yellow to blue passing through green. Take this as an example: http://www.pixeljoint.com/pixelart/34404.htm# See how the highlights of the grass and monster are yellow and the shadows are tinted blue. See how the browns move from yellow and orange through red and purple-ish for shadows. See how the yellow fur passes from the green highlights to the red shadows (creating a middle of yellow). Contrast effects how much each colour effects the other or stands out apart from the other. A lot of it's touch and go. Studying colour theory in general is good. People like Dawnbringer have done extensive research into colour and trying to optimize it for everyday use. It all takes practice.
	The world is but a shadow of emotion, cast in shades of grey.
	IP Logged

Raider_Judo Seaman Joined: 05 May 2019 Online Status: Offline Posts: 15	Posted: 19 May 2013 at 7:33pm
	That was awesome info by both of you, thank you! I will re color my Spartan Hoplite :P with this new found knowledge. I will look through the applications, I just hope they have some descriptions. I prefer to do the colors manually, I think I will learn more that way. Here is the same piece, re colored with the new knowledge gained. I really enjoyed playing with the red / brown / yellow. I love the helmet and breastplate colors and the shield came out much much better than the previous one. Only thing I don't like is the hair piece on the helmet, my color selection was a bit off with the red - brown combo. ( I even re-selected 2 reds) I also ended up using less colors. This was done using a new program - GraphicsGale, which I enjoyed using, except that it seems that there are no hotkeys. I re did the shading on the shield to better fit the source of the light: Edited by Raider_Judo - 19 May 2013 at 11:02pm
	IP Logged

Raider_Judo Seaman Joined: 05 May 2019 Online Status: Offline Posts: 15	Posted: 19 May 2013 at 10:27pm
	Here is my go at some Dithering, first time I tried it. I used 5 colors, the helmet is facing towards the light source. Messed around with dithering some more with my second attempt, over did it, little above my skill level as of yet, still I learn t and had fun. Here I re did the helmet, with the mindset of 'less is more' Originally a 8 color palette, I ended up using only the top 4 colors. I tried to apply better technique with my dithering, not sure if everything is 'good', but sure is better than the previous. I also used this for my colors: http://www.pixelfor.me/crc/ but I prefer to stay on manual colors, I just wanted to see how it works etc. I would like some feed back on the green helmet. Where should I add / remove dither. Where can I add some more shading etc. Any kind of constructive feedback on it! :) Edited by Raider_Judo - 20 May 2013 at 10:43am
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Raider_Judo Seaman Joined: 05 May 2019 Online Status: Offline Posts: 15	Posted: 20 May 2013 at 6:41pm
	This started off as a portrait / dither practise run. Some where in trying to figure out what to do with the hair, I started spamming dither everywhere. While I know this is considered as a bad practise, I got lost in it and I liked what it turned into. My first actual pixel art. I used five colors. (Not too hard to see that) GL trying to figure out who the portrait was supposed to be off! Haha.
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Topic: Hello