Well, not really the first one, but the first done interely with no gradients fills, soft brushes or filters.

I've based this work on a schetch I've made several years ago on a corner of a page, it's based on the Collodi's Pinocchio:

he says (more or less):
«Damn Disney, you snubbed me in front of the world...»
«ARRR... I'll kill you all!!!»
«I'm Geppetto and I will build a Killer-Pinocchio! MUHAUAUHA...»

This is what I've done so far:


Any comment would be appreciated!

thanks!

The background is totally made from scratch and I tried to insert the fishbowl to make it more clear who is the character depicted.
As you noticed - the background was the boring thing to do, so if anyone could help me in improving it.
Apart from, that I was thinking to cut the image right on the left of the Pinocchio leg, just to avoid creating the whole Pinocchio, which is not in the original sketch. I don't even know if to add just a baloon (like only the fist on the left) or all the balloons, which will make it quite overwhelmed of white color...

Welcome aboard Peach ;D

 A common mistake for the newcomers in Pixel Art is to believe that dithering is part of the process of shading and couloring as a "must", wich is not 100% true. dithering is a technique often used to give surfaces a rought texture(like the wood leg you have there), or when specific limitations about the maximun amount of colors usable -either technical or self imposed- requires the use of dithering to create the ilusion of an extended palette, wich i don't believe is the case in your palette. so the general advice is to keep dithering untill the later stages of the pixel art, because if any modifications on the base of the image are required you will have to remove all the dithering that probably took you some time to do and then do it again on the new modification, wich can be a waste of time, effort and most important, annoying.

about your shading, there's two main issues to be revised in your pixel. one is the lightsource of your image. while the window in the background may be asumed as the main lightsource in the dark enviroment you've put gepetto, you might see that your corrent shading makes that every part of the clothing and face of the man doesn't follow it and instead they act like independent shapes with -in some cases- a beveled apearance. this -the beveled apearance-, in pixel art is called pillow shaded, and its an incorrect way to shadefor three reasons: first because it implies that the main light source is placed directly in front of your object (wich is not the case of this) , second because it can only be aplied to spherical objects that specifically follow the first reason, and third because it gives a beveled appearance to objects, rather than the volume for what shading is for.

the second reason in shading is the amount of colors you're using in your image. while in most art forms the more colors you use the best, its not exactly the case of pixel art. you're advised to choose more wisely your colors in order to reduce the amount you have, and to not limit yourself to  decreasing a color luminance to make a darker version. experimenting with Hue and saturation can provide more and more interesting shades and tones that will make your image richer and more credible.

as a final comment, i would encourage you to check any of teh tutorials in the resources section of the forums, where you surely will get a lot of tips and information about pixel art and its process.

hope to not bored you with this humble critique
best regards from
Metaru

I don't know haw to say it technically, but looks like your shadows are so... colorless!
Metaru said you should experiment with the palette (more or less), trying to obtain a colored shadow; i am sure you know the importance of the complementars, I suggest to use them ;)

p.s. If I say stupid things, or uncorrect ones, please let me know; I'm still a newcomer, hoping to improve...

Ok
Thanks as usual Metaru, I'm getting a little close (I hope)
Now I tried to give more contrast and saturate the image
I totally re-sketched the background: this is the result, I hope the light steps and the shadow areas can be recognized.
I'm planning to draw the whole or part of the pinocchio.. I'll see what I can get, I want to reuse the distorted perspective I've sketched by hand.

More or less... the legs, are way smaller than the rest of the body, it's like seen through a fisheye lens.


well, before you said that I started naturally to work on another piece.
Here it is:
I've tried to put a little more effort on choosing the correct ramps. I think the skin is the best one, I'm asking myself if the other three (for the tissue, hair and brown things) are wrong: it seems like the top step is too much dark. This could only be right for the tissue.
As you can see I tried to avoid dithering as much as possible as you suggested.

I'm actually loving this, Its a great improvement from the first, dithered-to-death one

thanks l3m0n5



here I am again: first of all I tried to correct the back of the "dogman"
and then I tried to unificate the two brownish ramps into one.
In other words these are still two 4-steps ramps: an hi-lights ramp and a low-lights ramp very saturated. the third and the forth colour are in common with these two ramps (did I explained it well???)
btw here it is:



Edited by Peach - 13 May 2008 at 9:30am