CHALLENGE: The Clover Monster

It's that time of the year, so this week we have a vaguely St. Patrick's Day themed challenge: your task is to create a creature, character, or vehicle based on the shamrock/clover leaf.

Canvas Size - Max 150 x 150.
Colours - Max 17.
Transparency - Optional.
Animation - Optional.

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CHALLENGE RULES

• Participants have until this upcoming Sunday at midnight (12AM Pacific) to submit their entry (strict). Don't forget to check the 'Submit to weekly challenge' checkbox.
• Only new pixels allowed.
• Open to all members.
• Posting WIPs in this thread or in new threads in the WIP section is highly encouraged, but ONLY SUBMIT YOUR FINAL ART.

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CHALLENGE JUDGING

• Every Sunday at midnight (12AM Pacific) the previous week's entries are judged.
• Every week a new voting poll will be posted for previous week's entries.
• Winner announced the following week.

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CHALLENGE PRIZES/GOODIES

• Top three finishers will receive an award displayed in your PJ gallery profile for all to see and envy.
• Top finisher gets to call the following week's challenge...sweet.
• 'Participation' ribbons will be given for all who enter.
• No matter what happens you get challenged :)

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CHALLENGE VOTING

Vote now for your favorite pixelart in this week's challenge!

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CHALLENGE AWARDS

The The Clover Monster pixel art challenge is complete and we have three new champions. This week's challenge awards go to the following pieces:



Thanks so much to all who took the time to vote and participate in the challenge!

I want to enter this challenge.. but only if I can enter a certain heraldic crest I have created. I'd like to make a pure pixel art version of it, but It's an inanimate object that seems to be alive and it is monstrous in a way.
I'll just put the quote of the description down here as well for your consideration:

"Do not approach our black towers; they have eyes.. If you approach them arrows will rain down upon you and your forces."

I also have a patch of it sewn onto my favorite coat:

If not that is completely fine; just let me know mods!

While the optional bonus challenge is neat, I myself am not into it :P

Just now I noticed there's a stray pixel... to be honest, there was a line, and it seems I somehow missed a pixel when removing it.

@Jman17774
No one is wasting time of anybody, we've got forum for showing what you can do, nobody is artist from birth, just practise :P You should see my first pixel arts ^.^ Your art is very cool and good, add some shading, play with colors and have fun :p

Can you "create a creature, character, or vehicle based on the shamrock/clover leaf." out of your idea so it fits the rules?
If not just make a PA of your crest sometime.


Edited by jalonso - 20 March 2014 at 6:38pm

@jalonso & @Temessis Thanks for the vote of confidence!

I really do appreciate the constructive criticism Jalonso!
I will definitely check out those tutorials, which I have been slowing getting through over the past week. I WILL try harder! Rome wasn't built in a day I guess.

With the shadows on the ground thing, the reason there are none is I thought because the ground is on a flat plane so with the light shining from the front there would be a shadow behind the wolf... Like directly behind it, out of sight. Guess I was sorely mistaken! lol

Its looking good eggy. Concentrate of pixel placement and being clean with every single pixel. You still tend to be sloppy in the areas of color. Maybe try looking at every area/cluster as a single piece and clean as you go watching that you don't band and that you are slightly more careful with AAing.

@jal Thanks :3

Decided to add a color, attempt to remove AA stuff on the propeller and whatnot. I dunno how am I gonna spot banding though.
I'll continue working on it tomorrow (because I have other stuff and it's night), hopefully it gets finished by the time the deadline steps up.

Hah, some WIP - what do you think about it? :D
Of course I will destroy black outline, it is just WIP, but say me what do you think about this idea - "scary" monster ^.^


http://i.imgur.com/Mp7to2R.png

// Edit
Maybe something with leafs dithering

http://i.imgur.com/ppBPyID.png

// Edit 2 / Almost done
I think I will need other palette, especially for wood , maybe someone has got one?

http://i.imgur.com/7akIZTE.png

Edited by Temessis - 21 March 2014 at 6:53pm

WIP:

Excuse the oddly colored highlight on the cheek, accidentally did that.

@Finlal, looks pretty sweet.

@Temessis, the dithering is just too much and makes it look less realistic in my eyes, not much realistic shadowing going on, just shaded upwards. For the palette, you might want to look at some color tutorials.

EDIT:

Just about done with the character, then to add a background and post. Anything need to be changed?

Edited by SpeedyCube - 22 March 2014 at 11:26am

@Temessis You should change that palette, buddy :)
When it comes to color palettes, you should hue shift the colors; for example, the lighter parts become not just lighter in color, but yellow as well, and the darker parts become bluish because the color is shifting in the opposite direction. Just adjusting the luminosity of the color isn't enough; it would make the piece look unnatural, so avoid only adjusting the luminosity.
I did a palette edit on your piece to show you what am I talking about, with the unedited piece beside for comparison:

The edit doesn't look too different (in fact, a palette edit of the brown might not even be noticeable at first), but when compared to the unedited version, you'll see that, with hue shifted palette, it looks more natural. I hope this helps, and please correct me if I'm wrong.
As for myself, I have made more progress:

I'm definitely putting a driver in there. In my opinion, it's not complete without a driver... and maybe some texture to prettify the ride up.

I really love that truck, Eggy, but when the clover-rotor spins fast, it looks way too flat, like it suddenly transforms into a disc, instead of a fluffy clover.

Any thoughts before I submit? I've added a background and a couple of shades.


Edited by SpeedyCube - 22 March 2014 at 11:24am

Ok... I forgot to tell that the flat disk thing was actually intentional. No excuse intended, this is true.
Progress (with obvious cleanup needed):

I tried to do something with the flat disk thing to fix it but I ultimately failed to :$ So I though that the only way would be to change the shape of the propeller and modify the flat disk a bit.
Also did a little something with the animation. It might suck though, but that's just my idea and I don't know if I'll have enough time for smoother frames.
...Oh yeah. Now I noticed the flat disk isn't in place. <_<

Made a little change; I slowed the animation down a bit (apparently, 0.05 was too fast and 0.1 made it look choppy, so I used 0.07 this time) and cleaned it up a bit. I just need to know if the propeller shape, shading etc. is okay, since I've got only 1 more day to finish this and submit my entry to the challenge.
EDIT: Darn. I wrote "sped up" instead of "slowed down".

Edited by Eggy - 22 March 2014 at 12:24pm

I spent two damn hours on this damn leg, and it's not done yet! Damn it!
But I did some work on colors and added cool pot.

@Temessis, play with this http://www.pixelfor.me/crc/ 

Hello pixeljoint members.
This is my first post I just subscribe this morning.
(but played with "Amiga personal paint" when i was a teenager)
And practice with grafx2 the whole afternoon.
Here is my first picture.
Please i will realy apreciate any kind of comment on it,
specialy if there is thing that i can learn,
or fix.

Thank's for made this community I love pixel so much :)




Edited by ranska - 23 March 2014 at 2:20pm

thank's for your comments

I have update the leaves and ...

Hum good to know ; i should not post version control url..
the picture change.

And yeah i always dream about test this feature for me (first i'm a coder )
https://github.com/ranska/pixeljoin/commit/93f9e24950b537399d37009380855e42b92137ab?diff-0=2-100
did someone use this kind of tool to see changes ?

we can see the changes between those 2 commit
specialy with onion skin tool.
I have improve the pot and reduce left legs length.

for the leaves I don't really know at witch level of Dithering should I stop ?
About the background there is nothing special on it, but this deep green
go well. What it's best should I remove it to submit on weekly challenge ?

Dithering balance look so magic to me