I really wanted to draw a pixel that was somewhat realistic and I hate trying to copy the face of existing real person on paper or screen so I decided to make animeface realistic.

Best sketch phase:


As it was when posting this:


Current version:


I really need some good advices on this. My judgement gets kind of dull while working on this so I can't really see the mistakes I'd usually see and in "realistic" picture such as this it's a pain to fix things later on.

I know most of you really dislike the palette but I like it and I stick to it pretty much so there's not going to be any color reductions any time soon.


Edited by BlazeAce - 16 August 2008 at 1:17pm

Good thing I posted this here :O I've gotten so used to animestyle that the size of head was pretty much normal to me. Now that you mentioned it, it is really massive. I'll fix the size pixel by pixel to not make it too small. The eye is fixed to look good in my opinion now on the current version in first post.


Edited by BlazeAce - 15 August 2008 at 1:54pm

Quick edit.  More pronounced lips make her more feminine, showing a white area to indicate teeth looks more natural than defining the individual teeth since a pixel is pretty wide at this level.  I made her head even smaller, hopefully not too small.  I change the contour of the far side of her  face to have more pronounced curves near the eye and mouth, leaving the cheekbone and chin to stick out a little more.  Moved both eyes a little closer in, most notably her left (our right) eye.  Messed with the eyebrows some too.

Here's my edit - please note that I made this on an unplugged laptop so I'm pretty sure some colors might look off next to each other - but the main thing i wanted to get across is that you're using too many colors at this early stage,  you just over aa'ed the lips and made them blurry which made it look even flatter than the low contrast colors were already making them.   I didn't change any colors, like i said, with my dim screen I can't be making any color choices right now, but I simplified the color shapes a bit and i think it makes the lips look more 3d.

Hopefully you get some ideas - remember, when you're still trying to get the forms right,  keep it simple with the colors - you can always add to smooth and soften areas when you've got your structure done and starting to refine.

edit: Also, up the contrast a bit - I just plugged in my laptop and on a slightly brighter screen everything still looks smudgy and flat


Edited by leel - 17 August 2008 at 2:01pm