A car
Printed From: Pixel Joint
Category: Pixel Art
Forum Name: WIP (Work In Progress)
Forum Discription: Get crits and comments on your pixel WIPs and other art too!
URL: https://pixeljoint.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=13916
Printed Date: 11 September 2025 at 11:34am
Topic: A car
Posted By: Andrew-M
Subject: A car
Date Posted: 27 February 2012 at 4:48pm
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I tried making a car driving down a street:
 I'm really bad at making cars, if anyone sees anything i've done wrong please let me know.
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Replies:
Posted By: Andrew-M
Date Posted: 28 February 2012 at 4:34pm
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I added a color and changed some things:
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Posted By: shampoop
Date Posted: 28 February 2012 at 5:24pm
| Maybe bring the car down from the center to 3/4 on the Y axis. This will give you more room to draw something on the horizon and give the viewer an idea of where the car going. The bottom of the road isn't as interesting as a skyline could be. |
Posted By: Andrew-M
Date Posted: 29 February 2012 at 4:32pm
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Thanks for the help:
 I made the car lower and changed most of the colors.
Originally posted by shampoop This will give you more room to draw something on the horizon and give the viewer an idea of where the car going. The bottom of the road isn't as interesting as a skyline could be. I'm not sure what this means though...
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Posted By: dogboydog
Date Posted: 29 February 2012 at 7:20pm
| He means put the car on the bottom third of the image, because what's behind the car isn't as visually or conceptually interesting as what's ahead. |
Posted By: Andrew-M
Date Posted: 01 March 2012 at 5:14pm
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Thanks for explaining that dogboydog:
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Posted By: 3V-4C
Date Posted: 01 March 2012 at 5:21pm
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The perspective's a bit off as far as the road's concerned. The edges should be a little wider at the base and straighter overall. Also I'm assuming the road is a flat surface and should be most shadowed where the car blocks the lightsource. The car itself looks fine to me. |
Posted By: Andrew-M
Date Posted: 02 March 2012 at 5:42pm
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Thanks for the help 3V-4C:
 Originally posted by 3V-4C The car itself looks fine to me. That honestly surprises me. I guess it's because I used references.
Edit:I changed the colors:
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Posted By: reis
Date Posted: 03 March 2012 at 4:31pm
| Make largest... |
Posted By: L_Mo
Date Posted: 04 March 2012 at 4:22am
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I think you should give the whole thing more contrast. The car and the right side of the road are basically the same tonal value and very similar in colour.
You could either make the road darker or the car lighter (I'd make the car lighter so it pops out of those shadows). You could use colours from different parts of the colour wheel, so the car could be red, the road could be based on a blue (for example). |
Posted By: Andrew-M
Date Posted: 05 March 2012 at 4:51pm
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Lfspr, can you be more specific on what you mean?
Thanks for the help L_Mo:
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Posted By: cure
Date Posted: 05 March 2012 at 7:58pm
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what's on the sides? trees? grass? crops? if its crops then the scale and proximity to the path makes sense, but the rows could be more emphasized. is it a convertible? the brown used on the windshield could be blue perhaps. would also be cool if the car were leaving tracks or kickin' up dust. the shadow under the car is too red. also it looks like an overcast day, but a few bright highlights could really bring out the important features of the image. |
Posted By: Andrew-M
Date Posted: 07 March 2012 at 6:55pm
Thanks for the help cure:
 I changed the colors, the grass and tried to make it look like it's kicking up dust. Also on the sides it's supposed to be grass, and the car isn't supposed to be a convertible. I tried making the windshield blue but it looked really bad...
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Posted By: Andrew-M
Date Posted: 12 August 2012 at 2:35pm
I tried starting over: Could anyone point out any mistakes i've made so far? I'm having a lot of trouble with this...
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Posted By: cure
Date Posted: 12 August 2012 at 3:50pm
| Use references, especially for the car |
Posted By: Andrew-M
Date Posted: 12 August 2012 at 4:06pm
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I did use references ): Cars are by far the hardest thing for me to make, even when looking at references that's the best I can do...
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Posted By: cure
Date Posted: 12 August 2012 at 5:07pm
| Post the reference. If you're looking at a photograph of an actual car, then you aren't paying close attention to the shapes that comprise it or the relationship of those shapes to one another. You're relying on your mind more than your eye, so you're simplifying the car into symbols. |
Posted By: Andrew-M
Date Posted: 12 August 2012 at 6:15pm
Edit:I changed the grass and the shadow under the car:  |
Posted By: Yuran
Date Posted: 12 August 2012 at 8:17pm
| well, so repeat this machine, to reduce this image to the size of his car - it will be easier ;) |
Posted By: LachieD
Date Posted: 13 August 2012 at 12:56am
| Yeah, what cure has said. Using a reference goes beyond opening the image on your PC and glancing over it. When you drawn your car, you didn't take the reference into consideration at all, only draw a symbolic representation of the car. Replicate the shapes! Forget it's a car at all. Trust me. That works. |
Posted By: Delerat
Date Posted: 13 August 2012 at 1:19am
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Keep in mind the placement of each piece of the car in reference to the other pieces. The front tire in the reference is out front more, while on your car it's directly under the windshield. The hood of the car slopes down gently while yours has a flat hood. The rear passenger windows are longer than the front ones while in yours they're the same size.
Keep every detail of placement and scale in your mind and don't rush it. After you draw each little piece, check against your reference if you have to and make any tweaks you need. If you're like me and your memory doesn't hold the little details well, you'll have to glance back and forth a bunch. |
Posted By: Andrew-M
Date Posted: 13 August 2012 at 4:11pm
Thank you all for the help: If there are no more problems with the car i'm going to start adding more details to it and the road. Also I don't like the trees or colors so i'm going to start over on them.
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Posted By: Andrew-M
Date Posted: 14 August 2012 at 10:46pm
I changed the colors and started making the trees: |
Posted By: Andrew-M
Date Posted: 15 August 2012 at 7:00pm
I changed the trees, some colors and the car a little: |
Posted By: Andrew-M
Date Posted: 07 September 2012 at 9:24pm
I changed the colors, trees and started shading the car:
I still don't like most of the colors though. |
Posted By: Andrew-M
Date Posted: 08 September 2012 at 3:56pm
I changed the car more:
I know the colors of the car are bad, i'll change them later. |
Posted By: Andrew-M
Date Posted: 10 September 2012 at 7:48pm
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Posted By: Andrew-M
Date Posted: 11 September 2012 at 5:11pm
I changed the car more:
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Posted By: Zeratanus
Date Posted: 11 September 2012 at 6:27pm
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They've told you before - you're not drawing a car. You're drawing what you -think- a car looks like. Which, turns out, isnt very much like a car. I know it sounds ridiculous, but you have to learn how to see. How to visually break objects down into their basic shapes and build from there. Here, i have shrunk down the reference car to about the size of the car in your piece, and have broken it down into very simple shapes, which itself shows how strangely shaped your car is.  Also, the colors you have are all very dark. The car is hard to distinguish from the background since it's all so dark. Cars are usually pretty bright, shiny things (even when they're black), so keep that in mind too. |
Posted By: Andrew-M
Date Posted: 12 September 2012 at 4:37pm
Thanks for the help:
Is this better? I'll change the colors after the car's fixed. |
Posted By: crozier
Date Posted: 12 September 2012 at 4:59pm
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What happened to the nice trees? The ones in your Aug. 13th post are a tad better (in my opinion.)
The hood of the car could be a little longer. The windows are all ascew, the bottem should be flat. The angle from the windshield to the roof is too high. Perhaps a smaller angle like your reference would help? |
Posted By: Andrew-M
Date Posted: 13 September 2012 at 4:29pm
Thanks for the help crozier, I hope I did this right:
I changed the trees because I thought they were too long and took the focus away from the car. Maybe I should start over on them again? |
Posted By: Andrew-M
Date Posted: 15 September 2012 at 4:55pm
I changed the colors and a couple other things:
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Posted By: Andrew-M
Date Posted: 16 September 2012 at 9:34pm
I shaded the car and changed the roof:
Edit: I changed the colors: 
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Posted By: Andrew-M
Date Posted: 18 September 2012 at 2:32pm
I changed the trees, grass, colors, and car:
I can't find any references for how to shade the car so i'm just guessing how it should look. |
Posted By: cure
Date Posted: 18 September 2012 at 4:32pm
| I still think the shape is too improvised. The wheel should be larger, the windows should be longer, it should be less boxy overall. There is no need to guess when it comes to shading. You choose a light source, and you think about how that light will hit the planes of the car- which planes it strikes directly, whhich it will fail to reach. It is something close to pillow shaded at the moment. |
Posted By: Andrew-M
Date Posted: 19 September 2012 at 2:39pm
Thanks for the help cure:
I'm not sure if I fixed the pillow shading. |
Posted By: crozier
Date Posted: 19 September 2012 at 2:55pm
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According to the lightsorce on the trees, the sun is at the top-right. So the top-right portion of the car would be brighter, and the bottom left would be darker.
And the whole thing is looking dark. Amp up the brightness. Other things I see: the tire's lightsource is coming from the ground. The BG is red, and its not even sunrise/set yet. And the shadow casted on the floor consists of 2 shades of brown. It should only be one uniform color. |
Posted By: Andrew-M
Date Posted: 20 September 2012 at 2:31pm
Thanks for the help:
The red in the background is supposed to show that there are more trees far away, I guess I didn't convey it too well though. Edit: I changed more things: 
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Posted By: Andrew-M
Date Posted: 22 September 2012 at 3:21pm
I changed the colors and the trees:
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Posted By: Andrew-M
Date Posted: 24 September 2012 at 5:26pm
I changed the trees and some colors:
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Posted By: Andrew-M
Date Posted: 25 September 2012 at 7:44pm
I changed the colors and car:
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Posted By: Andrew-M
Date Posted: 27 September 2012 at 2:50pm
I changed the car:
I can't decide if it looks better with or without the windshield being shown: 
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Posted By: Long
Date Posted: 29 September 2012 at 1:06am
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The car is viewed from the side so I think the windshield shouldn't be visible.
Made an edit, in which I re-shaded the car tried straightened out the windows, made the tire thickness consistent and tried to imply persons sitting in the car. 
In this one I tried to hint the foreground being reflected on the cars doors, ofc for attempting this properly one needs the appropriate colors, unfortunately I can't be of any help on that area. Hope the rest is somehow useful to you. 
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Posted By: DoctorDRG
Date Posted: 29 September 2012 at 1:46am
I tried to straighten the car and brighten the image as a whole. The red road detracted from the car in my opinion, so I made it lighter. I added wheel covers and a few highlights too. I didn't count colours, but I hope you get the general idea! ;) |
Posted By: Andrew-M
Date Posted: 29 September 2012 at 5:34pm
Thank you both for the help:
After looking at both of your edits i'm not sure where to shade with the lightest red, for now i've only shaded the top right of the car with it. I tried making it look like there are people through the window but it didn't look very good, I might try it again later. I'm not sure but I don't think the road being lighter works since the person's supposed to be driving through a forest. I'm going to change the colors to be brighter soon. |
Posted By: Andrew-M
Date Posted: 01 October 2012 at 12:09am
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Posted By: Nerururu
Date Posted: 02 October 2012 at 2:07am
 here what i fixed. cant do much since i'm also a beginner . 1. i notice a few jaggies on the car . i managed to fix a few of them ( maybe not in your liking ) 2. brighter the background . make it dawn-like feeling 3. make the car color red brighter a bit than before . 4. add tree leave’s shadow 5. a few fix on the car and car’s windows 6. change shading and color on windows i think u can fix this even better than me . that give you some idea :D |
Posted By: Zeratanus
Date Posted: 02 October 2012 at 6:48am
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I like a lot of those fixes, but that new shading on the red of the car is some weird camo-looking pattern, which makes it look bumpy and beat up. One important thing to note though, is if you decided to go with the sun behind the trees as in that edit, the shadows would actually be on the opposite side of the car they are now (aka, going down instead of up, and the part of the car we see would be in shadow, with around the outline being bright)
The biggest issue right now is the muddiness of the colors. Nothing stands out well enough - the trees dont stand out from the background color (if its supposed to be dense trees make it dark, and the car doesnt stand out from the trees or the road. Speaking of which, roads arent usually dirt. Not that it cant be, just something hat might help de-muddy the image Doctor DRG's edit definitely fixed all of the major issues. I suggest you take a good look and study it. It has good contrast, the background, middle ground, and foreground are all well separated visually. You dont have to go for that if you dont want, but understand why his colors work and the ones you have are very dull. For a good look at the difference, turn both images greyscale. Your version is almost a uniform grey with some dark spots, no actual bright areas to speak of, where his has a good range of lights to darks. |
Posted By: Andrew-M
Date Posted: 05 October 2012 at 2:43pm
Thank you both for the help, I changed the colors for more contrast and tried shading with the lightest red:
I kept the road the same but I think it might be okay now since the contrast is better. Edit: I changed the colors more: 
Edit: I changed some more things and added this to the gallery. Thanks again everyone for the help, this was by far the hardest thing i've ever worked on. |
Posted By: Andrew-M
Date Posted: 06 October 2012 at 9:52pm
I tried something else with the colors:
I can't decide if it's better or worse now... |
Posted By: Andrew-M
Date Posted: 08 October 2012 at 3:01pm
I changed the trees:
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Posted By: dpixel
Date Posted: 10 October 2012 at 6:16am
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Boy. This thread has been going on for a while. My biggest problem is the sense of lighting. I can't tell what time of day it is. It sort of seems like dusk, but there's some light through the trees, which should be a lot more dim. A lot of the colors sort of blend together. I almost have to squint to see what's going on. Anyway, I added more dramatic lighting. Chopped and cleaned up the car too. Also, I think a bit of windshield should be showing due to the perspective of the road.  ------------- |
Posted By: Andrew-M
Date Posted: 13 October 2012 at 2:06pm
Thanks for the help:
I'll try to show some of the windshield later. Edit: I changed the colors of the car: 
Edit: I changed some more things and added this to the gallery. Thanks again everyone for the help, this was by far the hardest thing i've ever worked on. |