New to pixeling-- my stuff looks like cra
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=22101
Printed Date: 10 September 2025 at 12:47am
Topic: New to pixeling-- my stuff looks like cra
Posted By: floofpunkitten
Subject: New to pixeling-- my stuff looks like cra
Date Posted: 30 March 2015 at 2:04am
I don't know what i'm doing wrong--i think it's the colors, but it looks bad to my eyes. Any advice would be appriciated. Thanks |
Replies:
Posted By: Naji
Date Posted: 30 March 2015 at 2:54am
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look into number 4 in this post, your problem is banding on your anti aliasing, your outline and AA aline and this make it look bad/weird
http://www.pixeljoint.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=11299 you colors ain't too bad imo, depends on the style you're going for and I think it fits well here the green and red cloth needs more shading though, overall I feel like you could use more contrast in the darker areas. |
Posted By: Iscalio
Date Posted: 31 March 2015 at 9:26am
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For most of this you don't seem to be choosing your light source or lighting conditions. So things have almost no shadows and look flat or unfinished.
You do have some shadow colors, but they are very sparsely used and are very similar to your "hit by light" color. So they generally aren't very visible. At the very least I'd aim to describe my shapes with clear light and shadow colors and try to give a realistic light falling direction. Your butter for example looks pretty decent because you have chosen which sides are hit by how much light. Whereas your sugar sacks have almost no shadows on them. And your glass jar tops with the patterns don't seem to have shadow around the lid rims. You've also got some interesting shape variation in your Jam Jar contents with varying shape and location blobs. But your hay and berries are very uniform in shape, which isn't that exciting. |
Posted By: dpixel
Date Posted: 01 April 2015 at 2:06pm
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I like this stuff. I do agree with what's been said though. An idea for shading...just tried to make the contents more realistic... 
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Posted By: Strawzzboy64
Date Posted: 06 April 2015 at 11:19am
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I agree with what everyone has said so far, there are banding problems and shading issues in general, as well as the images appearing flat.
With that said, there is a simple, cartoony look to some of these sprites, like the colorful jars. They are actually really nice to look at and the style isn't necessarily "wrong" in any way. If you want flat cartoony images, so far you have achieved that. Personally, I recommend you first work on color contrast before taking on shading issues. In the image below, the top two sprites of yours have contrasting colors and "pop" from the background, whereas the bottom two sprites have less contrast, so appear more "faded" and blend with the background. I have made edits to show the opposite effects for the box and bag of flour. 
You can use low contrasting colors to give the faded look to background objects, and high contrasting colors to make the images pop more, it is up to you, but because these are all individual sprites, I imagine you would want the popping look to them more. With that said, this is very good work. I can tell you are working with a small number of colors for each sprite, and are placing each pixel by hand basically. You have also made everything clearly readable. Even though the images are drawn simply, I can tell exactly what everything is supposed to be. And again, the jar sprites and fruits are very colorful and nice to look at, so good job! |