http://pixeljoint.com/pixelart/133154.htm

If the art indeed looks messy, but that is 100% intentionally.

Russians prisons are not super clean places. There is no good illumination (beside the ancient flickering lightbulbs), yet there is a lot of mold, old peeling off paint painted over the even older paint, squashed bedbugs, cockroach excrement, etc..

Inmates don't have healthy faces either. They are sweaty with very bad skin, and never have the full mouth of teeth. That happens due to bad food, but in fact, front teeth are also removed on purpose to make it easier to use that person's mouth, or by investigators who use teeth removal as a robust torture method so the suspect will admit to all kinds of further crimes, when cops can't find the real perpetrator, but still need good a "case closed" statistics.

The character in question, Petukh, is serving the time for the child molestation, and has just sustained some beating and rape, therefore the pinkish color.

But I guess it just some Russian reviewer has censored the art portraying his country in the true light

Hi snv,

Intentional or not, it is badly done. This piece immediately stood out to me like a potential color reduction, and whether it was done like that or not doesn't matter much. If we can't tell the difference between manual or computer generated, then the person doing the manual work did their work for nothing.

However, it only took a quick search to find the reference, why did you not include that in your description? Also, except for the background on the left side, it is an absolute perfect match. When I reduced the colors on the reference, even the shading matches perfectly , which is obvious for example on the earlobe, on the neck, on the chin and on the officer...

So with the strong suspicion of some kind of manipulation of the original, not supplying the reference and very strange and ineffective pixel placement, this can not enter the gallery.

That was a lot of work on my part to match the shading and the line art that perfectly. But the texture and colors are completely original.I.e. even that prison guards face color was picked to be red to underline him being drunk. Yes, Russian jailers drink vodka on the duty.

Your version is just bland, and doesn't strengthen the character. Some detail like that shoulder straps button went missing, as well as the rough unshavaded face of the inmate. My version on the other hand tries to transform the original photo, uncover the tiny personality details and pull them out. Just note my bold fat shadows, and strong lines, compared to the original. I did my best to give that piece its full weight to carry. I've even used dithering just because it makes art look more raw and nasty. But you reviewing people don't notice that. You see one or two rough pixels (put intentionally), and then call all the hard work "garbage".

Also, the submission rules say nothing about the requirement to supply a reference of any kind. And most artists don't mention the reference.

In fact my avatar picture was also traced from a reference photo of my own, and it is even less polished (I have spent far less time on it). But for some reason you have allowed it to pass.

So the submission rules are absolutely random and unfair.

Also, as usual, all these "rough" pixels will look fine when viewed over the actual composite TV cable. There is a lot of information in every pixel, so it looks fine even upscaled: