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[WIP] Avatar

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=4519
Printed Date: 23 October 2025 at 5:24am


Topic: [WIP] Avatar
Posted By: cele1989
Subject: [WIP] Avatar
Date Posted: 27 June 2007 at 5:06am
I like to make an avatar in different sizes with inspiration this picture
http://www.celes.co.nr/avatar.jpg
(i'm sorry for the link, the image-thingy doesn't work over here...)

With layers or just look at the picture and draw it...?
I haven't any expirience in portaits...
so any help would be welcome



Replies:
Posted By: eckered
Date Posted: 27 June 2007 at 5:13am
gone.


Posted By: PixelSnader
Date Posted: 27 June 2007 at 5:14am
Either technique will work.
However, tracing will not help you get better as an artist, and eyeballing will, so i'd say just looking at it and drawing it would be the best option.
 
If i were you i'd scale the image down first though.. a lot.


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Posted By: cele1989
Date Posted: 27 June 2007 at 6:05am

I decided to take another picture...
Is the form of the sketch ok?
If yes,
what to do next?
if no,
what to change?


Posted By: Aleiav
Date Posted: 27 June 2007 at 12:13pm
EDIT: Is this even pixel art? if it's not, you need to put NPA in the title.

PS. your link doesn't work. try using photobucket or image shack.



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Posted By: cele1989
Date Posted: 28 June 2007 at 5:02am

it is supposed to become pixel art, I most of the time start with a sketch in ms paint, to get the right shape.
So I resized it and cleaned the outline...
I already tried colouring it, but it's so hard to make a nice pallet...
Can anyone help me?


Posted By: Aleiav
Date Posted: 28 June 2007 at 1:15pm
Ah okay. If you're having trouble choosing a skin pallate, try starting off with a weird color like blue or something then changing the shades.

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Posted By: cele1989
Date Posted: 29 June 2007 at 3:13am

I tried to pick colours for the skin...is this ok?



Posted By: eckered
Date Posted: 29 June 2007 at 3:48am
http://img179.imageshack.us/img179/8092/palegreenxx9.png


Posted By: Aleiav
Date Posted: 29 June 2007 at 8:14am
The skin colors could use some more contrast. right now it's looking kind of flat, even on the edits.

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Posted By: cele1989
Date Posted: 30 June 2007 at 9:56am

I worked with the colours of eckered
And dit some dithering on the piece...
The colours look ok to me, much better then the one i've picked out...
But i'm wondering how you go select the colours?
Like the hair and background, i'm stuck again...


Posted By: PixelSnader
Date Posted: 30 June 2007 at 11:35am
you're just messing with the hues..
i'd say you should shade first, using a simple straight-ish ramp, to create depth, and mess with the colours later
 
it allso helps to first block in and then refine, instead of doing it piece by piece.
 
blocking in makes a more solid shape in general
 
-you made yourself look sorta bald in the pixel
-i think the jawline is a bit exaggerated and makes you skinny/manly
-i'd move the back of the neck back a bit, and the front of the neck too(but less)
-i'd say the lips are too erm.. high..? like.. vertical size, not positioning


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Posted By: Monkey 'o Doom
Date Posted: 30 June 2007 at 11:43am
A lot of it is instinct gained from experience and practice, but generally colors are picked in the HSV color space according to a few guidelines:
Try to use colors with moderate saturation--you probably don't need colors any more saturated than 90% or you start getting complaints about the MS Paint palette and burning eyes out. You may find it useful to employ hue shifting (using different hue values for the same general object) to show the blue tint of shadows, etc. Also, try to make sure your colors are distinguishable without looking unrelated because of a huge jump in H, S, and V values.
 
One term you might want to know while you're at it is "ramp," which is the set of colors used for shading a certain color of object--you have a skin ramp now and you'll be adding ramps for the hair and probably shirt. You can conserve colors by using the same colors on multiple ramps in some cases; at the extremes of value like the dark shadows and brightest highlights, saturation and hue don't matter much, so you can get away with a shared color on multiple ramps. In fact, when using restrictions like those of the commodore 64, most ramps share several colors and the overall apparent hue of an object can be determined by a single or a few colors that are different from the ramps of the surroundings.


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http://pixelmonkey.ensellitis.com">
RPG is numberwang.


Posted By: eckered
Date Posted: 30 June 2007 at 2:49pm

gone.



Posted By: PixelSnader
Date Posted: 30 June 2007 at 6:51pm
hahaha. no dude. you're seeing ghosts there eckered.
 
and random colours =/= good idea


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Posted By: eckered
Date Posted: 30 June 2007 at 6:58pm
gone.


Posted By: Fuzzyleaves
Date Posted: 30 June 2007 at 8:38pm
Haha I do random colors, I dont really understand the saturation stuff and hue shifting, Is there a good tutorial explaining all that? That would be awesome to make my pixel better. Please post or Pm would be better.

Oh, This might help on shiny spots (a person called http://z14.invisionfree.com/Pixel/index.php?showuser=1 - Chessmasterriley , told me this)
Skin - below average specular, specular depends on how sweaty the skin is.


Posted By: cele1989
Date Posted: 14 July 2007 at 11:49am
I'm sorry for my late reply, been busy for a while, but I definitally need to work on this piece again ^^
I read your explaination but don't really get what you mean...
Can you give some examples of what you mean by hue shifting.
And which colours do you use for a ramp?
I don't exactly get it.
Is it just greytones to see the dept?
Or something else?


Posted By: pmprog
Date Posted: 14 July 2007 at 12:18pm
Oooh, never seen an image describing like this, but it should help.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Color_cones.png

Linked from the Wiki page on HSL
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HSL_color_space

Following the "H" around the disc changes it's colour, and this is Hue Shifting


Posted By: EyeCraft
Date Posted: 14 July 2007 at 4:05pm
Read what snader said. Don't concern yourself with colours at this point in the drawing, just shade. Use greys with lots of contrast. Colours can pretty much come last in the piece, imo.


Posted By: cele1989
Date Posted: 15 July 2007 at 5:39am
Edit: I tried some new colours for the skin
I made the pallet myself :p

Comment please!
And info on what to do next...



Posted By: cele1989
Date Posted: 01 August 2007 at 4:07am
hi all folks
I had a long and hard week at work but i'm ready to pixel again...
so I updated a time ago but i didn't got any help so far...
can someone give me some tips etc?
thanks guys!


Posted By: ceddo
Date Posted: 01 August 2007 at 7:15am
Cele,
Nice update! These colors definitely work better than the previous ones!

It seems to me like you've made the cheekbone on our left too low. The stronger highlight should start a bit higher, I think.
The forehead also isn't lit like that in the picture, it's pretty dark at the top, but has some ambient lighting from the right. I don't think the shadow from the hair should be that strong either.
Keep up the good work!


Posted By: EyeCraft
Date Posted: 01 August 2007 at 8:08am
Your shading is off; you've invented contours and such which aren't apparent in the reference picture. The neck is a stark example. I think you need to lower the contrast, or add another tone or two in the midtones area of your palette so you can portray smoother forms.

Refer to your reference picture with more scrutiny. Squinting helps too.


Posted By: ceddo
Date Posted: 01 August 2007 at 9:33am
Grayscale will probably help you do shading done correctly first, then you can apply colors.




Posted By: cele1989
Date Posted: 05 August 2007 at 11:01am

I added some shading on the mouth and glasses, changed the shading on the face
Is this ok?
What can I do next?


Posted By: Hatch
Date Posted: 05 August 2007 at 9:20pm
I think you need to simplify.

Yours, mine:


You had a whole lot of internal black (or very dark) lines that were very confusing and made it look messy, at least to my eye. I addressed those in my edit and also simplified the shading (in the process I'm pretty sure I made your light source inconsistent, but the point is there).

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Posted By: cele1989
Date Posted: 14 August 2007 at 6:57am
I tried to do some colouring again.
I don't really know if this is okay, and what I can do next?
 


Posted By: Zorgus
Date Posted: 15 August 2007 at 4:42am
you forgot to drew the pimples

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Posted By: cele1989
Date Posted: 16 August 2007 at 5:49am
Those spots aren't pimples, they are birthmarks...
Yeah, it's really ugly, I ain't going to draw them, you know...

Edit: Back to the point...
besides the birthmarks "I forgot" are the colours okay
and what can I do next?


Posted By: theguy
Date Posted: 16 August 2007 at 7:30am
right now the colors are the best they've been so far they are awesome right now and you've shaded it very well too, good job

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